Founding President — Chef Tolgahan Gülyiyen
Independent researcher in culinary heritage and food history; professional chef; founder of the Turkish Cuisine Movement (TMDH) and Founding President of the Academy.
Source status
- Independent Attested by an independent published source. The sources are set out under Independent references below.
- WTCA record Stated in the institutional records of the Academy. Not independently verified on this site.
Statements that could not be attributed to either an independent published source or a documented institutional record have been removed from this page rather than carried under a general disclaimer. The source classification of each claim is maintained in the Academy’s internal verification records.
Institutional biography
WTCA record The World Turkish Cuisine Academy is an independent cultural research, documentation and publishing institution focused on Turkish culinary heritage. WTCA institutional records state that its Founding President, Chef Tolgahan Gülyiyen, is a Turkish-American chef who entered the profession in his father’s wake.
Independent The independent press records that he had cooked in restaurants from the age of fourteen. A report by İhlas Haber Ajansı (İHA), dated 13 February 2007, records Zeki Gülyiyen’s own statement that he had served for a period as private chef to former Prime Minister Tansu Çiller, the twenty-second Prime Minister of Türkiye and the first woman to hold that office.
WTCA record WTCA institutional records further state that his father, Chef Zeki Gülyiyen, was known in the trade as the “Master of Masters” and was the founder of ZG Restaurants, and that Chef Tolgahan Gülyiyen moved to the United States following his father’s passing.
WTCA record According to the same records he graduated at the top of his programme in the Department of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts at Aydın Adnan Menderes University, and has practised for more than twenty years as a chef, consultant and concept developer, working on culinary programmes and menus rooted in tradition and adapted to contemporary taste.
Independent Independent press sources document his professional work in the Washington metropolitan area through Nostos in Tysons, Kazan — a long-established Turkish restaurant in McLean — and Zaytinya in Washington, D.C., within José Andrés’s ThinkFoodGroup.
Independent The independent press also records a notable detail of the hiring process. In the culinary trial preceding the appointment, the decisive element was freshly baked tombik pide and lavash. Among those tasting was the Washington baker Mark Furstenberg; the newspaper reported his assessment in a brief and unequivocal formulation.
Independent A separate published source attributes a particular dish within the family tradition to his mother and records the point at which he departs from the inherited method: using garlic confit rather than raw garlic. Such records make visible the points of change that often disappear from the written record when culinary knowledge is transmitted through practice from one generation to the next. Documenting such transmission and transformation is among the Academy’s research and archival concerns.
WTCA record Today, as Founding President of the World Turkish Cuisine Academy, he works for the documentation and international presentation of the Turkish culinary heritage.
Institutional Portraits
Independent references
Three items of independent press cover the founder’s work in the Washington metropolitan area between March and September 2024. Between them they record, independently of the institution, his earlier kitchens at Nostos, Kazan and Zaytinya, and that he had cooked in restaurants from the age of fourteen.
One of the three bears directly on the Academy’s own subject. Writing in Washingtonian, the magazine’s executive food editor records the cook’s account of a family repertoire of long standing, credits a particular dish to his mother, and notes the one point at which he departs from the inherited method. A published record of that kind — naming the source of a dish and the moment a cook departs from it — is the documentary trace that is ordinarily lost when a craft passes by demonstration alone. The same problem is the reason for the commemoration described under 7–15 January.
Tom Sietsema’s review in The Washington Post records the circumstances of his hiring, and the detail is not incidental for an institution whose subject is Turkish culinary heritage: what was put to the test, and what decided it, was traditional Turkish bread technique.
Independent published sources
- Sidman, J. (2024, 29 March). Eastern Mediterranean restaurant Namak replaces Mintwood Place in Adams Morgan. Washingtonian. washingtonian.com
- Sietsema, T. (2024, 31 May). Namak serves vibrant takes on the foods of Turkey, Greece and Iran. The Washington Post. washingtonpost.com/food/2024/05/31/namak-restaurant-review
- Limpert, A. (2024, 24 September). 10 comforting fall dishes from DC-area restaurants. Washingtonian, October 2024 issue. washingtonian.com/2024/09/24
- İhlas Haber Ajansı (İHA). (2007, 13 February). Eski Başbakan Tansu Çiller’in Aşçısı Uşak’ta Restoran Açtı. SonDakika.com archive. sondakika.com (Accessed 11 August 2026).
The first three records, published between March and September 2024, concern Chef Tolgahan Gülyiyen’s work in the Washington metropolitan area. The fourth is a separate record: an İhlas Haber Ajansı (İHA) report of 13 February 2007 carrying Zeki Gülyiyen’s own statement that he had served for a period as private chef to former Prime Minister Tansu Çiller.
Each source is cited for what it records at its date of publication, and for nothing beyond that.
In memoriam
Chef Zeki Gülyiyen
Chef Zeki Gülyiyen is commemorated by the Academy and by the Turkish Cuisine Movement. The ZG Foundation (Zeki Gülyiyen Vakfı) carries his name.