Istanbul is one of the world’s great food cities, and the good news for visitors is that its most historic neighborhood is also one of its most edible. The bad news is that the tourist strip makes it look otherwise. Walk the main square and you would be forgiven for thinking the local cuisine is fifty-item laminated menus. Walk the side streets, follow the locals, and you find something entirely different: century-old kebab shops, home-style lokantas, wood-oven pides, and dessert counters that have been running since the days of the sultans.
This foodie’s guide to Sultanahmet is organized by meal and by craving, so you can eat like someone who actually lives here.
Breakfast: The Long, Slow Start
The Turkish breakfast is the neighborhood’s great morning ritual: a table that arrives covered in small plates and does not let you leave for at least an hour. The essentials are always the same — menemen (eggs scrambled with tomatoes and green peppers), simit (the sesame bread ring), white cheese and olives, honey with kaymak (clotted cream), cucumbers and tomatoes, and unlimited tulip glasses of black tea.
Where to go: the breakfast cafes around Akbiyik and the Arasta do it best, usually on a terrace. Ask for “kahvaltı” (breakfast) and they will bring the full spread; ask for menemen and it arrives in its little copper pan. The price of the full spread runs 250 to 400 lira per person, and it is worth every kuruş.
The Street Food Circuit
Sultanahmet’s best cheap eating is standing-up eating. Learn these five things and you will eat better than most tour groups:
- Simit from a cart. The sesame ring, fresh from the oven and still warm, with a tea from the cart’s pot. Under 50 lira, and the correct breakfast for anyone in a hurry.
- Balik ekmek at Eminonu. The fish-sandwich boats at the ferry harbor grill mackerel to order and serve it in half a loaf with onion and lemon. The classic Istanbul lunch, eaten standing at the waterfront railings.
- Doner from the spit. Find a busy shop with a vertical spit and order a half-bread doner — meat carved to order, with tomato and pickled peppers. It is the city’s most underrated sandwich, and a proper one is a full meal.
- Lahmacun and pide. The thin, spicy lahmacun (roll it up with parsley and lemon) and the boat-shaped pide with cheese or sucuk are the two great Turkish flatbreads. The pide shops on the side streets off Divanyolu do both superbly.
- Chestnuts and corn. In season, the roasted chestnut and grilled corn carts appear on the square. Corn on the cob, slathered in salt, is the neighborhood’s evening snack.
The Lokanta Lunch: Point and Eat
The lokanta is Turkey’s cafeteria tradition: a steam counter of dishes cooked that morning, and you point at what you want. It is the best-value meal in the neighborhood, the most local, and the most underrated.
What to point at: kuru fasulye (white beans in tomato sauce, with rice and pickles), etli nohut (chickpeas with meat), stuffed peppers, musakka, and a bowl of soup to start. Point at the tray, say “bu kadar” (that’s enough), and it arrives with bread and water. A full lokanta lunch costs 150 to 300 lira. The best in the district are Tarihi Subasi near the Grand Bazaar and the small counters around Sirkeci that fill with office workers at noon.
Meat, Done the Old Way
Sultanahmet is kebab country, and the serious meat is better than the street version. The neighborhood institutions:
- Tarihi Sultanahmet Koftecisi has grilled the same meatball since 1920: kofte, piyaz (white beans in tart onion dressing), and bread. The queue is real and the product is simple; that combination is why it works.
- The ocakbasi tradition. The grill restaurants where the meat cooks over open charcoal in front of you do the shish kebabs, Adana kebab (spicy minced lamb), and lamb chops. Ask what is fresh that day, not what is on the laminated menu.
- The kuzu tandir and testi kebab. Slower, richer dishes — lamb cooked in a sealed clay pot, cracked open at the table — are the special-occasion orders. Ziya Sark Sofrasi on Divanyolu does an excellent version of the old Ottoman repertoire.
Meze: The Art of the Small Plate
No foodie visit is complete without meze, the spread of small plates that precedes (or replaces) the main course. The cold mezes are the stars: haydari (strained yogurt with herbs and garlic), patlican salatasi (smoked eggplant), sigara boregi (cheese pastries), and fasulye pilaki (white beans in olive oil). Order three or four and bread, and call it lunch.
