For Gökhan Çilak, a kitchen is a promise: good, clean and fair food, in step with nature. At Perdue he put that promise on the plate — right between the forest and the sea.
“For me, the kitchen means sustainability — a place where good, clean and fair food lives in harmony with nature.”
“What is grown today, we carry into the future on the plate. We cooks are the bridge in between — and that is all I wanted to be here: the bridge, drawing on the strength and the variety of what is local.”
“When I first heard about this setting, the name arrived on its own. This is a shoreline with a forest at its back — so on the plate, we placed the memory of the local kitchen exactly between the two.”
Every course positioned that memory between forest and coast — a menu that reads like the landscape it came from.
“At Perdue I discovered what it means for cooking in nature — in harmony with it — to reach the plate. You gather something from the land and you cook it in the land. It turns into a completely different experience. For a chef like me, this is an incredible place.”
“Staying at Perdue meant living nature with comfort. I woke to the sound of the sea and the crickets — and all of it, together, made a beautiful place to rest.”
“I woke with joy, I prepped with joy, I served my dinner with joy — and now I leave with joy. Thank you.”
“The sea in front of you, the forest behind you — and you bring that to the plate. I can’t put it any other way.”Gökhan Çilak · Under the Stars at Perdue