Anatolia Brings Turkish Cooking to Oracle Road With Oct. 30 Grand Opening
Anatolia Restaurant holds its grand opening today, Friday, Oct. 30, at 5931 N. Oracle Road — the northwest-side space that housed Chef Alisah's for 17 years — with 15% off the full menu through Nov. 1, Tucson Foodie reported.
By Marisol Rodriguez, editor & host of TucsonBound
October 30, 2026 · Food & Drink
What happened
Co-owner Engin Saglam already runs Turkish Kebab House near the University of Arizona with his cousin, Abdi Iric, and Anatolia brings the same cooking to the northwest side. The name is the ancient name for the region that makes up most of modern-day Turkey. Construction began at the start of August in the roughly 1,800-square-foot space, which seats more than 50 guests, and the kitchen cooks on a gas oven at launch, with a wood-fired oven planned later.
The menu is built on pide, lahmacun, kebab, and mezze, made from scratch and served with freshly baked bread, with vegan and gluten-free options on the menu. Prices are moderate by northwest-side standards: soups at $7.99, salads at $11.99, cold mezze from $7.99 to $19.99, grill dishes from $18.99 to $26.99 served with rice, a side salad, and cacik, and lahmacun and pide from $15.99 to $20.99. Desserts — baklava, sutlac, and helva with ice cream — run $7.99 to $8.99. The restaurant plans to open daily from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., and the opening promotion takes 15% off all menu items for the first three days, Oct. 30 through Nov. 1.
The opening also closes a chapter. Chef Alisah's, the Bosnian restaurant that held the address before it, closed permanently after 17 years in business, and its regulars have been waiting to see what would take the space. A second kitchen from a team that already knows Tucson, in a dining room Tucson already knows, is about the softest landing a replacement can have.
Why it matters if you're moving to Tucson
Oracle Road is the northwest side's working corridor — the road Casas Adobes and Northwest households actually drive for groceries, school runs, and dinner. Openings there tell you more about daily life than a downtown marquee does. A scratch kitchen with family pricing choosing Oracle Road says the northwest's everyday dining dollar is worth chasing, and it gives new arrivals in Marana and Oro Valley a non-chain option on the drive home.
It is also a small, useful reminder of what Tucson's UNESCO City of Gastronomy designation looks like on the ground: not a festival once a year, but a steady rotation of independent kitchens — Sonoran, Turkish, and everything between — opening in ordinary shopping centers. If food is part of how you judge a city, work through our best restaurants in Tucson guide and the wider things to do guide before your first scouting trip, and eat in the neighborhoods on your shortlist, not just downtown.
Source: Tucson Foodie (published October 28, 2026; updated October 29, 2026).