NORWOOD — The Automile isn’t known for its cuisine. It’s where you pass dealerships for every car you’ve ever bought because it’s practical, or dreamt about buying because it’s not (Maserati! Porsche! Alfa!). And there among the automobile showrooms is Gyro & Kebab House, where Levent Akyol is making the Turkish food of his homeland (he’s from Izmir), with his wife, Valentina (she’s from Siberia).
Gyro & Kebab House, which they opened in 2015, looks like a spiffed-up pizzeria, with a counter for ordering, walls the coral color of red lentil soup, hanging light pendants, terra cotta tile flooring, and the requisite large photograph of Istanbul on the Bosporus. The place holds 100 and though there are seats outside (facing a VW dealership), they’re not for dining.
Your meal comes to the table when it’s ready, warm homemade bread first, with a bottle of spicy red pepper sauce — an intense brick-red mixture you’ll add to everything — and a mild yogurt sauce seasoned judiciously with garlic.
Red lentil soup, served all over Turkey, isn’t overly thick like many soups made from legumes. It might contain chicken stock but the little orange rounds are usually simmered with water and always with dried mint (every Turkish family dries its own supply); lemon is added at the table. There’s an onion in it, tomatoes, and often bulgur or rice to thicken it, since the red lentils aren’t as starchy as other varieties. Levent Akyol says he uses neither grain. His bowl is garnished with big pumpernickel croutons, which is one of the only items the couple purchases ready-made, says Valentina.
They also make the dough for their exceptional lahmacun, which they call “Turkish-style pizza.’’ These big, slightly floppy, rounds are really nothing like pizza — they have so much flavor and no cheese, but instead ground lamb mixed with finely chopped peppers.
Levent buys half a lamb (all the meat is Halal), says Valentina, and butchers it himself. Some of that goes onto the lahmacun, some on the gyro (the vertical rotisserie that holds meat carved for plump lavash rolls with salad vegetables), and some into Adana kebab, a thin, flat log of ground lamb and spicy peppers char-grilled on a skewer. It’s one of those dishes you can’t make at home because the skill required to get the meat to stay on the skewer is inherited. If Adana kebab is on the menu, someone from its region of origin is in the kitchen. This wonderful plate comes with rosy bulgur and a salad.
Turkish cuisine appears simple. You’re never wondering what’s on your plate, but flavors and spices add layers of tastes. “It’s very time consuming,’’ says Valentina. It began as court cuisine, where there were hundreds of hands in the kitchen.
And there it is, on the Automile, where you can celebrate your pragmatic approach to buying a car or your crazy, wild splurge.
1275 Boston Providence Turnpike (Route 1), Norwood, 781-352-2277, www.gyrokebabhouse.com.
Sheryl Julian can be reached at sheryl.julian@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @sheryljulian.
