What you eat on a Turkey tour

There are two different questions hiding behind "what do you eat in Turkey". One is which dishes are worth trying. The other, which almost nobody answers, is what you actually eat on a tour: which meals are included, where the free days fall, and how a special diet is handled when a whole group walks into a roadside restaurant at once. This guide answers both, in that order.

Turkish breakfast, the one meal that is always included

Hotel breakfast — kahvaltı — is the only meal included every day on every programme we run. Cheeses, olives, tomato and cucumber, honey with kaymak, eggs, börek, simit and endless black tea. It is generous by custom, and in practice it is why many travellers end up skipping lunch on the long driving days.

Kebab is a family, not a dish

Every region has its own: spicy Adana and mild Urfa, both chargrilled; Bursa's İskender, over bread with tomato sauce and butter; Cappadocia's testi kebab, cooked inside a clay pot cracked open at the table. The street-corner döner is the way in, not the destination.

Meze and the meyhane

The meyhane is Istanbul's classic tavern: dozens of small cold and hot plates shared slowly. It is the most sociable meal in the country and the worst fit for a touring day, because it needs time. It usually works better as a free evening in Istanbul than as a midday stop on a driving day.

In between

Pide, baked dough with cheese or meat; lahmacun, thin and crisp, rolled up with parsley and lemon; mantı, tiny dumplings under yogurt and paprika butter; and balık ekmek, the grilled fish sandwich by the Galata Bridge. All of them are quick, cheap options for a lunch that is not included.

Sweet things and drinks

Pistachio baklava, hot künefe and lokum from the Spice Bazaar. Turkish coffee comes with a glass of water, and black tea is the country's background drink at any hour. Worth knowing: drinks are not included with meals in our programmes, not even in the meals that are included. They are paid for at the restaurant.

Which meals each tour includes

This is what changes from one programme to another, and it is worth checking before booking rather than on the ground:

• Breakfast, on all of them. Every programme carries daily hotel breakfast, and it is the only meal included on all of them.
• Lunch, on none of them. It is not included on any programme, not even on the road days with a meal stop: the stop is made at a restaurant along the route or in the neighbourhood and each passenger pays their own. That is deliberate: Istanbul and Cappadocia have plenty of choice, and an imposed lunch takes away more than it adds.
• Dinner, depending on the programme. Essential Istanbul, five days runs on hotel breakfast and nothing else, which in Istanbul is an advantage. Charms of Turkey, ten days adds five dinners at the hotels outside Istanbul — Ankara, Cappadocia (two), Pamukkale and İzmir or Kuşadası — which are the nights when you arrive late and there is nowhere to choose from.

Each product page lists what is included and what is not, meal by meal.

Special diets: when to tell us, and what to expect

A special diet on an individual trip is settled at the table. In a group walking into a restaurant with a set menu, it is not: it has to have been flagged beforehand. These are the usual cases and how we handle them:

• Vegetarian. The easiest in Turkey. Olive-oil vegetable dishes, meze and pulses make up half the repertoire, and almost no restaurant needs warning.
• Vegan. Needs warning. Yogurt, butter and cheese find their way into many dishes that look vegetable at first glance.
• Gluten free. Always needs warning. Bread comes with almost everything, and cross-contamination is the weak point of a cuisine built on grills and doughs.
• Halal. Most restaurants in the country work with halal meat, but where the requirement is strict we confirm it restaurant by restaurant while the file is being prepared.
• Kosher. Not common outside Istanbul and it needs a specific supplier. We check case by case before confirming the itinerary.
• Allergies. Sent in writing with the passenger list, naming the specific allergen. A severe allergy drives the choice of restaurant, not just the dish.

The moment to say so is when sending the details for the quotation or, at the latest, with the passenger list. What arrives the evening before by message gets attempted, but is no longer guaranteed.

Water and alcohol

On our tours people drink bottled water, which is what every restaurant, hotel and roadside stop in the country stocks. Alcohol is served normally in licensed restaurants and hotels; outside the tourist areas, and in a number of inland and eastern cities, plenty of places do not serve it at all, and on an Anatolian tour that is noticeable.

Frequently asked questions

Are there enough vegetarian options?

Yes. Olive-oil vegetable dishes, meze and pulses are half of the Turkish repertoire and appear on any menu.

Do you tip?

In restaurants it is usual to leave 5 to 10 per cent when service is not already on the bill.

Are drinks included with the included meals?

No. In all of our programmes drinks are explicitly listed as not included, including at the meals that are.

How far ahead should a special diet be notified?

As early as possible, and always in writing. Ideally when requesting the quotation; acceptably, with the passenger list. The later it arrives, the less room there is to choose the right restaurant on the road.

Where you eat best on our tours

The days with the most free time to eat independently are the Istanbul days, and the five-day stay leaves the most room for that. If the priority is tasting different regional kitchens, the fifteen-day grand journey crosses the Aegean, the south-east and the Black Sea, which cook in very different ways. And the Istanbul and Southeast Anatolia tour takes in Gaziantep, the city of baklava and one of the best-known kitchens in Turkey.

When the cooking is the reason for the trip rather than a chapter of the programme, the format changes: markets, regional kitchens and visits arranged around the table, as set out under culinary tours of Turkey. For a proposal with the meal plan fixed, request the quotation stating traveller numbers and the group's dietary requirements.