By passing a poster in the street one day which made an impression on him, the Chief Yener Akar began the story of his cooking. Today, Yener brings an exceptional food experience to hundreds of guests from Turkey and all over the world at Novotel Trabzon. Novotel Trabzon is the mecca for many local and foreign guests visiting Trabzon for business and vacation purposes. Besides the service of accommodation, one of the essentials of the hotel is certainly its cuisine... In Novotel Trabzon, where they offer catering to approximately 700 people every day, except for big events, Yener Akar works as the line chef and introduces Turkish cuisine, especially Black Sea cuisine, to the customers. When and how did you discover your interest in cooking? After high school, I came across a poster of a tourism training center. I was very impressed by what the poster offered and I told myself, “This should be my job”. I passed the misafirleritourism training center exam and entered the food processing department. The menus and presentations in the school were really attractive. I found the chance to do internship in various hotels for a while, so, my life of culinary arts has begun. Could you please tell us about the significance of Black Sea cuisine in the world and in Turkey? The dishes in Black Sea cuisine are usually cooked with sea food and vegetables grown in the region. In particular, guests who visit this region like this cuisine and they are curious about the history of the dishes. As Black Sea cuisine is not properly promoted throughout the world, unfortunately, it does not attract considerable attention. On the other hand, it is our foreign guests in particular who find the food and recipes of the Black Sea very interesting; for example, mince pie is known as a starter entree and salty pastry all over the world, Laz pie (a dessert of milk, vanilla, sugar and butter mixture on layers of pastry) is a dessert with syrup in Black Sea cuisine. Such things are unusual for our foreign guests. What kind of activities do you perform regarding Black Sea cuisine? We re-discover and try to cook the recipes of Black Sea cuisine that have long been forgotten and add them to the menus introducing our region. When guests visiting the region like and show interest in a particular dish, we usually present these dishes as they would be locally without spoiling their originality. In addition, we adapt some historical recipes in the region to the present day and create new tastes for Black Sea cuisine. Where do you see Turkish cuisine being placed in terms of world cuisines? Turkish cuisine is one of the special cuisines in the world, and in my opinion, Turkish cuisine should really be the leading cuisine of the world. Turkish cuisine, our national cuisine, is the extension of Ottoman cuisine and is very rich. In Turkish cuisine, many regional dishes are prominent, for example the olive oil dishes of the Aegean, the baklava and ice cream of Antep, types of pastrami and soudjouk from Kayseri, Urfa and Adana kebabs, Iskender kebab, the variations of meatballs from Bursa, and types of anchovy and pita from the Black Sea. Could you please tell us about the customer profile of Novotel Trabzon and their tastes? Our guests prefer Novotel Trabzon for vacations, congresses, business dinners and wedding organizations. The guests who visit our hotel for business purposes like quick and delicious products that come in convenient portions. On the other hand, in summer, Novotel Trabzon welcomes its vacationing our guests. In summer, we especially welcome foreign groups coming from Iran, Arabia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Europe. For example, Arabian guests like kebab and meat dishes. We try to pay attention to these preferences when preparing our menus. Which activities do you hold to introduce Black Sea cuisine in Novotel Trabzon? Generally in business and congress dinners, we certainly include Black Sea cuisine in the menus prepared for the guests of our hotel. We also introduce local tastes as a presentation in the buffets. In addition, as local dishes are particularly requested by our guests, we include our local dishes in our A La Carte menu and offer seasonal tastes to our guests.