Deli Ağa Restaurant

Deli Ağa runs from the strand at 3754 Sokak in Yalıçiftlik and the room is the Çiftlik shorthand for the older-peninsula register: a dozen tables on a stone deck, half of them set in twenty centimetres of shallows, the kitchen run by Mustafa Bey and the family on a small cover that opens at one in the afternoon and closes at ten in the evening. The card is short, meze tray off the cold counter, the day's fish (orfoz, sinarit, çipura, levrek) on a wood grill, kalamar, ahtapot, a rakı pour and a small wine list. The room is the one the peninsula's older guests bring out-of-town family to when they want to demonstrate that Bodrum still has the village fish dinner that does not require a marina reservation. Reservation pressure is moderate by Yalıçiftlik standards; the small cover means a phone call the day before holds the front table.