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Ala Antioch
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Some people might think Concord, ON is a long way to go for a Turkish meal. But in the case of Ala Antioch, it’s certainly a lot closer than going to Antioch itself.
Located in Turkey’s southernmost province of Hatay – and known today as Antakya – in ancient times, Antioch was quite a hot spot. Referenced in the Bible, the third largest city in the Roman Empire and one of the early centers of Christianity, Antioch was where Anthony and Cleopatra tied the knot and where apostles, Peter and Paul, preached sermons (and debated whether Jesus’ followers – mostly Jews at the time – should break bread with uncircumcised people).
Occupying a strategic, and very fertile, strip of land between Syria and the Mediterranean, for centuries, Antioch was an important stop on silk and spice trade routes, coveted, and controlled, by Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders and Ottomans before becoming part of modern Turkey in 1939.
The region's rich culture, a melange of Middle Eastern, Anatolian and Mediterranean influences, is reflected in the richness of its cuisine, a profusion of seared kebabs and doners, fresh salads showered with wild herbs and hand-rolled flatbreads. The rustic simplicity of Hatay cooking is deceptive. Many recipes involve hours of prep and cooking. The final dishes are served in orchestral fashion, with melodic mains and harmonizing sides. Even a modest meal for one possesses the lavishness of a banquet.
Although you’ll see solo diners and couples comfortably seated in Ala Antioch’s spacious dining room, the place regularly fills up with ebullient families and groups of friends, many of them Turkish expats delighted to reconnect with the dishes, music and hospitality of their homeland.
Indeed, the restaurant’s three owners – Erdal Kart, Emrullah Avic and Umit Demirtas – hail from Antakya and surrounding region, as do the cooks and some of the staff. Among them is bar manager, Efe Doksoz, who recounts another major, yet much more recent, and tragic, event that put Antioch in the spotlight: the 2023 earthquake. The natural catastrophe devastated 80 percent of the city’s buildings and was a major impetus for the owners to migrate and set up shop in the GTA, home to a considerable Turkish community, estimated at 100,000 people.
If Ala Antioch’s generic strip-mall location conjures classic Canadian suburbia, the clean, understatedly polished interior feels like its own microcosm. The dark wood of the shiny floors is echoed in the glossy black ceiling, from which bunches of lavender blossoms dangle seductively. Panelled in a mosaic of lighter, earthier wood tones, one wall sports a lush cascade of (artificial) plants while the other showcases black and white photos of historic Antioch landmarks. The soundtrack, Turkish pop, is upbeat and energetic.
Confesses Doksoz, “When I come here, it reminds me of Antioch... the decor and those pictures and the colours; the browns, grays, and white. Our city’s colours are like that.”
It’s said that Antioch cuisine boasts over 600 dishes (with luck, whoever did the math got to taste them all!). Ala Antioch ambitiously makes a stab at covering all the culinary bases with a voluminous, multi-page, illustrated menu that embraces everything from cold and hot appetizers, salads and wraps to kebabs, doners, pides, tavas, steaks, seafood and desserts (and that doesn’t include the breakfast offerings; a whole other story, and menu).
“There’s a lot of Antioch Turkish cuisine in Toronto,” confesses Doksoz, “but it’s usually take-out or fast food.” By contrast, Ala Antioch allows diners the opportunity of partaking in a relaxing, sit-down, multi-course meal that weaves traditions and hospitality into a sensory experience that draws on scent, sight and touch as well as taste.
The experience ideally begins with hot and cold mezes, accompanied by an invigorating shot of anise-infused raki (at the time of this writing, Ala Antioch’s liquor license is pending). Although you’ll recognize some of these regional recipes by sight, many feature tweaks and twists that are unique to the Hatay region.
Visually striking, cevizli bi̇ber is an intensely orange-red paste made of pureed red peppers and walnuts. Drenched in olive oil and studded with walnuts, it tastes smoky, earthy and luxurious.
There’s also havuc yogurtlama, whose strained yogurt base is infused with garlic and the delicate sweetness of boiled carrots, grated to tiny orange smithereens.
Also yogurt-based, haydari is rich and creamy, spiked with finely chopped fresh herbs.
Eschewing dairy completely, saksuka is a vibrant mosaic of grilled eggplant, tomato, peppers and onions, diced into cubes and floating on a golden puddle of olive oil.
There’s also a silky humus, which adheres to Hatay tradition by adding generous amounts of tahini and cumin.
It's easy to linger over these appetizers, but after mopping up every last splash and spill with soft, made-in-house lavash flatbread, it’s on to the mains.
“In Antioch, we do like meat,” declares Doksoz, which is somewhat of an understatement. Ala Antioch’s meat offerings are intoxicatingly limitless. Beef, in particular, comes in an astounding number of guises, albeit most of them grilled after being doused in fragrant spices such as cumin, red pepper, sumac, mint, zahter and wild thyme.
