Emre İnanır is Appointed as Head Chef at Tuğra Restaurant

Istanbul, 15 March 2022 – Located on floor 1 of the historical Çırağan Palace, famed for its enchanting atmosphere, the award-winning, world-renowned Tuğra Restaurant has unveiled a change of head chef – placing the talented and experienced Emre İnanir at the helm.

Showcasing his skills and with over 20 years of professional culinary experience as a kitchen chef in luxurious hotels and restaurants in Türkiye and many other places around the world, İnanır graduated from the Prue Leith Culinary Institute & Restaurant Academy in South Africa, majoring in modern French cooking techniques. He was later mentored by Luis Arrufat, the sous-chef of Ferran Adrià, who made an overwhelming impression with molecular cuisine in the gastronomy world. Chef İnanır credited Arrufat for passing down to him the modern techniques at the Basque Culinary Center, one of the most prestigious culinary arts schools in the world. During his stay in South Africa, İnanır had the opportunity to work with two-Michelin-starred chef Frédéric Médigue and had a very intensive educational life in various cuisines. Concluding another four-month training at the Michelin-starred Kream Restaurant, Pretoria, he studied Norden culinary techniques with the award-winning Norwegian chef Gunnar Hvarnes and Bocuse d’Or with the two-Michelin-starred chef Andre Wolff. Chef İnanır has served as a chef de cuisine and culinary coordinator in Istanbul, Ankara, Dubai and Qatar, as well as a chef de cuisine at the Turkish Embassy in South Africa.

Moving forward, İnanır proudly represented Türkiye with his team at the European culinary competitions in Budapest at the Bocuse d’Or, a prestigious competition of the gastronomy world, known as the olympics of chefs from all over the world.

Approaching his profession as a labour of love, İnanır successfully blends gastronomy trends with a holistic working model, spiking his culinary creations with a detail-oriented and inquisitive identity. His personal maxim in the kitchen is to work with excitement and detail and espouse team spirit. Local delicacies of the season, sustainable cuisine and picking cues from the pinnacles of haute cuisine elsewhere in the world are some of the sources of inspiration that Chef İnanır is most passionate about. Aspiring to leave a legacy of recipes for the future with inspiration from the past, Chef İnanır is now showcasing his skills in the company of his team at Tuğra, the signature restaurant of the Çırağan Palace.