The Best Places to Eat Near The Petra, by the Record

The herbs on your plate were growing outside that morning, which tells you something about how this kitchen thinks. Set inside The Bodrum Edition with views over the bay, it's a fine dining room built around Turkish country cooking pushed into modern territory. A Michelin star. The chef's touch is restrained in a way that amplifies rather than quiets the ingredients, and the sourdough arrives early enough to matter.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

Floor-to-ceiling windows flood this industrial-chic dining room in Yalıkavak with light, and the marble counter seats are the ones to angle for. The chef runs his own farm and vegetable garden, and that grounding shows in a modern Turkish tasting menu built around open-fire cooking and preservation techniques. A Michelin star hangs on the wall, but the tandoori oven by the entrance sets the real tone.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

An open-air restaurant on the Bodrum coast where olive trees frame the view and the day's catch arrives from the water just below. The kitchen runs Mediterranean and then keeps going, turning out ceviche, an original take on mezze, and crispy red mullet tempura alongside herbaceous salads and cocktails. Lounge music, sea air, and candlelight after dark give the whole thing a romantic lean that the setting does most of the work delivering.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

An open-air restaurant perched above the Aegean at a Yalıkavak hotel, with a sea view that does most of the decorating. The chef behind it has a particular gift for coastal Aegean cooking, pulling from local fish and seafood with a light, considered hand. The vegetarian dishes get the same attention as everything else, which is rarer than it should be. Dress for a warm evening out; this is not a casual lunch stop.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Moored inside Yalıkavak Marina, where the yachts are roughly the size of apartment buildings, Zuma fits right in. The global izakaya chain's Bodrum outpost runs seasonally, trading contemporary Japanese small plates, robata-grilled fish, and sushi against views of the Aegean. The crowd arrives dressed for a party and tends to stay for cocktails at the bar, which is somewhat inevitable given the setting.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The day's catch sits on ice near the entrance, which is the most direct menu a seafood restaurant can offer. Sait is a family-run spot on Yalıkavak's marina, where the terrace looks out over yachts that have no business being this glamorous. The cooking leans into home-style generosity, sharing plates of fish and seafood built around whatever came in that morning, with enough colour on every plate to make you forget you ordered too much.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant