Food & Cuisine

People come to Turkey for the history. They come back for the food. There’s a reason Anthony Bourdain called Istanbul “one of the greatest food cities in the world” and having lived and eaten here myself, I can say the same with full confidence. Turkish cuisine has been ranked alongside French and Chinese cooking as one of the three great culinary traditions on earth, and the moment you pull apart your first İskender Kebab or bite into a fresh Gaziantep baklava, you understand exactly why.

UNESCO didn’t just recognise Turkish coffee as a cultural heritage for nothing. And then there’s the Turkish breakfast, a spread so generous, so unhurried, so full of little plates of cheese and olives and honey and eggs that most visitors genuinely don’t eat again until dinner. It’s that kind of food culture where even a 50-cent sesame bread ring from a street cart makes you stop, take a bite, and think about it long after you’ve left Turkey. Every meal here carries 600 years of Ottoman history in it, every region has its own version of a dish it’s fiercely proud of, and the Turks will feed you like you’re family whether you’ve known them for five years or five minutes.

Everything in this section is something you should genuinely eat while you’re here. Not the tourist-menu versions, not the ones that look good on Instagram and taste like a disappointment. The real ones, from the right places, eaten the right way. These guides will show you exactly what to order, where to find it, and how to recreate the dishes you fell in love with long after you’re back home.