What to eat in Istanbul: a local food guide

Do not miss

A weekend serpme kahvaltı — the full Turkish breakfast

Best street food

Balık ekmek at Eminönü, simit anywhere, kokoreç if you are brave

Best value

Esnaf lokantası — the workers' canteens with trays in the window

To drink

Turkish coffee, çay, ayran, and rakı with meze

Avoid

Restaurants with photo menus and a man outside inviting you in

Sweet

Baklava, künefe, and lokum from a proper shop

Turkish breakfast — the meal to plan around

If you do one food thing in Istanbul, make it a weekend serpme kahvaltı: a table covered edge to edge in small plates. White cheese and aged kaşar, olives green and black, tomato and cucumber, honey with clotted kaymak, several jams, butter, sucuk sizzling in a pan, menemen — eggs scrambled with tomato and pepper — fresh bread, and endless tea. It takes two hours and replaces lunch.

Street food worth stopping for

Simit — the sesame bread ring, sold from red carts everywhere, best still warm. Balık ekmek — a grilled fish sandwich eaten standing at Eminönü by the Galata Bridge, with onions, salad and a squeeze of lemon. Midye dolma — stuffed mussels with rice and spices, ordered one at a time until you stop. Kumpir at Ortaköy. Kokoreç — seasoned lamb intestine grilled and chopped into bread, and far better than that description suggests. Boza in winter, a thick fermented millet drink that tastes like nothing else.

Where locals actually eat

Look for an esnaf lokantası — a tradesman's restaurant, with trays of home-style dishes in a steam counter by the window. You point at what looks good. There is no menu, prices are low, the food is what somebody's mother cooks, and it changes daily. These places are all over the working districts and almost never on the tourist streets.

The other rule: if there is a man outside the door inviting you in, and the menu has photographs, walk on. Good restaurants in Istanbul do not need to catch you.

Meyhane — the long evening

A meyhane is a tavern built around rakı, the aniseed spirit that clouds when you add water, and meze — dozens of small cold and hot dishes brought on a tray for you to choose from. Aubergine smoked and whipped with yoghurt, broad beans in olive oil, marinated anchovies, stuffed vine leaves, fried liver.

The point is not the food alone; it is the pace. A meyhane evening runs for hours, with music, and it is the most sociable thing in Turkish eating culture. Kumkapı is the famous district, Beyoğlu and Karaköy have the better modern ones.

Sweet things

Baklava from a specialist, ideally pistachio from Gaziantep, eaten fresh rather than boxed. Künefe — shredded pastry over melting cheese, soaked in syrup and served hot, and probably the best dessert in Turkey. Turkish delight from a real shop rather than the coloured pyramids in the Spice Bazaar: ask for double-roasted pistachio. Dondurma, the stretchy mastic ice cream, complete with the vendor's routine.

What to drink

Çay — black tea in a tulip glass, drunk constantly, offered everywhere, and refusing it is the mild discourtesy. Turkish coffee — strong, unfiltered, served with a glass of water; let the grounds settle and do not drink the last inch. Ayran, salted yoghurt, the classic partner to grilled meat. Şalgam, fermented turnip juice, if you want the local experience in one glass.

Eating well on a private tour

We are not a food-tour company and we will not pretend otherwise — but every one of our guides eats in this city daily, and the single most common thing our guests say afterwards is that the meals were better than they expected. That is simply because we take you to the places we go ourselves rather than the ones with the photo menus.

Tell us you care about food when you enquire about a private tailor-made tour and we will build the day's route around a proper lunch instead of fitting food in around the monuments.

Istanbul food guide — frequently asked questions