Food and Drink Guide to Turkey: What to Eat and Drink

Turkish food is regional, seasonal and built around sharing, and a trip here can easily turn into one long meal. This guide covers the dishes worth seeking out, what to drink, where locals eat and the small bits of etiquette that make eating out easier.

Signature dishes to try

• Kebabs: Adana kebab is spicy minced lamb grilled on a wide skewer; İskender is sliced döner over bread with tomato sauce, melted butter and yoghurt.
• Mantı: tiny dumplings topped with garlicky yoghurt and chilli butter.
• Pide and lahmacun: a boat-shaped flatbread with toppings, and a thin, crisp one spread with spiced mince, rolled up with parsley and lemon.
• Köfte: grilled meatballs, with a different local style in almost every region.
• Zeytinyağlı dishes: vegetables such as green beans, artichokes or stuffed vine leaves cooked in olive oil and served at room temperature.
• Desserts: baklava, künefe (crisp shredded pastry with melted cheese and syrup) and lokum, better known as Turkish delight.

Breakfast is a big deal

A full Turkish breakfast, kahvaltı, is a spread of white cheeses, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, honey, kaymak (clotted cream), jams and fresh bread, usually with eggs. Menemen, eggs softly scrambled with tomatoes and green peppers, is the classic hot dish. At weekends, breakfast can stretch for hours, especially in cafés with a view of the water.

Street food and quick bites

• Simit: a sesame-crusted bread ring sold from carts every morning.
• Balık ekmek: grilled fish in bread, famously sold around Eminönü in Istanbul.
• Midye dolma: mussels stuffed with spiced rice, sold by the piece; buy from busy vendors.
• Kokoreç: seasoned grilled lamb intestines, a late-night favourite.
• Gözleme and börek: thin pastries filled with cheese, spinach or potato.

What to drink

Tea (çay) comes in small tulip-shaped glasses all day long, and being offered one in a shop is a normal gesture of hospitality. Turkish coffee is thick and served in a small cup with the grounds settled at the bottom, so leave the last sip. Ayran, a salty yoghurt drink, goes with kebabs, and şalgam, a tangy fermented juice of purple carrot and turnip, is popular in the south. Rakı, an aniseed spirit that turns cloudy when you add water, is the traditional partner for meze and fish. In winter, look for salep, a warm milky drink, and boza, a thick fermented grain drink.

Where to eat, and how to tip

• Lokanta: canteen-style places, often called esnaf lokantası, with trays of ready-cooked stews, rice and vegetables. Point at what you want; lunchtime is best.
• Kebapçı and ocakbaşı: kebab houses, the latter with a charcoal grill you can sit around.
• Meyhane: taverns for long evenings of cold and hot meze with rakı.
• Fish restaurants: you often choose from the display and pay by weight, so ask the price before it goes on the grill.

Bread usually arrives at the table and is refilled without asking. In sit-down restaurants a tip of around 5–10% is common; check the bill first, as some places add a service charge. In cafés and lokantas, rounding up is enough. Say "Afiyet olsun" (enjoy your meal) to people eating, and "Elinize sağlık" (health to your hands) to thank whoever cooked.

Dietary notes

Almost all meat is halal, and pork is rare outside a few specialist shops. Vegetarians eat well on meze, olive-oil vegetable dishes, lentil soup and pide with cheese or egg, but ask "etsiz mi?" (is it without meat?), because some soups and rice dishes use meat stock. Alcohol is easy to find in cities and resorts but scarcer in conservative towns. Most visitors drink bottled water, sold everywhere.

Stay connected in Turkey

Menus in lokantas and market stalls are often only in Turkish, so a translation app with a camera mode and a quick look at recent reviews save a lot of guesswork. A HelloSIM eSIM gives you data from the moment you land: install it before you fly, keep your own number for calls and texts, and look up dishes as you go.