Eskisehir Food Guide: What and Where to Eat

By All Over InformationUpdated August 10, 20267 min read

Eskisehir is a food city disguised as a university town. Its Crimean Tatar heritage gave it one of Turkey’s great street foods, its position on the Anatolian trade routes stocked it with regional classics, and its student population keeps the prices honest and the quality high. This guide takes you through the dishes that define the city, where to find them, and the rituals that surround them, from the first simit of the morning to the last glass of tea at night.

The Signature Dish: Cig Borek

Start with the dish that carries the city’s name across Turkey. Cig borek is a crescent of paper-thin pastry, folded around spiced minced meat, and fried in oil until it puffs and blisters. The Crimean Tatar community brought the recipe to the region, and Eskisehir has made it its own.

The art is in the details: the dough must be thin enough to show the filling, the meat must be seasoned but not fiery, and the oil must be fresh and hot. The best shops fry each piece to order, and the eating is immediate, hot, and slightly dangerous to the tongue.

Order two or three pieces with ayran, and add a plate of pickles if the shop offers them. The combination of crisp pastry, cold yogurt drink, and sharp vinegar is the city’s most perfect meal, and it costs almost nothing. Watch the counter for a minute before ordering: the regulars’ orders, and the rhythm of the frying, tell you everything about the house style.

Balaban Kebab: The Local Grill Classic

Ask a local for the one dish that says Eskisehir, and many will answer balaban kebab. This is a grill dish with a twist: tender pieces of meat, cooked over charcoal and served in a rich tomato sauce, crowned with pieces of crisp pide that soak up the juices.

It is a restaurant dish rather than a street one, served in the kebab houses that have fed the city for generations. The sauce, the charred meat, and the bread combine into something far more satisfying than the sum of its parts.

Order it for a proper dinner, with a salad and a cold drink, and share if the appetite allows. Balaban kebab is the dish that explains why Eskisehir’s grill houses have lines outside them on every weekend.

Eskisehir, Turkey — Photo by hulkiokantabak on Pixabay

Met Helvasi and the Sweets of Odunpazari

The old town’s sweet shops are a museum of Turkish confectionery, and the exhibit to seek out is met helvasi. This dense halva is made from flour, sugar, and butter, cooked slowly until it turns golden and crumbly. It is entirely different from the sesame-based tahini halva of other regions.

The sweet shops of Odunpazari stack it in trays alongside lokum, candied fruits, and layered pastries, and most let you taste before buying. It crumbles in the hand, melts on the tongue, and pairs gloriously with strong Turkish tea.

Buy a box for the road, because it keeps well and travels beautifully. Met helvasi is the souvenir that locals actually buy for each other, which is the highest compliment a sweet can earn.

Lokanta Culture: Daily Home Cooking

The backbone of daily eating in Eskisehir is the lokanta, the neighborhood restaurant that serves home-style cooking from trays behind a glass counter. The lineup changes daily: bean stews, stuffed vegetables, braised meat, rice, and a dozen vegetable dishes in olive oil.

The system is simple and honest. You point, the cook serves, and you pay by the portion. Add bread, a salad, and ayran, and you have eaten the way Turkish families eat at home, for less than the price of a fast-food meal.

The best lokantas are busy at one o’clock with a regular crowd, because regulars are the harshest and most loyal critics. Follow them, eat the daily specials, and you will eat well every single day of your trip. The etiquette is simple: find a table or a place at the counter, order tea if you are waiting, and let the rhythm of the room carry you.

Pide and the Breads of the City

The pide ovens of Eskisehir bake the boat-shaped flatbread that Anatolia loves, and the local versions are excellent. The dough is stretched by hand, topped with cheese, minced meat, or egg, and baked in a stone oven until the edges blister.

Pide is a lunch food, eaten hot and shared, and the ovens run at full speed between noon and two. A cheese and meat pide with a salad makes a complete meal, and the price is gentle enough to make it a daily habit.

Beyond pide, the city’s bakeries turn out the daily bread, the sesame simit rings, and the flaky pastries of the morning. At the larger bakeries you can also watch the bakers at work through open doors, and the early hours are the best time to see the ovens at full fire. Follow the smell of fresh bread in the early hours, and you will find the neighborhood bakery that anchors each district.

