Mehmet Yalçınkaya

Mehmet Yalçınkaya — Biography

Mehmet Yalçınkaya is a chef who has sat on the jury of MasterChef Türkiye on TV8 alongside Somer Sivrioğlu since 2018 and has also hosted the Exxen edition, MasterChef Junior. He has won world third and second places in cooking competitions and has represented Turkish cuisine at international events.

Born in the village of Yenigüney in Bolu, he began working in kitchens in 1988, ran the kitchens of hotels and restaurants in Bodrum and Istanbul, and worked as a gastronomy and kitchen coordinator in France, Italy, Qatar, Germany and Greece. In 2004 he studied human anatomy and the digestive system at the İstanbul Yemek Akademisi, and in 2005 his biography and specialties were published as a Trend Chef in the American gourmet magazine Culinary. He is counted among the first chefs to apply fusion cuisine in Turkey; in 2007 he devised a personalized, minimalist service concept for banquets. In 2008 he founded the Euroturkchefs Culinary Team and captained it, and that year he took bronze in category A at the IKA Culinary Olympics in Erfurt, Germany, finishing third in the world. In 2010 he ran gastronomy workshops and cooked gala dinners for events including the Berlin Film Festival, Grüne Woche and the ITB tourism fair. In 2012, as director of the Turkish Chefs Federation's Turculina Team, he came second at the World Chefs Olympics.

In 2013 he was the subject of an article by Al-Monitor writer Pınar Tremblay. In 2026 he gave cooking training to women affected by the earthquake.