The Palace Merano, seven nights from £5,549 per individual. Different therapies obtainable. palace.it; healingholidays.com

Fethiye, Turkey: A brand new wave within the Mediterranean

A foodie hideaway on Turkey’s Aegean coast would possibly topple Mykonos from its perch. By David Annand

Is that this the second we reluctantly name time on Mykonos? The value-gouging. The elbow-to-elbow seashores. The horrible site visitors. The plain Harry Maguire–ness of the place. For years we put up with the island’s downsides as a result of it was on the market by itself within the jap Med. Greatest motels. Greatest meals. Greatest vibe. Nowhere else got here shut. 

Not any extra. The Aegean is now house to a complete host of locations that may compete with Mykonos’s most interesting. The decide of the bunch? The Yazz Collective, a brand new beach-club-cum-hotel tucked away on Turkey’s southwest coast, which has upped the sport after which some. 

Right here, site visitors actually isn’t an issue. The resort sits towards a backdrop of densely wooded hills in a jaw-dropping bay and is accessible solely by boat. You both moor up in your chartered schooner or make a suitably starry entrance on the lodge’s nippy little speedboat, which meets your switch from Dalaman airport. 

Throughout the week, the Yazz is a tranquil haven, all birdsong and contented hush, the place the suites are dotted about lushly planted gardens. Yoga courses happen on sun-dappled decks. {Couples} lounge on sofas by the water, dipping out and in of the fantastic Aegean, with its heat, comfortable waters.

On Fridays, the ambiance slowly cranks up as increasingly more boats arrive, till within the night there’s a celebration in full swing, with a who’s who of Istanbul’s scenesters knocking again potent chilli margaritas and flexing on the waterside dancefloor. 

There’s one fixed: the meals, which is massive, daring and uniformly sensible. Rising star of Turkish cooking Mustafa Otar is the person within the kitchen, and he’s been geared up with a three-tier metal grill, so he can cook dinner over an open fireplace, and a standard Turkish oven, by which he makes pide and bread from heritage grains. He’s additionally blessed with one of many world’s nice pure larders: he will get his soy sauce and miso from Asia, however every little thing else – meat, fish, greens – comes from Turkey. The consequence? Bowls of hummus come topped with smoked olives and fermented pomegranate molasses, seafood pasta is served with hulking nice lobsters, and dry-aged tuna steaks are as wealthy and deeply flavoured as bavette. 

The crew behind the Yazz are within the technique of buying a farm in northwest Turkey, and there are all method of bold plans. In the mean time, nobody within the UK has heard of the place, however imagine us: phrase is about to get out. 

The Yazz Collective, doubles from £750 per night time. yazzcollective.com