Mezze Mediterranean Grill opens in East Setauket

For his second act, John Yardim decided to tone down the Turkish. His new East Setauket eatery, Mezze Mediterranean, has a Turkish soul, but a crowd-pleasing pan-Mediterranean surface.

In 2023, Yardim helped his older brother, Ismail Yardim, open Lezzet in Smithtown. The tiny storefront, decorated with murals of Turkey, specializes in the great Turkish flatbreads lahmacun (think thin-crusted lamb pizza) and pide (open-faced cheese calzone) as well as grilled meats and salads. During the last two years it has expanded into the neighboring space while continuing to serve a largely Turkish clientele.

At Mezze, the 23-year-old Yardim said, "we’re near all these Stony Brook offices and a lot of what we do is lunch takeout. I wanted to bring together Turkish and Greek and American for our customers."

Accordingly, the decor evinces no Turkish tiles or murals of the Bosphorus. Instead, the sleek blue-and-white space has a faux-greenery wall for Instagram portraits. The menu features Caesar and kale salads, fried calamari and even a burger topped with Cheddar and mozzarella. It uses the Greek "gyro" as well as the Turkish "doner" to describe the sandwich (or platter) made from beef shaved off a vertical spit. But, in the Turkish fashion, the meat has been sliced and hand-stacked on the spit and not ground and molded.

Mezze’s kitchen doesn’t have the big pizza oven it would need for pide and lahmacun (platters come with pita), but Yardim pointed out that, in Turkey, restaurants are more likely to specialize in either breads or grilled meats. And Mezze’s grill is busy with shish kebab (lamb or chicken), spicy ground-meat Adana kebabs, kofte (meatballs) as well as chicken chops (semi-boned thighs). All of these are available as platters with rice and salad ($19 to $22) or wraps ($11).

In both Turkish and Greek, "mezze" (also "meze) refers to an assortment of small plates that can precede a meal, or constitute a meal. Mezze has you covered, with hummus, babaganoush, stuffed grape leaves and falafel. Or, in a more Turkish vein, mucver (zucchini pancakes), grilled sucuk (spicy beef sausage) or the house specialty, "pink sultan," a beet-tinted yogurt-garlic dip. Mezze range are less than $10.

The sparkling restaurant has a handful of high-top tables inside as well as two picnic tables on the front patio, but bear in mind that food is served in takeout containers and there is no public restroom.

Mezze Mediterranean Grill, 190 N. Belle Mead Rd., East Setauket, 631-675-1515, Instagram: @mezze.grill. Open 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.