Banu Özden

Banu Özden obtained her undergraduate degree in Business Administration at Clark University in Worcester, MA, and her master’s in Sustainable Tourism Management at Bogazici University in İstanbul.

Banu started her career as the kitchen manager at Bertucci’s Brick Oven Ristorante in Boston. She returned to Turkey and started working as Director of Educational Programs at Istanbul Culinary Institute. She continued her work at The Culinary Arts Center, where she worked on projects preserving and promoting Turkish cuisine. Banu has participated in and presented at several food symposiums in New York, Oxford, Tours, Mexico City, and Dublin, where she talked about different aspects of Turkish cuisine.

Currently, she is working towards a PhD degree in gastronomy and culinary arts at İstanbul Kent University and working full-time as an instructor at the gastronomy and culinary arts department of İstanbul Medipol University, teaching the history of Turkish cuisine, Anatolian culinary culture as well as recipe and menu development. She has been designing and leading walking food tours around İstanbul and in the gastronomy capitals of Türkiye since 2009. She is also a regular columnist for a bi-monthly food magazine called Food in Life.