What to eat in Istanbul: 20 local dishes and where to try them

Understanding Istanbul's food

Istanbul's cuisine is not a regional cuisine like any other: as the capital of an empire for nearly five centuries, the city drew cooks and produce from the whole Ottoman world. Today you will find three main kinds of places to eat:

• street food, sold from carts, counters or boats: simit, balık ekmek, stuffed mussels, kokoreç, and grilled corn and chestnuts in winter;
• lokanta, restaurants serving everyday cooking, and in particular the esnaf lokantası, canteens for craftsmen and shopkeepers, where stews wait in the display window;
• specialist places that do only one thing: the köfteci (meatballs), the kebapçı (grills), the pideci (oven-baked flatbreads), the muhallebici (milk puddings), the meyhane (meze tavern) or the baklava shop.

Bread comes with every meal, served without limit, and black tea ends almost all of them. During Ramadan, many places change their meal times: our page on Ramadan in Istanbul explains iftar, the meal that breaks the fast.

Breakfast and morning snacks

1. Kahvaltı, the Turkish breakfast

The Turkish breakfast is a meal in its own right: salty white cheese (beyaz peynir) and kaşar, black and green olives, tomatoes and cucumbers, honey and kaymak (clotted cream), jams, eggs, and unlimited bread and tea. The "serpme kahvaltı" covers the table with some twenty small plates to share. In Beşiktaş, a whole street is devoted to it, Kahvaltıcılar Sokağı ("Breakfast Street"), around Çelebi Oğlu and Şair Veysi streets: some thirty cafés serve kahvaltı until mid-afternoon, with crowds of locals at weekends. The Bosphorus villages, such as Rumelihisarı or Çengelköy, are the other classic setting for a Sunday breakfast by the water.

2. Simit

A ring of bread dipped in grape molasses and then rolled in sesame, the simit is sold from red carts all over the city, from dawn until evening. Eat it as it is while walking, or with a piece of cheese and a tea. It is the cheapest breakfast in Istanbul: its regulated price went up from 25 TL to 30 TL on 26 September 2026.

3. Menemen

Eggs scrambled in a small pan with tomatoes, green peppers and, depending on taste, onion: menemen arrives at the table still sizzling, and you eat it by dipping in your bread. The onion question, with or without, has always divided Turks. It is part of almost every breakfast served in cafés.

4. Börek

Thin sheets of pastry (yufka) layered and filled with cheese, spinach, minced meat or potatoes, börek is sold by weight in börekçi, open from early morning. Su böreği, with its sheets boiled before baking, is the softest; kol böreği is rolled into a spiral. Have it with a tea or an ayran.

Istanbul street food

5. Balık ekmek

The grilled fish sandwich (often mackerel), served in half a loaf with lettuce, onion and lemon, is the signature snack of Eminönü. Decorated boats moored at the quay next to the Galata Bridge make it from morning to evening, and you eat it on stools along the quay. The restaurants under the bridge and around the Karaköy pier serve it too. Have it with a glass of fermented turnip juice (şalgam) or pickles (turşu) sold next door.

6. Stuffed mussels (midye dolma)

Mussels filled with spiced rice, currants and pine nuts, served cold with a lemon wedge: the vendors open them in front of you and count them by the piece. You will find them mainly in the evening and at night in Beyoğlu, around İstiklal Avenue, and in Kadıköy. Buy them from a vendor whose stall sells fast, especially in summer.

7. Kokoreç

Lamb intestines wrapped around a skewer, grilled over a wood fire, then chopped on the hotplate with tomatoes, chilli and oregano and served in half a loaf: kokoreç is the late-night snack par excellence. The counters are easy to spot thanks to the long horizontal skewer turning in the window, in Beyoğlu, Kadıköy or Beşiktaş.

8. Döner and dürüm

Meat stacked on a vertical spit and sliced with a knife (döner) comes in bread, in a rolled flatbread (dürüm) or on a plate with rice. The Adana dürüm, with spicy minced meat grilled on a skewer, is its cousin. Choose a counter where the spit is already cut into and prices are displayed.

9. Kumpir

A large baked potato, split open and mashed with butter and cheese, then topped as you like with corn, olives, sausage, red cabbage or Russian salad: kumpir is the speciality of the row of stalls in Ortaköy, at the foot of the Ortaköy Mosque, to be eaten facing the Bosphorus.

Main dishes

10. Köfte

Grilled meatballs are the speciality of dozens of köfteci. The most famous are those of Tarihi Sultanahmet Köftecisi Selim Usta, at 12 Divanyolu Avenue in Sultanahmet, open since 1920 and run by the founder's family: köfte, white bean salad (piyaz) and lentil soup. Several neighbouring places have similar names; the original shows "Selim Usta" on its sign.

11. Lahmacun and pide

Lahmacun is a very thin flatbread topped with minced meat, tomato and spices, baked in a wood oven, which you garnish with parsley and lemon before rolling it up. Pide, thicker, is boat-shaped and topped with cheese, meat or egg. You will find them in the pideci and lahmacuncu of every district, often with an ayran.

12. İskender kebap

Thin slices of döner laid on cubes of bread, covered with tomato sauce and melted butter, served with yoghurt: İskender comes from Bursa, where it was invented in the 19th century, but you can order it in any kebapçı in Istanbul. To taste it in its home town, see our page on the day trip to Bursa from Istanbul.

13. Mantı

Tiny meat dumplings served under a garlic yoghurt sauce and a red chilli butter: mantı are a speciality of Kayseri, in central Anatolia, and very common in Istanbul's home-cooking restaurants.

