Turkish Food and Drink: What to Eat in Antalya and Beyond

Antalya's strongest eating splits into three evenings: a meyhane meze spread in Kaleiçi, seafood over the harbour, and a smart dinner in a restored Ottoman mansion. This guide picks named kitchens across the old town and beyond, with the dishes worth ordering at each.

Alanya's fish market is a buy-then-cook affair: pick your fish from local vendors, then have it grilled simply at a nearby restaurant. Here is how the market side and the Tuesday produce bazaar work, how it is laid out towards Mahmutlar, and what to order.

A Turkish breakfast in Antalya is a spread rather than a plate: cheeses, olives, bread, honey with kaymak, tomatoes, cucumbers and endless çay. Here is what serpme kahvaltı and köy kahvaltısı mean, which neighbourhoods suit a slow morning, and how to order eggs and reach it all by tram, bus or taxi.

Antalya has its own dishes: piyaz with şiş köfte, hibeş, pumpkin dessert with tahini, burnt ice cream and watermelon-rind jam. This guide explains what each one is, where you find it in the city and how to order at a lokanta, pide salonu or market stall.

Antalya's street food runs from sesame simit at breakfast to grilled kokoreç later in the day, with mussels sold by the shell near the harbour and burnt ice cream made from goat's milk. Here is what to look for, which streets and market areas to walk, and how to check what each snack costs.

Bodrum packs starred kitchens, Bib Gourmand addresses and plain tradesman lokantas onto one peninsula. Pick your meal by area: the centre for meyhanes and fish, Bitez for value cooking, Yalıkavak for the marquee tables.

A Bodrum breakfast can mean a long, shared Turkish spread, a bay-side hotel table or a village kahvaltısı in the hills. Here is what is served, how long it takes and how to choose the right morning for you.

Bodrum food means Aegean meze, grilled fish and Turkish classics eaten between the bazaar, the harbour and Yalıkavak Marina. This guide explains the dishes, how a meze table is built, how fish is priced by weight, and why the peninsula has an expensive reputation.

Bodrum street food is a short list of quick eats and a longer list of local dishes that need a table, from vegetable döner on Barlar Street to köfte on Neyzen Tevfik Street and the weekly food bazaar by the minibus station.

Gümbet packs bay-front fish tables, ocakbaşı kebab houses and holidaymaker-friendly menus into one compact resort bay. This guide sorts the restaurants by occasion, explains the Aegean meze-and-fish way of ordering, and sets the bay against eating in Bodrum town.

Dalyan eats best beside water and under rock tombs. This guide sorts the town's restaurants by what your table looks at, names the local dishes worth ordering, and flags the one option that needs a short drive.

Fethiye eats best around the harbour and the fish market, with Anatolian meze, kebabs and lamb tandır a short dolmuş ride south in Kayaköy. This guide sorts the town's restaurants by area and by dish, from grilled fish and Iskender kebab to Hatay meze, café brunch, market street food and dessert.

A Fethiye breakfast is a long, unhurried spread of small plates, cheeses, breads, jams, olives and eggs, and it usually carries you past lunch. Here is what turns up on the table, how the refills work, and which cafés and village spots are worth planning around.

The Fethiye fish market is a central square of fish stalls ringed by restaurants that clean and grill whatever you buy. You pick the fish, tell the fishmonger which table you're taking, and the kitchen does the rest. This guide covers the handover step by step, how to find the entrance off Atatürk Caddesi, and the fruit and vegetable market next door.

Fethiye food is Aegean cooking with a Mediterranean fish habit: olive-oil herb plates, Fethiye meatballs, keşkek, daily sea bass and bream, and street snacks from gözleme to stuffed mussels. This guide covers the dishes worth ordering, where in town and around Ölüdeniz and Hisarönü to eat them, and how to read the bill.

Fethiye street food is built around a handful of quick eats: gözleme and katmer from market griddles, kumru sandwiches, stuffed mussels and the lokum and nut stalls of the bazaar. The Tuesday market gathers most of it in one place, with a row of pancake stalls beside the canal.

Hisaronu is a small resort village between Fethiye and Ölüdeniz, with restaurants along its main street. Here are the names local listings give, the Turkish dishes to order, the Monday market, and how to eat out in Fethiye or Ölüdeniz instead.

