Mayla

On King Street East in downtown Kingston, a single staircase separates two restaurants. Bar Mayla holds the main floor — tapas, wine, and cocktails meant for a shared, unhurried round. Le Jardin sits above it: a plant-filled dining room organized around a custom indoor woodfire grill, where the cooking turns deliberate and the meal becomes the evening rather than part of it. It is one operation on two floors, and the staircase is the only thing that sorts a quick round of meze and drinks from a sit-down grill dinner.

The menus read as two distinct invitations. Downstairs leans Turkish and Mediterranean before it leans anywhere else: Aleppo Dip arrives with house-made crostini as part of a meze selection ordered two to five plates at a time, while Turkish Manti and Turkish Shish Kabob hold their ground against a broader cast of Patatas Bravas, Seared Scallops, Chili Miso Shrimp, and Beef Brisket Tacos. Upstairs, Le Jardin shifts into large-plate territory — a Prime Dry-Aged Bone-In Ribeye finished with smoked bone marrow jus and green garlic butter, alongside Sea Bass, Lamb Rack, and pastas like Lamb Cavatelli and Mushroom Tortellini. The cocktail list earns its own attention, running from a Chili Passion Margarita and a Lemongrass Gimlet to a Mayla Mule and a Kingston Sour that names its home city.

That specificity is the point. Global fusion is the easy label for a menu that travels from manti to tacos to dry-aged steak, and it is the wrong one. The Turkish meze and the woodfire grill are what give the concept its spine. The grill is not atmosphere; it sets the terms for the upstairs menu, which is why steak, seafood, and lamb make more sense read through Le Jardin than through the first floor's small plates. Downstairs, the Turkish thread keeps Bar Mayla from dissolving into anonymous shared plates. Take those two anchors away and the breadth would feel scattered; keep them, and the range reads as a point of view.

How a table uses Mayla depends on the night. Bar Mayla is built to work around a downtown evening — tickets, a show, a longer plan that the restaurant is part of rather than the whole of — which is why a round of oysters, Patatas Bravas, and a cocktail can stand on its own or run as a prelude. Wine sits on both floors: the main-floor bar pours it alongside the tapas and cocktails, and Le Jardin carries a wine-cellar note that matches its slower pace. Larger parties are routed through a separate private-events request rather than an ordinary booking, and Le Jardin runs dinner Wednesday through Saturday, opening the grill at half past four. For travelers moving through downtown Kingston, the two concepts cover two different lengths of visit from one door.

The kitchen has names attached. Mayla is owned by Gokhan Cifci, with Andrew Smyth as executive chef; local reporting has also placed Hediye Cifci in the kitchen, described variously as sous chef and head chef. The menus themselves are presented as examples that change frequently, so the listed dishes are best read as current anchors rather than fixed promises — a seasonal concept with dependable through-lines: meze and cocktails on the main floor, the grill room above.

What keeps Mayla from reading as a catch-all is that each floor commits to something. The main floor commits to meze and a real cocktail list; the second commits to the grill. A diner who treats the address as one long menu misses the design — the better move is to pick a floor and let it shape the meal, knowing the staircase is the only door between a quick Kingston Sour and a dry-aged ribeye pulled off the woodfire.