BY PAM THOMAS

Journal Staff Writer

• See the menu.

Once upon a time, there were two architects in Turkey who designed many modern buildings, from offices to hotels. They especially liked designing restaurants, because their passion was cooking.

They would lovingly map out each restaurant, supervise the installation of gleaming new kitchens, and then . . . that was it. The restaurant would open, and their involvement would be over.

Four years ago, the two architects, who were married, decided to move with their young daughters to America. And they vowed that the next restaurant they designed would be their own.

That's how Veysel and Kamer Kosereisoglu came to open Bay Leaves, a new restaurant in North Kingstown specializing in eastern Mediterranean cuisine.

It also explains how a prominent spot on the road to Wickford, once occupied by a little wooden building called The Irish Pub, has been transformed into a Mediterranean oasis. The stepped, whitewashed towers, stone facing and loads of deep pink geraniums are typical of the Bodrum-style of Mediterranean architecture, Veysel says.

Some years ago, I was on a sailboat charter with friends down the coast of Turkey that began in the seaport town of Bodrum, which is a hot spot for European yachtsmen. On that trip we ate in many restaurants that looked like Bay Leaves, but few interiors were as elegant and little of the food as sophisticated as what this couple from Ankara has brought to South County.

Veysel's family has a complicated history of going back and forth between America and Turkey over the past century. But it's Kamer's family, firmly rooted in Turkey, that was in the food business. The recipes are hers, as interpreted by head chef Tom Duffy, a Johnson & Wales graduate who previously worked at The Coast Guard House in Narragansett.

Mezzes and wine

The first time I dined at Bay Leaves, I did just what the couple hopes Rhode Islanders will do: I came with friends, we ordered wine and a few appetizer-type dishes called mezzes (pronounced meh-zays), then we ordered more wine and more mezzes, and we talked and laughed and talked some more and generally had a grand evening.

The appetizer-sized mezzes, along with soups, salads and pides, or small grilled pizzas, make up most of the menu at Bay Leaves. For diners like me, who often find the appetizers the most creative portion of the menu, this is heaven. It's also ideal for sampling an interesting cuisine.

Turkey is a geographic crossroad -- in Istanbul you can walk across a bridge from Europe to Asia -- and its cuisine is a mixture of influences from Armenia, Greece, the Balkans and the Middle East, as well as much of Europe.

Some mezzes were familiar, such as stuffed grape leaves, from the cold mezze page of the menu. Here the leaves are wrapped around a delicately flavored rice, currants and pine nuts pilaf that was a cool delight.

Hummus, a chickpea and tahini puree, was familiar too, but here it's called Warm Buttered Hummus with Pastirma. The pastirma, a crispy air-dried beef popular in Turkey, is swirled with melted butter, and then poured over a mound of hummus. The combination of hummus, butter and pastirma results in an almost butterscotch taste that's hard to get enough of. And it arrived with flair: Toasted pita chips dramatically rose from the edges of the hummus.

But it was the hot mezze menu that most intrigued us. In one dish, several large shrimp were baked in a clay pot with tomatoes, olives and feta cheese, a perfect melding of flavors. Another bore three cigar-like fried phyllo rolls, artfully arranged and filled with a ground beef deliciously spiced with cumin.

We liked that so much we ordered the spinach phyllo rolls, whose flaky crust was filled with feta as well as spinach, and drizzled prettily with a garlic and yogurt sauce. Veysel told us later that the thick phyllo is hand-rolled in New York City.

Exotic octopus, tempting pide

We were just getting started. Next came a plate of kibbe (kib-bee), delicate balls of bulgar, cumin, walnuts and ground beef, lightly fried. We considered ordering the falafel, fried chickpea balls served here with a dill, garlic and yogurt sauce, but went for the more exotic: grilled marinated baby octopus on a fresh herb and tomato salad, tangy and refreshing.

It was time to try the pide (pee-deh), similar to a grilled pizza without the crust.

Though we were tempted by the spinach, carmelized onions and feta cheese pide, we went for the Soujouk with dried beef sausage. The sausage added just the right bite to the tomatoes, green and red peppers and mozzarella.

On another visit, I tried the shrimp fries, which turned out to be several large shrimp covered in crispy shredded phyllo. The texture was satisfylingly crunchy, but even with the tomato and garlic sauce, it wasn't quite as interesting as the other mezzes.

I followed this with one of the menu's eight salads, a white bean salad with grilled chicken. The marinated beans mixed with greens and eggs had a tangy crispness, and the serving was so large that I happily finished it up at lunch at my desk the next day.

Part of the reason I had leftovers, though, was that I couldn't keep my fork off my husband's entree. He had ordered the star of the evening, sole fillets wrapped in grape leaves. Baked with tomatoes and onions, it had a flavor addictive to us both.

Later, Kamer explained that in Turkey, this dish is made with whole sardines, but they realized that Americans are a bit squeamish about whole fish. So chef Duffy experimented a bit, and created this outstanding substitute.

Grilled lamb chops, stuffed eggplant

Some friends from Jamestown were eager to try Bay Leaves too, so we took them on yet another visit to concentrate on entrees. The tenderloin was slices of oregano-spiced beef cooked a perfect medium rare. We sopped up the savory juices with the oven-roasted potatoes, but we were most impressed with the accompanying two tennis-ball-sized hollowed-out tomatoes. When we removed their hat-like tops, inside was a yummy spinach and feta cheese concoction.