Our guide to eating in İçmeler picks out Turkish breakfast spreads, meze and tapas plates, seafood and steak, and a waterfall-side table, plus Marmaris and Turunç alternatives and how the resort centre fits together.

Kalkan dinner is a meze-and-grill affair eaten slowly on a terrace above the water. These are the Kalkan restaurants worth booking, from a meze terrace with sea views to a Mediterranean table with its own stone cellar, plus the casual lunch stops that fill a day in the old town.

A meal-by-meal pick of places to eat in Ölüdeniz, from mixed village breakfasts at Angora Restaurant and Narlıbahçe to pide at Kumsal, seafood at Buzz Beach Bar and kebab in Fethiye.

Eating in Side splits between the old-town peninsula and harbour, where you get sea views and a slower evening, and the resort strip, which is easier to reach from the big hotels. Here are the named places worth planning around, what they serve, and how to book.

Turkish food runs from sesame-crusted simit bought off a cart to a sealed clay pot cracked open at the table. This guide takes the dishes in the order you meet them on a Turkish holiday, explains what is inside each one, and translates the menu words that matter.

Künefe is fine kadayıf strands packed around unsalted, stretchy cheese, baked or fried until golden, then drenched in cooled lemon syrup. It arrives hot, cut into portions and often scattered with pistachio. Here is what goes into it, the cheeses to ask for, and how the Turkish version differs from Levantine knafeh.

Lahmacun is a paper-thin round of dough spread with a thin layer of spiced minced meat and baked fast, then rolled with parsley, onion and lemon. It is everyday Turkish food rather than a special occasion, and this guide covers what goes into it, how to eat it properly, how it compares with pide, and what to order alongside.

Manti are tiny filled dumplings at the centre of a three-part plate: garlic yoghurt, browned butter and a red pepper sauce. Here is how they are made, cooked and served across Turkey, plus the shortcut version cooks use when nobody has time to fold.

Menemen is Turkey's tomatoey scrambled egg dish, made with green peppers, ripe tomatoes and eggs stirred into the pan. It is a breakfast and brunch staple, often cooked in a copper pan and eaten with crusty bread, with optional white cheese and garlic yogurt on the side.

Pide is an oval, leavened Turkish flatbread baked with toppings or sealed around a filling, and it turns up everywhere from village bakeries to late-night shops. Here is how it is made, what the menu words mean, and how it differs from lahmacun and pizza.

Rakı is a clear, anise-flavoured spirit distilled from grapes or raisins, drunk diluted with chilled water until it clouds into the milky white Turks call lion's milk. This guide covers what is in the glass, the two-kadeh set-up, what to order alongside at a meyhane and how Turkish rakı differs from ouzo and tsipouro.

Simit is a ring of chewy bread rolled in sesame seeds and sold on streets and in bakeries across Turkey. It is breakfast with çay, cucumber, tomato, feta and olives, and a snack at any hour. This guide covers what goes into it, why the crust is nutty and faintly sweet, how it differs from a bagel, and the filled versions sold at Simit Houses.

Kahvaltı is a shared table of small plates, not a single dish: bread, white cheese, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, jam, honey and kaymak, with an egg dish and endless tea. Here is what arrives, how to order it, and when to choose a bakery breakfast instead.

Turkish coffee is a method, not a bean: coffee ground to flour fineness, simmered in a small copper pot and poured without filtering. Here is the kit, the four sugar orders to ask for by name, the pour-and-rest sequence and how to drink the cup without swallowing the grounds.

Turkish delight is lokum, a starch-and-sugar sweet chewed slowly and sold in flavours from rose to pistachio. This guide covers how it is made, how plain, nut-studded and rolled types differ, what UK tins cost against buying by weight in Turkey, and how to get a box home intact.

Turkish desserts run from syrup-soaked baklava and hot künefe to milk puddings, fried street rings and stretched pişmaniye. Here is what each one is made from, how it reaches your table, and how to order two or three without everything tasting the same.

Turkish tea is strong black tea brewed in a double pot, then diluted to taste in a small tulip glass. Here is how it is made, how it differs from an English cup, where apple tea fits in, and which Turkish brands you can buy at home.