Abstract:

Postmodernism separates from the effects of modernism and creates a new hedonistic-pretentious and experience-oriented consumption paradigm of individuals. Today, consumers display different tendencies and expectations from traditional food and beverage consumption habits and seeking functional benefits. Therefore, in the food and beverage industry, ethnic restaurants are gradually increasing as spaces created through physical evidence and atmospheric elements as well as tangible products. Ethnic restaurants stage the intangible and concrete components of the target culture through physical evidence and atmospheric elements within the framework of the determined theme, and "simulate" according to the perspective of the French sociologist Jean Baudrillard, and a "hyperreality" that replaces the original reality is mentioned. The aim of this research is to examine the hyperreality elements in ethnic restaurants from the perspective of Baudrillard, to reveal the indicators that transform ethnic restaurants into simulacra and to reveal the functions of these indicators. In this context, the spatial images of two ethnic restaurant businesses operating in the province of Istanbul were examined and subjected to semiotic analysis. In line with the data obtained, the indicator, the signifier and the displayed elements were determined and classified. As a result of the research, representations that reproduce and revive the cultural and ethnological structure determined by the ethnic restaurant businesses were encountered. The relevant indicators in which the aforementioned representations are found have been analyzed in depth, and as a result of the findings, hyperreality elements and functions have been revealed and suggestions have been developed.

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