Iranian restaurants in Ankara: An ethnographical research on cultural identity

Ethnic restaurants are not only institutionalized forms of cultural protection, but also melting points of different cultures through consumption in a period of such an increasing human mobility. There is also an increase in the number of ethnic restaurants opened by transnational immigrants in Turkey, an immigrantreceiving country. In this article, the dynamic relation between food, cultural identity and immigrant restaurants is tried to be revealed based on the example of Iranian restaurants in Ankara. While doing this, records of the interviews made with restaurant owners, intermediating entities and customers and participant observation notes were utilized. In this field research, it was observed that the Iranian restaurants, which have created a new geography of consumption by showing a spatial aggregation, have developed their own corporate structures not only based on ethnicity, but also on the class and gender and that they have built their cultural preservation function based on these structures.