1990 Chateau Certan, Pomerol

My obsession with exquisite products and wines with character developed in tandem during my graduate studies at U.C. Berkeley. The food at the International House, Berkeley was beyond belief for somebody born in Turkey who was accustomed to fine home cooking. Chez Panisse came to my rescue and was an eye opener for me in the sense that I had never thought that one could eat great food in restaurants. (Even to this day, the best of the Turkish cuisine can only be experienced in households.) At about the same time, I also discovered the taste of decent, affordable French wines at Kermit Lynch. Next I was rewarded a nine months fellowship in France intended for Ph.D. research. Yet, in practice, I primarily studied how to wine and dine at the Michelin starred restaurants, including 30 or so meals at the best restaurant of the time, Robuchon’s Jamin (when there still was a 140 FF lunch menu, equivalent to about 15 USD given the exchange rate in the 1980s). The rest is history. In 2004, while working at Georgia Tech as an associate professor, Mikael Jonsson and I started Gastroville and laid out criteria for restaurant evaluations. We parted ways in 2009 when he decided to devote himself to Hedone in London. I launched Gastromondiale and transferred the articles I had written to this website. Gastromondiale is now on its way of becoming truly “mondiale” (global) through the addition of three more editors and several contributors.