261 Best Restaurants in Turkey

This restored old stone house makes a pleasant setting for Bizim Ev (“Our House”), which attracts many tour groups with reliable food at reasonable prices. The menu includes a standard array of mezes, grilled meats, and local trout, and portions are good. Seating is in rustically decorated dining rooms on several levels and, in summer, on a colorful outdoor terrace.

This restaurant by the harbor has a “back to basics” approach focusing on fresh fish, seafood, and a well-stocked counter of mostly vegetarian meze freshly made daily. Service is fast and friendly, and the atmosphere, beside a road a line of busy bars, is fun and lively.

This simple little restaurant just off the main intersection is keenly kept by a chef from the town of Bolu, legendarily the hometown of Turkey's best cooks. Individual attention is assured. There is an extensive menu with many hot and cold meze, seafood, and grilled meats.

A humble and hospitable spot for a quick bite on your way to or from the beach and ruins, this simple, open-air eatery offers a wide range of gözleme (a stuffed Turkish crepe), including those with less-common fillings like eggplant and cheese or chicken with walnuts, as well as sweet options. You can also get egg dishes, meatballs, chicken kebabs, and other standard fare.

This busy harborside fish restaurant is popular with Göcek locals and visitors alike, and is considered an institution of the town. In summer, the seating extends out toward the waterfront, under tropical trees and with romantic views of the water. Main dishes (kebabs, steak, seafood) are typical, but the pride of the menu is its wide selection of hot and cold meze. The homemade bread is delicious, and wild mountain mushrooms are served as a side dish in spring and fall.

Not far from the clock tower at the entrance of Kemeraltı, this small local favorite has served traditional İskender kebabı (and only İskender kebabı) from the city of Bursa since 1981. The spit-roasted meat is sliced thin and topped with melted butter and tomato sauce. A glass of homemade ayran (salted yogurt drink) is the traditional accompaniment to the meal. Alcohol is not served. Come for lunch or a very early dinner, as they're only open until the meat runs out, usually around 6:30 pm.

This charming little restaurant is best known for its mantı—a ravioli-like Turkish pasta traditionally stuffed with ground meat—and specifically Feraye (a name the restaurant has trademarked), a fried variation filled with cheese and spinach, potato and cheese, or chicken. The atmosphere is casual, and diners can either sit at sidewalk tables on a lively pedestrian side street lined with other restaurants and shops or at tables looking onto a quiet garden in the back.

In an old stone building on the north side of Atatürk Alanı, Cemil Usta serves a mix of seafood and local dishes like akçaabat köfte (the local meatball specialty) and kuymak (fondue made of cheese and cornmeal). Grab a seat street-side or on the long balcony upstairs, which makes this a great spot for watching the square on a summer evening. The service is typically speedy, sometimes bordering on abrupt, but the free hazelnut baklava dessert provides an excuse to linger.

It's far from fancy, but this unpretentious local favorite tucked away just behind the town square is one of Uçhisar's best places for reliably good food at fairly reasonable prices. Though limited, the menu does not disappoint, with chef Hüseyin Örlü preparing staples like çoban salatası (shepherd's salad) that are well above average. Centre serves a few hot starters and salads, along with simple mains—mostly grilled meats and variations on spaghetti. In warm weather, diners can sit on the small front patio over flowing with plants. It's a small operation, so service can be on the slow side.

This basic steam-table restaurant serves the usual menu of stews and casseroles but the owners have tried to add some class by hanging white lace curtains and putting pots of plastic yellow flowers on the walls—your call if it's classy or tacky. Either way, the food is tasty, the staff is friendly, and the location, down the street from the Mor Barsaumo church, makes this one of the few decent options near Midyat's old town.

Tucked away in the backstreets of the old city's bazaar near the clock tower, Ciğerci Memet Usta serves up some of the best kebabs in Adana, the country's reigning center for grilled meat. Try the specialty ciğer (grilled liver), the eponymous Adana kebab, or the homemade şalgam (spicy pickled black carrot juice).

This tiny upscale restaurant run by German-Turkish owners blends European style, atmosphere, and creativity with local ingredients and flavors. The result is a refined, low-key environment, with well-made food that provides an interesting variation on typical Turkish cuisine like zucchini flowers stuffed with local fish instead of the usual rice.

Tucked among the antique stores of Cukurcuma, Cuma is a casual café by day and a cozy place to sip wine at night. Its seasonal menu uses local produce and offers a range of day-to-night options, along with fresh-baked bread and a comprehensive wine list.

