62 Best Restaurants in Turkey

Excellent coffees, detox juices, herbal teas, croissants or healthy sour-bread breakfasts, vegan dishes, German-style baked cakes, cookies, and desserts are served in this bright yellow corner cafe on the traffic road leading away from the Bodrum Marina. A breakfast Bellini is possible, as it is licensed for alcohol service. The team also creates the Munchbox takeout or delivery boxes of savory or sweet platter nibbles.

Don’t be put off by the entry through a narrow passageway: follow it and it opens up into a cheery, sophisticated café-style dining area that's airy and filled with plants. The family-owned restaurant near Hadrian's Gate serves up tasty home-cooking, and is a great-value option with a small menu focused on meatballs and other grills, traditional Antalya-style bean salad, and meat- or potato-filled mantı (dumplings).

A homey, peaceful retreat on the southern edge of the old city serves great coffee, fruit smoothies, homemade American cakes, and home-cooked lunches that include both Turkish and Asian dishes. Part of the St. Paul Cultural Center, it's one of the rare inexpensive eateries in central Antalya with distinctive and high-quality food. There's a library of exchange books on-site, as well as a gift shop with some lovely and unusual offerings (notably traditional jewelry from eastern Turkey) and a garden so quiet it's hard to believe you're so close to Kaleiçi's main drag.

Every Turkish village has a fırın: a tasty, unpretentious bakery that churns out a daily bounty of smooth puddings, flaky pastries, fresh bread, and sweets. The amazing thing about this one is that it's survived in the heart of touristy Kaleiçi—and with reasonable prices, and friendly service. Options include spicy spinach börek and incirli cevizli muhallebisi, a delectable milk pudding flavored with local figs and walnuts.

This charming, family-run restaurant is all dark wood and nostalgia, and is said to have been serving the same dishes since 1856. The specialty is buttery rice with either slow-cooked lamb or kuru fasülye (white beans in a tomato sauce). Accompany your meal with a frothy ayran (salty yogurt drink) or another house speciality: a sweet, refreshing drink made from sun-dried apricots.

This very popular bakery in hip Alsancak serves up probably the broadest selection you’ll find of boyoz, a round flaky pastry with Sephardic roots that’s these days almost unique to İzmir. Get yours savory or sweet, or perhaps with a hard-boiled egg on the side in traditional style. Go early for the best selection, and you might even get a gevriği, the İzmir version of the Turkish circular simit.

This restaurant with exposed brick walls in the popular Tünel area of Beyoğlu offers specialties of Turkey's Arab-influenced southeastern Hatay province. The menu includes a variety of meze and kebabs with intense flavors and served with Antiochia's uncommonly tasty chile pepper–rubbed flatbread.

This charming outdoor café and restaurant is just a five-minute walk from the Priene ruins and features a shaded, leafy atmosphere with gazebos and picnic tables. The menu consists of classic Turkish staples and the specialty is gözleme: savory crepes stuffed with either potato, spinach, or cheese.

There's no menu at this friendly, family-run spot in Behramkale's tiny main square: Just pick from the selection of mezes on display (don't miss the crunchy, garlicky greens called deniz börülcesi), and let one of the waiters tell you which meat dishes are available that day. The covered terrace looks over the village and down to the sea—it's a wonderful spot to watch the sun set—while a few seats out front let you watch the comings and goings on the square. Alcohol is served.

Ata is a down-to-earth, traditional Turkish restaurant in often tourist-oriented Kalkan, and known for its tender, flavorful kebabs. The menu also includes pide cooked in a wood oven and the classic array of mezes, salads, and hot starters. The casual seating is on a patio overlooking the main road into town.

Hearty traditional Turkish soups, stews, and meat and vegetable dishes are arrayed buffet-style at this cheery lokanta (a casual home-style eatery), which is always bustling at lunchtime. At the top of Alaçatı village near the minibus stop, it offers a reasonably priced and reliable alternative to the increasingly expensive fare found farther into town.

Fresh-grilled fish with raw onions encased in a lightly grilled, oily wrap is the perfect lunch-to-go, and while the seaside is dotted with many balık dürüm (fish wrap) vendors, this small storefront on a Karaköy side street is the best of the bunch.

Alongside a 16th-century hammam in downtown Bergama, this casual room serves around 20 dishes—stews, casseroles, grilled meats, and soups (fewer options are available at dinnertime). Try the kadın budu köfte (ground meat mixed with rice and parsley and lightly fried in egg batter) and the kemalpaşa, a traditional sweet served with kaymak (clotted cream) and tahini, for dessert. No alcohol is served. Restrooms are outside.

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.

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.

"Chill" is the perfect word to describe this relaxed spot. Popular with locals, its tables are mostly set out in the prime open area, toward the southern end of the beach. The food ranges from snacks to grilled meat, seafood, and pasta. In the evening, Chill evolves into a bar and the closest thing Adrasan has to a disco.

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

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 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.

No trip to Antakya is complete without eating künefe, a rich dessert with thinly soft cheese in between layers of pastry, baked in an oven and topped with sugar syrup. A row of shops selling the local sweet line the road in between the bridge into the old town and the beginning of the Uzun Çarşı. Ferah, in business since 1948, is a deservedly popular favorite.

Squeezed into a former market stall in the heart of the Grand Bazaar, the small kitchen at Fes Café turns out simple sandwiches, salads, excellent fresh lemonade and fruit juices, homemade desserts, and other American-style fare. The fuller menu includes salads, pastas, and meat dishes.

In the heart of Ayvalık, just north of Saatli Cami, this eatery serves up filling lunches to hardworking street traders; it's tiny but almost always full, so you may have to share one of the dozen or so tables. The Turkish home cooking—rice, beans, eggplant with minced meat, and lamb stew—is delicious, making this the perfect place for lunch when wandering the historic part of the town. A red 1970s rotary telephone adds some character.

Cheery and bright, this casual, two-floor eatery near the ferry dock serves delicious pide (Turkish pizza), topped with minced meat, sausage, cheese, or any combination of them. There's also a wide variety of kebabs, döner, and other grilled meats, as well as the thin flatbread lahmacun, topped with minced meat, and a couple of traditional desserts.

The specialty of the house at this simple eatery on the boardwalk in Türkbükü is large, rather greasy portions of çiğ böreği, a Crimean dish brought to Turkey that consists of flat, fried pastry stuffed with ground beef, onion, and spices. One of the few unpretentious (and relatively inexpensive) places left on the Türkbükü shoreline, this place has a beach-hut vibe, its own little patch of sand, and a family clientele.

Little-consumed most other places in Turkey, hummus is a mainstay of the Antakya diet, and the old town is full of tiny, no-frills shops serving up little else, often as a filling breakfast. Jolly İbrahim, a hummus “usta” (master), who learned his trade in Lebanon, makes everything from scratch—even grinding the sesame seeds for his own tahini. Orders come with pillowy bread and an array of spicy peppers and pickles.