Hot Dish: Mixed Grill at The Turk in Mount Kisco

The Mixed Grill at The Turk,and restaurateur Sinan Maden. Amy Sowder Photos

By AMY SOWDER

Step through the heavy golden curtains and under the dangling blue-and-white nazar eye pendant, and prepare for a meaty feast.

For a decade, The Turk’s tall windows have faced a prominent corner of downtown Mount Kisco. The kitchen produces dishes from Turkey, also called Republic of Türkiye — a country that straddles the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, favoring the flavors of sumac, roasted red pepper, tangy yogurt, walnuts and fresh mint.

The flavorful food stems from the Silk Roads, the 4,000-mile trading routes between the Far East and Europe, with Turkey in the middle, as part of the Ottoman Empire, says Sinan Maden, the restaurateur who immigrated from eastern Turkey about 20 years ago. Maden started by washing dishes and worked his way up in kitchens before opening his own restaurants, including The Turk in Mount Kisco in 2015, and in Pawling in 2023.

“The spices get hotter the closer you get to India. The Greeks, Albanians, Turks: We were all under the Ottoman Empire at one time,” Maden says as he plucks the strings on a Turkish lute called a saz that he lifted from a hook on the dining room wall to demonstrate the sound of the ancient guitar.

Most dishes at The Turk aren’t spicy-hot, just flavorful. A dish like the Mixed Grill is ideal for those who prioritize protein and want it in all forms, or for those new to the restaurant, which is redolent with velvety golden pin-cushioned seating, lace curtains, and colorful Turkish mosaic chandeliers.

“This is a platter where you get a little bit of everything,” Maden says. The rectangular plate of plenty is almost like the geography of Turkey, sitting between Asia and Europe, the East and West, culminating in a striking range of cultural influences.

Expect a lot of lamb (Ottomans were herders, and sheep were well-suited Turkey’s climate) and a little chicken, in five ways:

Adana kebab: named after a large city in southern Turkey, this is ground lamb flavored with red bell peppers, lightly seasoned with paprika and grilled on skewers

Köfte kebab: chargrilled ground lamb mixed with parsley, spices and onion

Doner (gyro) kebab: Slow-roasted, spiced ground lamb on a rotating spit, thinly sliced

Chicken shish kebab: chicken marinated in a red pepper paste and grilled on skewers

Lamb chop: chargrilled and marinated in spices

For all these kebabs of ground meat, Maden and his staff don’t use egg or bread crumbs of any kind as a binder. So, how do they get the meat to mold to the stick?

“The main trick is to squeeze it with a cheesecloth to get the water out,” he says. “You need experience for it to not fall off.”

There’s also cacik, a refreshing, cold crunchy yogurt mixed with cucumbers, garlic, mint, herbs and spices. The Turkish staple, similar to the Greek tzatziki, can be eaten like a salad or with a spoon-like soup, but it’s especially good with grilled meats, like köfte. The kitchen makes about 25 gallons of this dip every two or three days, Maden says.

Sliced house-made, slightly pillowy, pita-like flatbread can carry the meats, salad and dips. You could also end up with a little bowl of spicy ezme, a southern Turkey dip/sauce/salad of mostly minced tomatoes plus red pepper paste, tomato paste, crushed walnuts, onions, garlic, olive oil and 17 other Turkish spices.

To round out the dish, the kitchen staff place in a corner a small leafy green salad topped with pickled purple cabbage, plus a fun take on rice. They fill a cup halfway with white rice and halfway with red-pepper-tinted bulgur rice pilaf and then overturn it onto the platter, creating a striking sculpture of contrasts between the burnt-sienna and white colors. 

It almost looks like the topography of the cuisine’s mountainous regions. There are no shortcuts to this dish. “We make everything from scratch,” Maden says. 

The only way through the culinary process for each component is step by step, until the piled-high platter lands on the dining table — hopefully accompanied by a lute, if you’re lucky.