Meze: the centre of Turkish dining
Meze is not a starter — it is a meal philosophy. A proper meze table has 8–12 small plates, cold and hot, vegetable and seafood, served all at once or in two waves, eaten slowly over an hour or two with rakı or wine. Must-tries: çiğ köfte (raw bulgur with spices), haydari (strained yogurt with herbs), patlican söğürme (smoked aubergine), levrek marin (sea bass cured), enginar (artichoke in olive oil), hot börek (pastry with cheese).
Turkish breakfast (kahvaltı)
The Turkish breakfast is the country's secret cultural treasure. A weekend kahvaltı runs to 15–25 small plates: cheeses (kaşar, beyaz, eski kaşar), olives (8 varieties), tomato, cucumber, eggs (typically menemen or sahanda), jams (rose, fig, sour cherry), honey-and-clotted-cream (kaymak), borek pastries, simit ring, sausages (sucuk), tea served black in tulip-shaped glasses. Plan to eat one of these on every trip; allow 90 minutes.
Fish on the coast vs meat inland
On the Aegean and Mediterranean coast, eat fish: levrek (sea bass), çipura (sea bream), barbun (red mullet), kalkan (turbot — the Bodrum specialty). Always grilled simply with lemon and olive oil. Inland — Cappadocia, the Anatolian plateau — eat meat: pottery kebab (testi kebabı, a clay pot broken at the table), Adana kebab (long minced lamb skewer), İskender (sliced lamb on bread with yogurt and tomato butter).
Restaurants we send clients to
Istanbul: Asitane (Ottoman court), Mikla (modern), Çiya Sofrasi (regional), Karakoy Lokantası (lunch). Bodrum: Maça Kızı restaurant, Mimoza Gümüşlük (fish on the water), Limon Yalıkavak. Cappadocia: Seten Restaurant in Goreme (regional), Old Greek House in Mustafapaşa (testi kebab in a 1850s mansion). Kalkan: Aubergine on the harbour.
What to avoid
Tap water for drinking — always bottled or filtered. Street meat outside the busy 11–14:00 window in Istanbul (turnover matters for safety). All-inclusive resort buffet food — universally mediocre regardless of resort price tier; eat off-property even if you're booked all-inclusive. Restaurants on the Sultanahmet tram line (the famous tourist trap of Istanbul). Anything sold from a stationary cart on the Bosphorus ferry pier (mussels in particular).