14. Meze

In the meyhane, Istanbul's taverns, the meal begins with a tray of cold meze that the waiter brings to the table: haydari (thick yoghurt with garlic and herbs), ezme (spicy tomato and pepper relish), aubergines, stuffed vine leaves, purslane salad, then hot meze such as calamari or cheese börek. Then comes fish or grilled meat, with rakı, the Turkish aniseed spirit diluted with water. The meyhane are concentrated in Beyoğlu, around Nevizade and Asmalımescit, and in Kadıköy; our guide Istanbul by night covers them in more detail. Fish is sold by weight: ask the price before ordering.

15. Lokanta dishes

At lunchtime the esnaf lokantası display their dishes of the day in the window: white beans in tomato sauce (kuru fasulye) with rice pilaf, stews, stuffed vegetables, vegetables cooked in olive oil (zeytinyağlı), soups. Point to what you want and pay by the plate. Three historic addresses:

• Hacı Abdullah, at 9/A Atıf Yılmaz Street in Beyoğlu, near İstiklal Avenue: founded in 1888 and considered the first registered restaurant in the country, it serves cooking inherited from the Ottoman palace;
• Kanaat Lokantası, in Üsküdar, opened in 1933 and run by the same family since 1961, for its home cooking and puddings; it is a few minutes from the Üsküdar pier;
• Çiya Sofrası, at 43 Güneşlibahçe Street, in the heart of the Kadıköy market, opened in 1998 by chef Musa Dağdeviren, who serves regional recipes from all over Turkey, some of them forgotten.

In the Spice Bazaar, Pandeli restaurant, opened in 1901 and known for its rooms covered in blue tiles, also serves traditional Istanbul cooking.

Sweets

16. Baklava

Very thin sheets of pastry, clarified butter, pistachios or walnuts, syrup: baklava is sold by weight or by the portion in specialist pastry shops. The pistachio comes from Gaziantep, in the south-east of the country, where the great baklava houses come from. Karaköy Güllüoğlu opened its first shop in Karaköy in 1949, the first outside Gaziantep according to the family. Hafız Mustafa 1864, founded in 1864, with shops in Sirkeci, Sultanahmet and Taksim, also sells baklava, lokum and puddings. Baklava is eaten with a tea or a Turkish coffee, and travels home in metal tins.

17. Künefe

Crisp shredded pastry (kadayıf) around a melting fresh cheese, soaked in syrup and sprinkled with pistachio, served hot: künefe comes from the Hatay region, near the Syrian border, and is ordered at the end of a meal in kebapçı.

18. Lokum

Turkish delight comes flavoured with rose, pistachio, hazelnut or pomegranate. The Hacı Bekir house, founded in 1777 in Bahçekapı, near Eminönü, and confectioner to the Ottoman court in the 19th century, still sells it in its original shop. The shops of the Spice Bazaar sell it by weight: taste before choosing and ask the price per kilo before it is weighed.

19. Maraş ice cream and milk puddings

Maraş ice cream (dondurma), thickened with salep and mastic, is so elastic that it is cut with a knife; vendors in costume like to snatch it from customers' hands at the last moment. The muhallebici serve milk puddings: baked rice pudding (fırın sütlaç), tavuk göğsü (a pudding made with shredded chicken breast, a curiosity of the Ottoman palace) and kazandibi, its caramelised version.

Drinks

20. Tea, Turkish coffee and winter drinks

Çay, black tea from the Rize region served in small tulip-shaped glasses, is drunk at any time of day, offered by shopkeepers and delivered on trays in the bazaars. Turkish coffee, inscribed on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage in 2013, is boiled with its grounds in a small pot (cezve) and served with a glass of water and often a piece of Turkish delight; say how much sugar you want when ordering (sade, no sugar; orta, medium; şekerli, sweet). On Tahmis Street, at the west exit of the Spice Bazaar, Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi has been roasting and grinding coffee since 1871.

Other drinks worth knowing:

• ayran, yoghurt whisked with water and salt, the companion of grilled meat;
• boza, a thick, slightly sour drink of fermented millet, served in winter with cinnamon and roasted chickpeas; Vefa Bozacısı, in the Vefa district near the Süleymaniye Mosque, has served it since 1876;
• salep, hot milk thickened with powdered orchid tuber, another winter drink;
• rakı, the aniseed spirit drunk with meze.

Summary: 20 dishes and where to try them

Prices checked in October 2026 (simit); restaurants set their own prices and change them often.

Tips for eating well in Istanbul

• Ask for the menu with prices before sitting down, especially in fish restaurants and on the terraces facing the Sultanahmet monuments: fish is sold by weight, and meze brought on a tray are charged per plate.
• Leave the most touristy streets: a few streets away from the monuments, or across the Golden Horn, prices drop noticeably. Our guide Istanbul travel budget explains how to eat for little.
• Eat lunch in a lokanta: it is the cheapest way to have a proper hot meal, and the dishes are fresher at the start of service.
• Tipping is expected in restaurants when service is not included; the customs are explained in our guide money, payment and tipping in Istanbul.
• Be wary of invitations for a drink from strangers in Beyoğlu or Sultanahmet: the bar scam is described in our guide scams and safety in Istanbul.

Further reading

The Kadıköy market is the best place in the city to grab a bite and buy fresh produce: our guide to Kadıköy and Moda takes you there. For spices, Turkish delight and coffee to take home, the Spice Bazaar page gives shopping tips, and our guide to Galata and Karaköy picks up on the other side of the bridge.