Anatolia Cuisine to open in former Czarnuszka Location

Mukhtar Aghazada. Submitted.

Seasonal help isn’t the only thing the J-1 visa program has brought to Door County. Come May, it will have also led to the creation of a new restaurant in Northern Door.

Mukhtar Aghazada, the owner of Ephraim’s soon-to-be eatery Anatolia Cuisine, first came to Door County in 2017 as a J-1 student, working at Barringer’s Restaurant and Julie’s Park Café and Motel in Fish Creek. His love for the area led the Azerbaijan native to come back again and again during summers as he pursued his Master’s in Business Administration from Illinois State University. 

After graduating, he spent just two months away from the peninsula before it drew him back.

“Door County is a second home for me,” Aghazada said.

He’s bringing his own dishes into that new home with the start of Anatolia Cuisine. The restaurant is named after Anatolia, a peninsula that constitutes the Asian portion of Turkey (Azerbaijan is located to the east of the area.) Staples from that region’s fare will be represented on Anatolia Cuisine’s menu. 

Distilling an entire cuisine into a relatively short menu wasn’t easy, but his family’s Anatolian restaurants provided Aghazada with a template to work with as he adapted many of the crowd-pleasers from their menus to populate his own.

Starters include fresh hummus with pita bread, spanakopita (triangles of filo dough filled with cheese, spinach, onion, garlic and spices) and stuffed dolma (vine leaves filled with ground beef, onion, cilantro, rice and cherry wine for a local tie-in.) 

Grilled kebabs are the main focus of the menu, according to Aghazada. In addition to beef, chicken and lamb kebabs, catfish kebabs will serve as a Door County-Anatolia fusion option.

Other entrees on the menu include falafel wraps (deep-fried balls of ground vegetables, usually smashed chickpeas, served with fresh veggies and tahini sauce on a pita) and kofte (Turkish spiced meatballs, also served with veggies and tahini on a pita, tortilla or bread.) For dessert, there’s rice pudding and baklava (a layered dish that includes filo sheets, chopped nuts and honey.)

In addition to this regular menu, Aghazada may eventually add daily specials to the mix, partially as a way to test out what other Anatolian dishes his Western clientele might enjoy.

Anatolia Cuisine’s home will be in the building Lost Tuk Tuk left when it closed last September. Aghazada bought the space in November and got to work, painting, remodeling and applying for a liquor license so he could sell beers from Spain, Italy and Turkey, as well as some local brews and wines. The small size of the building means the business can operate with a smaller staff; Aghazada has a core of three other employees who will work alongside him. 

Having grown up in and around the restaurants his family owned, Aghazada’s goal was always to start one of his own. Door County seemed like the perfect place to do so, partially because it doesn’t have any restaurants like Anatolia Cuisine, and partially because its residents were so welcoming to Aghazada and eager to learn more about his culture.

“Working at Julie’s and Barringer’s, most of my friends were from America, some from different countries,” he said. “Always, they were asking, ‘what are your favorite dishes from your country?’ So I took this chance to bring some from back home and kind of show everyone.”

To show its appreciation for the Door community, Anatolia Cuisine will offer locals a 5% discount on the whole menu. It will also donate 10% of proceeds from kebab sales to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Aghazada knows that Anatolia Cuisine will be many patrons’ first exposure to the fare he grew up eating. The responsibility is as nerve-wracking as it is exciting, according to Aghazada – and it’s an opportunity for patrons to learn about what they’re eating.

“I will try to interact with people first, to get to know them a little bit, tell my story to them and talk about the food, because not many people know the dishes we have,” Aghazada said.

Anatolia Cuisine will open May 1 on 9922 Water St. S., Unit 7, in Ephraim. It will be open 11 am – 7 pm, every day from May to the end of October.