The hammering of coppersmiths set the beat as children dressed as the crops of the Fertile Crescent wound through the old streets of Gaziantep, as GastroAntep, the southeastern city's nine-day international gastronomy festival, reached it peak.
The Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality organized the event from Oct. 3-Oct. 11 with Türkiye's Culture and Tourism Ministry as part of the Culture Route Festival. This year's theme was "The Age of Experience: Gastronomy, Agriculture, Tourism and Hospitality."
The program cast Gaziantep as more than a destination for baklava and kebabs. It presented the city as a food culture rooted in farming, family tradition, hospitality and trade.
The opening parade on Oct. 9 began at Kale Altı, passed through the Bakırcılar Çarşısı (coppersmiths' bazaar) and the spice-scented Almacı Pazarı, then followed Gaziler Street to Balıklı Square. At the parade's end, Mayor Fatma Şahin described the festival as a shared inheritance, not another municipal project.
"GastroAntep has become a brand; it has become a global brand," Şahin said. "The reason is not that a mayor came out and did work on GastroAntep. Our farmers are here. It shows a city's bond with the soil. For us, the soil is our homeland, our mother. A city can be this beautifully, sincerely connected to its soil."
She traced the city's recipes through the generations, saying they pass from "a grandmother to her grandchild, a mother to her child." She added, "We entrust this culture to our grandchildren. Our table is Halil Ibrahim's table," invoking a Turkish expression for abundance and generosity.
Food, Şahin said, is about more than sustenance or commerce. "This year's theme for GastroAntep is also 'experience,'" she said. "GastroAntep means healing, it means flavor. More importantly, it means the family sitting at the table. It means conversation. It means sharing around it. It means love. It means respect. It means responsibility. Gaziantep's table is humanity's table."
Over the next two days, that message carried into Festival Park where visitors sampled traditional dishes and listened to talks tying food to production, hospitality, investment, heritage and new consumer experiences.
Panels covered topics from restaurant identity to how culinary knowledge passes between generations. In hands-on workshops, chefs demonstrated professional technique, always with local ingredients at the center.
'One more plate on table'
In her keynote presentation, Şahin argued that the city's rise in global gastronomy cannot be separated from its geography and history.
"We are distinguished from other cities by the wisdom of Mesopotamia, the fertility of the Euphrates and the richness offered by this geography," she said.
"This civilization, this geography and 12,000 years of history are entrusted to us. Don't dismiss the table lightly; we must also protect the big family and the transmission of culture between generations," she added.
Organizers and speakers returned often to one key point: Gaziantep's culinary future depends on preserving its signature dishes and on promoting the raw materials and agricultural wealth behind them.
Celebrity chef Mehmet Yalçınkaya made the case most bluntly, calling for a wider international conversation about the region's ingredients.
"Gaziantep has moved beyond baklava and katmer," Yalçınkaya said. "Now we need to talk about the products and evaluate how we can carry them abroad."
The city's reputation, he suggested, should no longer rest on a handful of famous sweets. Its place on the Silk Road and its fertile land have given it remarkable variety, from meat and produce to spices.
'No limits'
"If there is no good product, there is no meaning in being a good chef," he said.
He drew a contrast with his hometown. "I am from Bolu. I live in a place that sees only three months of summer. The products here do not exist there. This is the city of the golden crescent. In terms of products, there are no limits."
For young chefs and culinary students, Yalçınkaya said, that abundance is both an opportunity and a responsibility. "My advice to chef candidates is this: this place truly is a paradise. They need to make very good use of it," he said.
"This city has a cuisine that has absorbed all the products on the spice route. As you research, other things emerge. The technique of every dish surprises us," he added.
The guest list reflected the festival's international ambitions. Chefs and food figures from Italy, Egypt, Malta, Britain, France, Lebanon, Jordan and the Netherlands were scheduled to lead workshops, bringing Italian and Mediterranean kitchens together with Middle Eastern and contemporary European approaches. They included Luigi Taglienti, Mostafa Seif, Davide Guidara, Jonathan Brincat, Miller Prada, Arthur Dubois, Joe Barza, Ali Ghizawi and Michael van der Kroft.
Turkish chefs and food personalities were just as prominent. İdil Yazar, Türev Uludağ, Memet Özer, Uğur Koyuncu, Rafet İnce, Maria Ekmekçioğlu, Hazer Amani, Yağız İzgül, Semen Onur Öner, Eyüp Kemal Sevinç and Dilek Yetkiner led workshops, many reinterpreting Antep products through different techniques.
'Humanity's table'
The streets and squares supplied the spectacle, while the panels and workshops supplied the industry substance. Together they reflected the city's push to treat food as an engine of cultural diplomacy, tourism and economic value.
Gaziantep already holds an outsized place in Türkiye's culinary imagination, but this year's festival suggested its leaders, chefs and producers want to go further. They envision a model in which gastronomy cannot be separated from agriculture, storytelling, hospitality and exports.
The opening parade made the point in miniature. It moved from old markets and craftsmen's quarters through spice-filled lanes to a public square, tracing the path from field to market to table to shared civic identity.
When the festival ended Oct. 11, Gaziantep had once again presented itself as a keeper of tradition and a city intent on shaping the future of food culture.
The takeaway was the whole chain behind the plate: farmers tied to the soil, families who preserve recipes, chefs who reinterpret them and a hospitality that turns a meal into a cultural act. In Şahin's words, Gaziantep's table is "humanity's table," and GastroAntep was its invitation to the world.