7-Day Turkey
Itinerary

Kebab

Turkey's most internationally replicated food in its most authentic form — the Adana kebab: a long cylinder of hand-minced fatty lamb tail, red bell pepper and red chilli wrapped tightly around a flat sword skewer and grilled over charcoal; the İskender kebab (Bursa) layers doner meat over pide bread and floods it with tomato sauce and browned butter; the döner is not Turkish street food's finest expression but its most exported one.

Börek

Turkey's great filled pastry — yufka dough layered with white cheese, spinach and egg (su böreği, water börek), or meat and onion (kıymalı), baked or fried until golden; the su böreği technique involves boiling the yufka layers first then layering them in a tray with filling and butter; the result is a soft, creamy interior within a crisp exterior; eaten at every Turkish breakfast and bakery counter.

Lahmacun

Turkey's greatest flatbread — a paper-thin round of dough topped with a paste of finely minced lamb, onion, tomato, red pepper, parsley and sumac, baked in a wood-fired oven for 90 seconds until the edges char and the topping caramelises; rolled up with parsley, sliced tomato and a squeeze of lemon; eaten immediately from the oven; the Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa versions are the most intense.

Meze

Turkish civilisation's greatest expression of hospitality — an array of cold small dishes that precede every formal meal: haydari (strained yoghurt with dill and garlic), acılı ezme (spiced tomato and walnut paste), patlıcan salatası (smoky roasted aubergine), midye dolma (mussels stuffed with saffron rice), tarama (cured roe cream), arnavut ciğeri (fried liver with onion and sumac); eaten with rakı and never rushed.

Simit

Istanbul's most consumed food — a circular bread ring encrusted with sesame seeds after being dipped in molasses water before baking, giving a glossy, mahogany crust that shatters and a soft, chewy crumb; sold from red simit carts at every Istanbul street corner; 500 million consumed annually in Turkey; the mandatory breakfast companion to Turkish tea and white cheese.

Baklava

Gaziantep's most precious export and the world's most debated pastry — 40 layers of hand-rolled yufka dough (each stretched until a newspaper can be read through it), layered with raw pistachios from Gaziantep's orchards, baked until golden and soaked in a sugar syrup at precisely the moment it exits the oven; the ratio of syrup to nut to pastry is each baklava master's jealously held secret; Gaziantep baklava holds EU Protected Geographical Status.

Turkish Breakfast (Kahvaltı)

Turkey's greatest daily ritual — a spread of white cheese (beyaz peynir), kaşar cheese, black and green olives, sliced tomato, cucumber, honeycomb, clotted cream (kaymak), sujuk (spiced dried sausage), sucuk eggs, several jams, butter, fresh bread (simit, poğaça) and two glasses of Turkish tea; the Van breakfast in eastern Turkey adds 50+ items; a meal that takes two hours and is never rushed.