Tommy Washbush
Pieces of chicken lined up on a narrow serving tray with a charred red pepper at one end.
Turkish Kitchen’s chicken kebab: juicy and appealing.
It’s been just over a decade since State Street favorite Hüsnü’s closed. Its departure from the scene left Madison without one of its cherished Turkish and Mediterranean restaurants. But recently, Madison has been fortunate to see more Central Asian menus flourishing around town.
Turkish Kitchen opened in 2019 on South Gammon Road. After expanding there, the restaurant moved to the former Tin Fox space at 2616 Monroe St. in July 2023.
Both of my Turkish Kitchen visits were timed closer to lunch than dinner, and it needs a lunch menu. Generosity is the name of the game here, and the large portions of mains, sides, and complimentary beverages make for a very decadent lunch. Given the prices of these platters — reasonable for what you receive — it can be a spendy lunch as well.
But if you want a luxurious Turkish dinner, this should be right up your alley. A mild lentil soup called merdzimek accompanies the dinner platters, as does a small plate of haydari, a minty yogurt dip similar to tzatziki. If you pace yourself, that cool haydari will serve as an excellent dip for any kebabs later in your meal, assuming you don’t swipe it all up with your pita.
Other dips and swipeable sides include a smooth hummus, a smoky and creamy baba ganoush — our server said Turkish baba ganoush uses more aggressively roasted eggplant than others in Central Asia — and a chopped roasted red pepper dish called ezme, further brightened with pomegranate juice.
Restaurants run out of components from time to time, but Turkish Kitchen felt conspicuously low on inventory. On one visit, there were three main dishes unavailable, including two lamb preparations that were both recommended by the server before he returned with the bad news from the kitchen.
Of the kebabs I loved the delightful sucuk ekmek, a lightly spicy sausage served in split chunks. Consider it somewhere on the chorizo/andouille/merguez spectrum. I’d be tempted to order this every time, except that the chicken thigh kebab was equally appealing, juicy and lightly charred.
Adana, a long cigar of minced beef, was a little underseasoned, but I’d choose it over the veggie kebab, which was plentiful with charred eggplant, mushroom, and peppers, but felt overpriced at $24 even with the included sides.
Kyle Nabilcy
Very full platter of food with roast peppers and chunks oc chicken and a white dipping sauce.
Silk Road’s tuvak (chicken breast) kebab: exemplary.
Many of the same preparations are on the menu at Silk Road, which opened in August at 1920 South Park St. There are plenty of similarities, though Silk Road skews toward the Tajik background of its chef-owner. The warmth of the welcome, however, matches Turkish Kitchen’s in every way.
There’s a spin on the same lentil soup, here called mercimek corbasi and slightly thinner in body and flavor. It’s a coin toss as to which one I prefer; the Turkish Kitchen version was a touch grittier as well as thicker.
Hummus and haydari are on the menu as well. Silk Road’s haydari has a stronger mint presence, and a funky depth presumably from the use of labneh versus straight yogurt. Both will last throughout the meal and provide welcome counterpoint flavors and textures.
Silk Road also serves some uniquely Central Asian dishes (and there are some unexpected Italian elements that merit further investigation).
Mantu, an Afghan dumpling more akin to Chinese soup dumplings than similarly named mantou buns, arrive as a hefty platter of five. They’re filling and warming, perfect for this time of year. Roasted lamb was not a kebab-style dish, instead featuring luscious rough hunks of tender meat and just the right amount of silky fat, nicely seasoned and with only a couple pieces of bone to navigate.
Kebabs are the focal point at Silk Road, as at Turkish Kitchen. To keep things roughly parallel, I tried the tavuk (chicken breast) and adana (minced beef) kebabs here, and both were exemplary. The adana kebab wasn’t as big as Turkish Kitchen’s, but I found it better seasoned here. Even a little salt or spice goes a long way.
I don’t mind if chicken breast is a little dry; what’s more important to me is flavor and textural contrast. This chicken was browned in all the right ways, seasoned simply but appreciably, and the accompanying grilled veggies delivered on any additional moisture the white meat might be lacking.
What’s remarkable about both of these restaurants is how devoted they clearly are to service. Whether it’s the husband-and-wife earnestness of Silk Road, or the barrage of thoughtful gestures and gifts to everyone who walks into Turkish Kitchen, these dining rooms represent well an area of the globe Madison loves to love.
Turkish Kitchen
2616 Monroe St.
608-284-9271; turkishkitchenmadison.net
4-9:30 p.m. Mon.-Tues., 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fri., 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Sun.
$6-$30
Silk Road
1920 S. Park St.
608-467-6197; silkroadmadison.com
11 a.m.-9 p.m. Tues-Thurs., 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Fri.-Sun.
$7-$22
