Marida Mediterranean Restaurant’s opening in September 2024 was highly anticipated — the well-known spot with majestic views would become home to a style of food underrepresented in the Evansville area.
Photo of Serhat Turan and Mehmet Alkan by Zach Straw.
Turkish owners Serhat Turan, Mehmet Alkan, and Erdal Eredemir saw opportunity in the former home of The Landing and Edgewater Grille on Water Street in Newburgh, Indiana. Their portfolio includes Edessa Restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee, which landed on the New York Times’ “The Restaurant List,” a compilation of editors’ 50 favorite places in the U.S. for 2024. Drawn to Newburgh’s Ohio River overlook by a friend, they decided it was time to grow their business footprint.
“The view was one of the reasons,” says Alkan, who’s also a chef. “The second thing was, there was no concept like this here, and we said we can bring it to the community.”
“Marida” is a Roman-era name of Mardin in southeast Turkey, a city blending cultures and religions, as well as cuisine reflecting such diversity. Newburgh’s Marida brings this to life in Southwestern Indiana. The menu is full of marinated beef, chicken, and lamb kebabs, which, if you like, can come on a vertical skewer hanging above your plate. (Snap a photo before you eat, as Evansville Living did on a recent visit). Can’t pick which type you want? Turan recommends a sampler kebab plate. “You can just test all of them,” he says.
Photo of Mix Grill Kebab plate by Zach Straw.
Alkan says Kurdish and Turkish styles of cooking are more about flavor than heat. Beyond the savory kebabs, which often come with rice and cole slaw, Marida delivers lentil and chicken orzo soups, plus numerous hot and cold appetizers true to the owners’ home region.
As with the kebabs, a colorful, mixed appetizer plate is available. Dip your bread into native concoctions such as shakshuka (featuring eggplant and zucchini squash), haydari (a strained yogurt mix with walnut, garlic, and fresh dill), baba ghanoush (also an eggplant dip), and hummus.
Try hot appetizers, too. Think gozleme, which is a flatbread stuffed with spinach and cheese, and shrimp saganaki. A falafel plate of seasoned, fried patties made of chickpeas, parsley, cilantro, and onions is an attractive vegetarian option.
Marida’s menu is larger than its sister properties in the Music City, and Alkan says that’s because owners wanted to offer enough choices to get Evansville-area diners coming in, including those unsure about the Kurdish and Turkish fare.
Besides kebabs and other Turkish-Kurdish-style dishes, Marida offers something for everyone at your table — steaks, salads, seafood, even a burger. Alkan recommends the seafood boil, which packs lobster tails, shrimp, clams, and mussels. “The taste is perfect,” he says. Desserts include baklava and Dubai chocolate. Sip from an extensive wine and spirits list, including Kavaklıdere Çankaya (white) and Yakut (red) wines from Turkey, cocktails like a strawberry-flavored Turkish delight martini and a lychee mocktail, and more than 80 kinds of whiskeys and bourbons, gins, tequilas, and vodkas.
Photo by Zach Straw.
There’s more: On Aug. 8, Marida unveiled a Friday-Sunday brunch menu, with some choices familiar to local diners and others less so. There are two omelets on the menu, plus Kurdish shakshuka, poached egg in a spicy tomato and bell pepper sauce, and Mediterranean menemen, scrambled eggs with sauteed tomatoes, bell peppers, parsley, and feta.
No matter what type of meal you’re looking for, the view at Marida is hard to beat, including from three tiers of outdoor seating overlooking the river. But those who recall the building’s prior restaurants won’t recognize the interior; Marida owners remodeled and created an upscale atmosphere with water features and a relaxing vibe. Alkan says Marida sees many date night couples, but plenty of families with children are coming in as well.
Turan and Alkan are natives of Turkey and have both maintained their ties to Nashville — Turan serves in the U.S. Army Reserve’s Military Police Brigade based there. But both say they have enjoyed getting Marida off the ground and continue to receive positive comments from diners.
Turan recalls one piece of feedback very well — a business executive who’s lived in the Evansville area for 20 years loves the Kurdish and Mediterranean cuisine at Marida, and before it opened, “he had to keep going to Chicago and Nashville to eat something like it.”
Alkan is a mechanical engineer, but he switched career paths to food several years ago because he loves cooking and sharing his native cuisine. “The whole community here, and not just the international community, honestly are very happy with us, and most of the time they come they say we support you because you brought something different,” he says. “You can have a burger everywhere, you can have a pizza everywhere, but you can’t have a kebab.”
Alkan says Marida has a goal of continuous improvement. “We work with customers and take their advice, because they are the ones who are going to eat the food,” he says. “We focus on that and on the service as well.”
Dining and Cooking