Ozan Devlen's Review:
Topçunun Yeri: Turkish Sish Kebap
Topçu (Artilleryman) is the nickname of the founder of the place. Who served in the army as an artilleryman. Topçu is serving most probably the best “çöpşiş” a Turkish kebap made of small cuts of lamb.
Topçu was founded in 1957 and start serving “choep shish” as the first place in Izmir to do so. Eatinizmir visited Chesme branch of Topchu which is equally mastered in cuisine as the main restaurant in izmir.
23 years ago Cevat Dev take over the place and make some gentle touches in order to perfect the service and ambiance without changing the taste and the recipe at all.
Topçu is ofcourse famous of it’s Choep Shish but there are also other alternatives that you should give a try if you are not a big fan of lamb. Still don’t forget that it is what you should try first.
There you can notice a huge pile of onion flavoured by some red pepper (isot, a traditional turkish red pepper which is considerably hot), it is very common to consume this grilled onion along with cop sis. Topçu also offers alternatives such as Tandır (another specialty made of whole lamb in a special oven), meat ball, lamb chops(ribs), chicken cop sis and so on. The prices are fairly acceptable and the service is also pretty fast and polite. We as eatinizmir recommend you to try a soup in advance. There are two recommendations from us among several choices. Either try Ezogelin (a vegeterian soup made of several vegetables but still tasty) or Damar Tuzlama (a special type of “ishkembe soup” (a soup made of paunch of a sheep)) as a specialty of Topcu. The famaous Cop Sis
Cop Sis
The best parts of lamb choosen and chopped into small pieces than small sticks made of reed used to align chops of meat in an order with a piece of fat at the end of each stick. There we should mention that the lamb is marinated in a special sauce before the sticking procedure.
A grill powered by wood coal is used to get the best taste out of the meat. Grilled onion, tomato and green pepper is served along with the sticks. There is approximately 25 sticks in every portion.
Lavash (a special type of bread which you can taste frequently in Turkey) is also served with the food.
We recommend you to drink Ayran along with your Cop Sis, like a lot of Turkish specialities ayran is a company for cop sis as well.
There are two branches of Topçu as we have mentioned, one them is in Chesme and the other is in Izmir city center. You can visit either one of them and taste one of the best around the world.
You can also find another usefull review written by Turkish Daily News by Aslı Sağlam.
How to get there:
Topçu Chesme
Address: Yassı Alan Mevkii No:54 Ilıca – Çeşme
Tel: +90 232 7230342
Topçu Izmir
Address: Kazım Dirik Cad. No:3/B Pasaport – İzmir
Tel: +90 232 4646261
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[…] with hopes of avoiding Ataturk‘s revenge (avoided, thankfully). Our best meal in Izmir was at Topçu, where we had lamb in a wonderful creamy mushroom sauce, and their specialty – Cop Sis […]