Tender lamb chops, marinated with oregano and drizzled with a bit of yogurt sauce, were also grilled perfectly pink. They came with wild rice, which, as we were learning to expect by now at the hands of this chef, had a special twist. It was mixed with lentils.

My friend Joyce eyed the various kebabs, and chose the swordfish over the chicken or lamb. The swordfish came tender and moist off the skewer, nicely flavored with bay leaves and enhanced by a bit of sweet yogurt sauce.

My stuffed eggplant entree featured ground beef in a deliciously earthy tomato puree, topped with fresh mozzarella. The eggplant itself was baked so carefully to maintain its beautiful purple shape that I had to poke it with my fork to make sure it wasn't really a ceramic dish. (A similar baby eggplant is available on the cold mezze menu.)

For dessert, we had to try the walnut chocolate baklava. We were familiar with regular baklava, which is thin layers of crispy phyllo dough soaked in honey and bits of pistachio, but we'd never heard of flavors. Chocolate turned out to be a fun addition, along with vanilla ice cream. Kamer later said that having different flavors of baklava is currently all the rage on the Mediterranean coast.

We also sampled the kunefe, a fresh mozzarella cheese pastry that comes in the pan it's baked in. This tasty dish might be just the thing for diners who usually find desserts too sweet. For those of us with a sweet tooth, though, it tasted more like a mezze than a dessert.

Attention to design detail

We had started with night with a bottle of red wine, a Syrah from California ordered before we realized that there were wines from Turkey and Greece on the extremely reasonably priced wine list (most bottles are about $20). Veysel later told us that he had to work long and hard with the liquor distributors before he found one that could supply him with wines from those countries. You can also order Turkish, Greek and Slovenian wines by the glass.

We capped the evening with Turkish coffee, which, to preserve the froth, the waiter bears to the table in the long-handled, copper Turkish pot (called a cezve) in which it was brewed. It was poured into small espresso-like cups, and everyone except Joyce promptly doctored it up with sugar and milk to lessen its intensity.

The presentation of the coffee in the copper pot was typical of the restaurant's careful attention to detail. Architects believe, Veysel later said, that "everything is design." So the dining room's square plates, pure white with edges that swoop slightly upward, were selected to perfectly frame the food. The plates are often dusted with an herb, and each is lovely to look at.

The airy interior of the restaurant is divided into two whitewashed spaces, which flow into each other through high arches. Fringed white curtains shade huge arched windows. The furnishings are modern and spare, the light fixtures sleek, the flooring a cool stone tile. Select pieces of Turkish art, such as intricate blue and white ceramics, copper vessels and antique carvings, are spaced carefully on the white walls.

With lively Turkish music plinking from the speakers, we almost expected to look out the windows and see the Mediterranean lapping at the walls. Alas, it's only Post Road.

The one remaining bit of The Irish Pub is the sunken bar maintained by the new owners. It's more fun than the usual bar, though, because patrons can sip as they watch white-shirted chefs slide loaves of bread dough into the combination wood- and gas-burning oven at the back of the bar.

A new mezze bar

To further introduce its cuisine, Bay Leaves is about to inaugurate a mezze bar from 4 to 6 p.m.. Patrons can order a piece or two from dishes on the mezze menu, instead of the entire dish, which the owners hope will encourage diners to be even more adventuresome.

Similarly, at dinner they will offer a combination mezze plate with six different appetizers. Kamer brought out the dazzling sky-blue glass plates, hand-blown in Turkey, which have six little compartments for the different bite-sized pieces.

Brunch was launched last Sunday. That menu carries a few of the mezze offerings, as well as pancakes and crepes, frittatas and several pides. It also offers borekhs, or savory pastries such as Talash Borekh, puff pastry filled with steak, mushrooms and carmelized onions and peppers.

My next stop at Bay Leaves, however, will be during the cocktail hour at the mezze bar. Seems that in my previous visits, I missed the specialty drinks list. So I didn't realize I could have experienced a variety of cocktails made with pomegranates, a favorite fruit in Turkey.

How could I not want to try a Pomegranate Mango Martini?

*****

If you like Efendi's Mediterranean Grill and Bar in Cranston or Restaurant La Camelia in East Providence, you'll like Bay Leaves.

*****

Bay Leaves, 8220 Post Rd., North Kingstown, (401) 667-7225. Casual. Reservations for groups of six or more only. Open for dinner Tues.-Thurs. 5 to 10 p.m.; Fri. and Sat. 5 to 11 p.m.; Sun. 5 to 10 p.m. Sunday brunch is 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mezze bar hours Tues.-Sat. are 4 to 6 p.m. V, MC, AE, DC, DIS. Free parking.

Mezzes, soups, pides and salads are $4 to $11. Entrees are $13 to $23 including side dishes. The wine list is $5 to $7 by the glass; $15 to $110 by the bottle.

*****

Bill of fare

Dinner for two at Bay Leaves might look something like this:

1 Pomegranate mango martini -- $7

1 glass of wine from Turkey -- $5

Beef phyllo rolls -- $5

Warm buttered hummus with Pastirma -- $5

Sole fillets in grape leaves -- $15

Tenderloin with roasted potatoes -- $23

Turkish coffee for two -- $10

Chocolate baklava -- $6

Kunefe cheese pastry -- $5.50

Tax -- $6.62

Tip -- $16.50

Total -- $104.62

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Bay Leaves