Space and Culture XX(X) 1–15 © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1206331212452817 sac.sagepub.com 452817SAC XX X 10.1177/1206331212452817Space and CultureKaraosmanoğlu 1 Bahçes ¸ehir University, Bes ¸iktas ¸, Istanbul, Turkey Corresponding Author: Defne Karaosmanog ˘lu, Faculty of Communication, Bahçes ¸ehir University, Çırag ˘an Cad. No. 4, 34353, Bes ¸iktas ¸, Istanbul, Turkey. Email: defne.karaosmanoglu@bahcesehir.edu.tr Authenticated Spaces: Blogging Sensual Experiences in Turkish Grill Restaurants in London Defne Karaosmanog ˘lu 1 Abstract This article examines the intersection of food, space, and performance within the experiences of food bloggers in London. It looks at the ways that Turkish grill (ocakbas ¸ı) restaurants in Dalston, London, are imagined, reinvented, defined, and approached in food blog writing. Bloggers provide the reader with personal narratives of their trip to the restaurant space.These narratives reveal sensual experiences of concern, anxiety, fear, excitement, and joy. This article pays attention both to the visceral realm and to discourse in order to understand the performances of space and body and the ways that they create fantasies of the familiar and strange in the bloggers’ experiences of walking in Dalston and sitting in its restaurants. This article tries to answer the following questions: How is authenticity produced and attached to space and body? What kinds of images are crucial in this production? The author argues that the production of authenticity is closely related to the reproduction of stereotypical images of class and gender in food blog narratives. Keywords restaurant space, authenticity, food blogs, Turkish, London Introduction Mass media have played an enormous role in maximizing the display of cuisines in cities around the world. Along with city guides, travel, and gastronomic journalism and gourmet writings, another narrative form has emerged to discuss, evaluate, or promote eating places—food blog writing. Food blogs provide a venue for people to imagine, represent, and discuss taste and to delineate the differences between each other in the city. As seen in the literature, despite their popularity, food blogs are the least studied, even by those who study cultures of consumption. This article considers food bloggers to be a consumerist group and shows how specific consum- ers produce the authenticity and exoticism of a specific type of restaurant. This study examines the intersection of space, body, and performance within the narratives of food bloggers in London. Restaurants are spaces where performances of cooking and serving are as significant and visible as food. Turkish grill (ocakbaşı) restaurants in particular can be regarded as vivid performance spaces. This study seeks to understand the performances of space and body