There’s kuzu kirzola, (absurdly tender) beef tenderloin, grilled on the bone and served with charred vegetables. It comes with a pair of colourful salads: one featuring red onions and fresh herbs, the other a briny slaw of red cabbage steeped in lemon juice and pomegranate molasses.
There are also myriad beef kebabs: Sis kebabs featuring juicy chunks of beef, grilled on skewers and dripping with smoke-tinged, spice-teased meaty goodness. Adana kebabs consisting of ground beef, tempered with crushed onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, parsley and aromatic spices. Served on lavash, they can be rolled and eaten wrap-(the menu also features dozens of wraps).
One of Antioch’s quintessential dishes is the kagit kebab, or “paper” kebab. Similar to the adana kebab, it’s made of ground beef and lamb along with crushed herbs and vegetables. Instead of a long kebab, the mixture is shaped into a large, round disc. In Turkey, locals traditionally prepare the mixture at home, then take it to their neighbourhood bakery to be baked on butcher paper in a wood-burning oven, grabbing some freshly baked pitas along the way. Ala Antioch – which bakes all its breads in-house - replicates the experience with great flair; the resulting burger-shaped kebab is shot through with flavour and exceptionally moist thanks to high veg content.
Lahmacum is yet another variation on this beefy theme, this time with a layer of seasoned minced beef and vegetable baked right on top of a thin Turkish flat bread, in the style of a pizza – or rather of a pide… of which there are dozens on the menu.
Shaped like long, narrow boats, these thin but fluffy vessels, soft on the side with crispy edges, are served on equally long wooden boards as they emerge from the oven. As with their Italian cousins, pide toppings are seemingly infinite. Seasoned beef with parsley and tomatoes; creamy feta with even creamier labne; and sucuklu, a Turkish-style fermented sausage, evocative of salami but earthier and herbier, are just a few of the possibilities.
Although red meat gets a lot of love at Ala Antioch, in the case of many dishes – such as the kebabs – you can also opt for a chicken version. There are also some stand-alone specialties featuring poultry, one of them being a delicious Turkish version of chicken wings – tavuk kanat – roasted rotisserie-style after being marinated in a “secret”, subtly spicy sauce.
Tavuk tava is an aromatic home-style stew of marinated chicken pieces, sauteed together with onion, garlic and bright peppers and tomatoes, in a broth whose red hue betrays the use of tomato and red pepper paste. Served in the traditional metal pot in which it’s prepared, it’s bright and light, warmed by a little pul biber, or Aleppo pepper.
As previously mentioned, Turkish cuisine skews towards multiple courses and dishes and thus favours large, and convivial, groups. Although there are plenty of solo options on Ala Antioch’s menu, there are also numerous opportunities for sharing, the most notable being the gargantuan karisik kebab platter. This mixed grill platter for four (although it would easily feed six) is a veritable feast for grilled meat junkies with a lavish array of beef and chicken kebabs and doners, along with lamb ribs, chicken wings, and lahmacum, served with heaps of white and tomato rice and lavash.
Oven-charred vegetables accompany most of dishes, but to compliment all the carnivorousness, there are also several salad options. The house Antioch salad is a big, refreshing, rustic heap of chunky cucumber slices, tomatoes, green peppers, red onions and parsley, drenched in a citrusy pomegranate sauce. It serves as an ideal palate cleanser – and you’ll want your palate cleansed as a prelude to one (or more) of the traditional desserts.
Kunefe is ubiquitous throughout Turkey, but reputedly nowhere does it better than Antakya, whose ancient markets are filled with artisanal makers of tel kadayif, the finely shredded dough that resembles angel hair pasta. Anointed with butter, the strands are wrapped around a core of fresh local cheese (Ala Antioch uses feta) before being baked over a wood fire grill. Soaked in a sweet syrup and dusted with crushed pistachios, the dessert that emerges from the oven is delicately crisp on the outside, gorgeously gooey on the inside.
Light and creamy sutlac is not your mother’s rice pudding (unless your mother is Turkish). Heavy on the milk, light on the rice, sans eggs and with barely any sugar, it’s surprisingly light with a lingering hint of vanilla and rose water. Baked in a stone oven, it’s topped by a fine, just-starting-to-caramelize crust and sprinkled with pistachios.
Although, as previously mentioned, Ala Antioch’s liquor license is pending, other traditional libations that are ideal accompaniments to any meal include sour cherry juice, and the more unusual salgam juice (made with purple carrots, bulgur wheat, salt, and yeast) as well ayran, a tart, frothy salted yogurt drink.
Steeped for up to an hour, Turkish tea packs a heady punch (Turks are the largest per capita drinkers of tea on the planet). A tulip-shaped glass of this hot amber liquid or, alternatively, a shot of pungent Turkish coffee, make a fine ending to any meal at Ala Antioch and provide fuel for the journey home.
As Doksoz sums up “It’s kind of a process… and you’ve got to complete the process.”
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