Trilye

Trilye is the seafood restaurant that tourists are surprised Ankara has. The city is roughly 350 kilometres from any coast, and yet Trilye runs a daily air-freight operation out of Izmir and Istanbul that means the fish arrives at the kitchen door within six hours of being landed. Chef Arif Aykaç opened the restaurant in 2003 in a converted villa in Gaziosmanpaşa, and it has been a fixture of the capital's power-dinner scene ever since. It was included as a Recommended restaurant in the 2024 Turkish Michelin Guide.

The menu is structured as Turkish meyhane cooking at a fine-dining register. Cold mezes are brought to the table on a silver tray — the stuffed vine leaves are hand-rolled the day of service, the haydari is made with full-fat yogurt from a specific producer in Bolu. Hot mezes include a deep-fried shrimp wrapped in kadayıf, the signature octopus carpaccio dressed with olive oil from Ayvalık, and a sea bass ceviche with pomegranate and dill. The main course is almost always the fish of the day, grilled whole on charcoal; the wine list runs to 450 labels with particular strength in Turkish producers (Kavaklıdere, Doluca, Suvla, Urla).

The dining room seats 80 across two connected floors, with a garden for summer service. Service is led by longtime maître Ferit Yılmaz, who has worked the floor for eighteen years. Dinner is the power-dinner format: business-casual, private dining available in the cellar room for groups of up to 12, a quiet acoustic calibrated for conversation rather than buzz.

A full dinner with starters, a whole fish, and a bottle of wine runs ₺2,500–3,800 per person. The business lunch runs ₺1,200–1,600. Service is included; round up if the wine recommendation worked.

Trilye is the Ankara business-dinner restaurant. Everything about it — the quiet acoustic, the private dining cellar, the wine-list depth, the predictable kitchen — is calibrated for conversation-dependent dinners where the food cannot be the distraction. It is where deals get signed, where ambassadors take their visiting counterparts, and where the pace is set to your conversation, not the kitchen's.