Ocakbaşı charcoal
The grill is lit before we open and runs all service. Nothing that should be cooked over charcoal is cooked any other way — lamb shish, Adana kofte, chicken beyti, whole sea bass, lamb chops and ribs.
Since 2020
Our Story
A family-run Turkish and Mediterranean kitchen on Newmarket High Street, built around a charcoal grill and the idea that a good meal is something you share.
What we do
Cooked properly, or not at all
Turkish and Mediterranean cooking is not complicated, but it is unforgiving. Get the charcoal wrong and the lamb dries out. Rush the ezme and it tastes of nothing. So we do the slow parts slowly.
Meze are made each morning — hummus blended with tahini and lemon, ezme chopped by hand, aubergine charred before it ever meets yoghurt. Lamb is trimmed and skewered in our kitchen, not delivered on a stick. Kofte is minced and seasoned in-house. Kleftiko goes in the oven hours before the first table arrives.
Our aim has not changed since we opened: consistently fresh, honest food from the best ingredients we can buy, served by people who are pleased you came in.
The details
How the kitchen works
Made this morning
Eleven cold meze and a hot meze board, prepared daily. Lahmacun rolled and baked to order. Bread out of the oven, not out of a bag.
A bar that means it
Seventeen cocktails mixed to order, four mocktails, Yeni Raki, and a wine list that reaches from Sicily and Georgia to Champagne and Barolo.
Newmarket
146 High Street
We are in the middle of town, a short walk from the Clock Tower and a few minutes from the racecourses — with Cambridge, Ely and Bury St Edmunds all within easy driving distance. That makes for a particular kind of week.
Quiet Tuesday lunches with the papers. Trainers and stable staff in early. Race days when the whole High Street fills at once and the grill does not stop. Families on Sunday, birthdays on Saturday, and a bar that stays busy until eleven.
We take bookings for all of it, and we cater for events, corporate functions and special occasions off-site too — just ask.
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Our mission is simple — consistently fresh, innovative, healthy food using only the finest ingredients, and service that makes people want to come back. Turkoman Bar & Grill