Street Food: Simit, Corn, and More

The streets of Eskisehir feed you on the move. Simit, the sesame-covered bread ring, is the morning staple, sold from carts and shops with tea alongside. Roasted corn and chestnuts appear by the river in the cooler months, and the smell of charcoal marks the grills of the evening.

The student quarter adds its own street layer: stuffed sandwiches, fried snacks, and the sweet pastries that fuel late-night study sessions. Prices are set for student budgets, which makes grazing the cheapest entertainment in the city.

The street food rule is simple: buy where the queue is. A line outside a cart means fresh stock and a reputation, and the wait is always short.

Where to Eat by Area

The city divides naturally for eating. The old town of Odunpazari holds the sweet shops, the terrace cafes, and the atmospheric restaurants in restored houses, and it is the place for a lingering meal with a view.

The riverfront is the evening stage: restaurants and tea gardens line the water, and the terraces fill with families and students as the light fades. The university quarter is the daytime power player, with the cheapest food and the trendiest cafes.

The Hamamyolu and the center streets hold the everyday classics, the kebab houses, the pide ovens, and the lokantas that have fed the city for decades. Move between the three and you will eat the city whole. A full circuit takes a single day on foot or tram, and it is the fastest possible introduction to the range of the local table.

Drinking: Tea, Coffee, and Ayran

Tea is the city’s default drink, served in the tulip-shaped glass that accompanies every conversation. The tea gardens by the river and in the old town pour it all day, and the ritual of refills and backgammon is the city’s most durable institution.

Coffee has joined tea in recent decades, and the university quarter is full of serious espresso bars alongside the traditional Turkish coffee houses. Both are worth your time: the old for the ceremony, the new for the craft.

Ayran, the salted yogurt drink, is the foodie’s best friend, cutting through fried pastry and kebab alike. Drink it cold with anything crispy, and your palate will thank you.

Seasonal Eating in Eskisehir

The food calendar follows the seasons. Spring brings the first greens to the lokanta trays and the markets, while summer means cold soups, yogurt dishes, and long evenings of tea by the river. Autumn adds roasted chestnuts and the first heavier stews.

Winter is the serious eating season: soups and stews, hot pide from the ovens, and the sweet shops at their busiest before the holidays. It is also the season of the city’s warming street snacks, when the chestnut and corn vendors by the river do their best trade of the year. The tea gardens stay open, and the cold weather makes every warm meal taste twice as good.

Whenever you visit, eat with the season and you will eat well. The markets, the bakeries, and the lokantas all follow the same calendar, and they are never wrong.

The Foodie’s Day: A Sample Route

If you want one perfect food day, follow this route. Start with simit and tea from a street cart near the river, then climb to Odunpazari for a coffee on a terrace and a tasting tour of the sweet shops before the crowds arrive.

Lunch at a lokanta in the center, eating whatever the daily trays offer. In the afternoon, take the tram toward the university and graze the student quarter, then return to the river for a late-afternoon tea garden session.

Dinner is balaban kebab at a grill house, followed by a last stroll across the bridges and a piece of met helvasi from a shop that closes late. Eat slowly, drink often, and you will understand the city completely.

Frequently asked questions

What is Eskisehir’s most famous food?

Cig borek, the fried crescent pastry filled with spiced minced meat, is the city’s signature dish, a legacy of its Crimean Tatar community. Met helvasi, the flour-based halva of the old town, is its most famous sweet, and balaban kebab its local grill classic.

Where do foodies eat in Eskisehir?

Foodies should eat at the lokantas for home cooking, the cig borek shops for the signature snack, the pide ovens for lunch, and the grill houses for balaban kebab at dinner. The sweet shops of Odunpazari and the student cafes of the university quarter round out the circuit.

What should I drink in Eskisehir?

Tea is the city’s daily drink, served everywhere from street carts to the riverside gardens. Coffee bars in the university quarter serve serious espresso, and ayran, the salted yogurt drink, is the perfect companion to fried pastry and kebab.

All Over Information

The All Over Information editorial team researches and writes practical English-language guides to Turkey. Facts are checked against official and local sources before publication, prices are published as dated ranges rather than quotes, and guides are revised when things change. We accept no sponsored posts, paid placements or paid links.