This airy café-bakery, filled with lush green plants and big greenhouse-style windows, has an extensive menu of coffees, sweets, and brunch foods.

The more blue-collar or on-the-go way to eat fish in Turkey is the balik ekmek, a salty grilled fish sandwich often stuffed with onion, tomato, and lettuce. With Dikili's access to quality fresh fish, the flavor multiplies at this portside restaurant, with tables spilling out onto the street. Other classic Turkish seafood dishes available include fried calamari and mussels stuffed with rice, pine nuts, and currants.

Deniz means "sea" in Turkish, an appropriate name for this popular, pricey seafood eatery on the Kordon waterfront, whose tables spill out of the ground floor of the İzmir Palas Hotel. It's buzzing with local notables, travelers, and a swanky business crowd who come to splurge on exceptional fish and meze, including samphire with garlicky yogurt. And it can easily turn into a splurge in terms of price, depending on the number of courses chosen.

Devrez serves reliably good Turkish fare in a no-frills environment. Kebabs are the star of the menu, alongside Turkish classics such as köfte and pide. Open 24 hours a day, Deveraz attracts patrons from every milieu. In the afternoon, it’s filled with families and those on their lunch break, and in the early hours of the morning, groups of the city’s Western crowd flock in for a classic Turkish way to end a night of drinking: with a bowl of soup.

A real neighborhood spot located close to the seaside, Doorstep is a meeting point for locals and visitors to drink coffee by day and alcohol by night. With a limited lunch menu and a mix of indoor and outdoor seating, the place has a laid-back vibe and an easy charm.

Stopping here for pide (Turkish-style pizza or calzones, piled with a variety of ingredients that can include cheese, spinach, meat, or egg) is a highlight of a trip to Ilıca and a great choice for a quick lunch, or even breakfast, though on the pricey side compared to similar fare elsewhere. The menu also includes kebabs, soup, pizza, and traditional Turkish desserts.

Doy-doy serves a fairly standard array of kebabs and pide—a type of Turkish pizza baked in a wood-burning oven—with different toppings, but at lunchtime, local workers come for the cheap daily specials, such as meat-and-vegetable stew or baked beans (displayed on the steam table to the left of the entrance). The two-level rooftop terrace, open in summer, has fine views of the area, but don't expect to savor them with a drink in hand, as no alcohol is served.

A homey little spot offering home-style fare, this is a good place to have a satisfying and inexpensive meal before or after embarking on excursions from the nearby minibus stop and riverside docks. Choose from a daily selection of meze behind the counter or a heartier traditional dish like pan-fried meat with peppers and onions. In the evening, there’s more of a mini-meyhane vibe, with beer and rakı available at its handful of tables, mostly outside.

This charming spot just off fashionable Tunalı Hilmi Caddesi specializes in nicely prepared Aegean-style mezes and seafood dishes, such as Cretan-style cubed cheese with herbs or octopus with thyme. The design—painted wooden chairs, blue-and-white walls with seashore motifs, and maps of the region painted on the ceiling—transports you straight to the Aegean Islands. In summer, it's good to sit out on the vine-covered patio.

With excellent food, views of Cunda Island, and a prime location on the Ayvalık waterfront, this restaurant is worth walking down narrow backstreets to find. The mezes, made with Aegean herbs and greens, include some truly local specialties, such as deniz mücver (fried mussel patties) or sole marinated in a lemony mustard sauce. Both the mezes and fish are on display for easy choosing, and service is attentive.

This tucked-away lunch spot specializes in one dish: the horizontal slow-roasted cağ kebap with layers of lamb meat and fat cooked slowly in rotation over a flame.

This Beşiktaş restaurant is a family affair, serving home-cooked Turkish cuisine with a twist and run by a brother-sister-mother team. Like a typical Turkish lokanta (a cafeteria-style restaurant, usually for workers), the food is prepared ahead of time, and you can choose many options to fill your plate.

The Ottoman motifs seem a bit touristy, but the place is done up nicely, in the peaceful, open-air courtyard of an old house, shaded by a towering grapefruit tree. Eski Ev ("old house" in Turkish) serves a wide selection of Turkish meze and main dishes, including some nice choices for vegetarians. The restaurant's specialty is a delicious concoction of lamb, vegetables, and rice, served on a copper dish with its own tiny flame beneath. 

From late-night soup to early morning breakfasts, pide to full plates of grilled kebabs and döner kebabs, everything here is served fast and efficiently in a very clean restaurant that's popular with local families and all age groups. No alcohol is served. It's open 24 hours in summer, and late hours into winter.