The Pine Hill Hotel you see around you now has come a very long way since its humble beginnings as The Holiday Pension bed & breakfast in Fethiye in 1984. Back then, our main guests were back-packers who had travelled from all over the world. At this time European cuisine was relatively unknown in Turkey. However, this was the type of food that our guests were craving.
It was Münüre – owner of the hotel, and Selin, Orçun and Sertan’s (Sonny) mother – who, after working as a pot washer in a restaurant in Europe, became recognised for her cooking talent and then worked her way up to the position of sous Chef in the space of six months. Münüre accumulated a great knowledge of cooking in the restaurant, which specialised in Game meat, and, when she returned to Turkey, she started to cook these European dishes at her Holiday Pension for the back-packers she hosted. Over time, word about her small bed & breakfast and enviable cooking skills (both European and Turkish) spread like wild fire through the travelling community, and the hostel gained recognition in trusted travel books such as Rough Guide, and Lonely Planet.
At the end of the 80’s, Hisarönü was still a tobacco-farming village with no telephone lines, no running water, and an unreliable electricity service. Yet, always the entrepreneur, Münüre spread her business to Hisarönü in 1988 with a small bed & breakfast of 11 rooms, which became known as The Holiday Hotel, and she brought focus to her infamous restaurant. Since then, Münüre has taken pride in her style of cooking, which produces meals, that she defines as being simple to the eye but, with a complexity to the flavour that leaves a lasting impression on the taste buds.