The fish houses around Cankurtaran — Balikci Sabahattin most famously — do the full meze ritual, and the white-tablecloth price buys an experience rather than just food. For a mid-range version, the meyhanes (taverns) around the neighborhood serve the same spread with raki for the evening.
Sweet Things: Baklava, Lokum, and the Rest
The dessert counter is where Turkish food ends in glory. Hafiz Mustafa, the confectioner near the Spice Bazaar, has been running since 1864, and its baklava is the standard by which visitors measure the rest. Also worth the sugar:
- Baklava, obviously. Pistachio or walnut, syruped, with kaymak if they offer it.
- Kazandibi and sutlac. The caramelized milk pudding and the baked rice pudding — the two puddings every Turkish family grew up on.
- Lokum (Turkish delight). Rose, pomegranate, pistachio. Buy it by the kilo from a proper shop, not the airport box.
- Dondurma. The famously stretchy Turkish ice cream, made with salep and mastic. Watching the vendor tease the cone out of reach is part of the experience.
The Drinks: Tea, Coffee, and the Rest
You will drink more tea than water in this neighborhood, and that is correct. Tulip glasses, strong black brew, one sugar cube if you want it. The tea garden beside the Arasta is the classic spot.
Turkish coffee is a different ritual: thick, sweet, served with a glass of water and a piece of lokum, grounds settled in the cup. Ask for “orta” (medium sugar) and drink it slowly. The sand-roasted version — a copper pot burrowing into heated sand — is a show as much as a drink, and the cafes around the Spice Bazaar do it properly.
For the evening: raki, the anise spirit that accompanies meze and fish, is the classic Istanbul drink. Try it the traditional way — half raki, half water, over ice — and let the meze do the work.
The Foodie’s Plan for 48 Hours
Day one: simit on the run, kofte for lunch, a long tea break, meze dinner in Cankurtaran, baklava after. Day two: full kahvaltı on a terrace, lokanta lunch near the Grand Bazaar, street food at Eminonu, fish dinner, Turkish coffee to finish. Follow that and you have eaten the neighborhood the way its residents do.
The Hospitality Code: Accepting What’s Offered
Eating in Turkey comes with a social ritual that visitors should understand, because it is the difference between a good meal and a memorable one. The tea will be offered constantly — in the carpet shop, at the lokanta, with the baklava — and the correct response is to accept. Tea is the currency of Turkish hospitality; refusing every cup is how you tell a generous host you are not interested in them.
A few customs to know:
- The tea in the shop is part of the visit. If a bazaar seller offers cay while you look, drink it. It does not obligate you to buy — it obligates you to be polite, which you were going to be anyway.
- Bread is on every table, and more arrives. The bread basket in a Turkish restaurant is not charged separately at the local places; the lokantas and kebapcis simply bring it. Eat it with the meze, the beans, everything.
- “Afiyet olsun” is what you say when the food arrives — roughly, “may it nourish you.” Saying it back to the waiter costs nothing and earns real goodwill.
- The bill request is “hesap lütfen.” When you’re ready to leave, ask for the hesap. Turkish service expects you to take your time; nobody rushes you, and nobody brings the bill until you ask.
- Leftovers get wrapped. If you can’t finish, the restaurant will pack it for you — “paket yapabilir misiniz?” — and it is the most Turkish compliment you can pay a kitchen.
The Takeaway
Sultanahmet rewards the foodie who ignores the obvious. Skip the menu-tout restaurants, follow the smell of charcoal and the sound of Turkish conversation, and the neighborhood feeds you like a local: simit on the street, beans from the steam counter, meatballs older than most countries, and enough tea to float a ferry. Eat the old city properly, and you will understand Istanbul’s food the way you were meant to.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most famous food in Sultanahmet?
The meatball at Tarihi Sultanahmet Koftecisi, the doner, and the fish sandwich at Eminonu. All three are cheap, local, and legendary.
Where should a foodie eat in Sultanahmet?
The side streets. Specifically: Tarihi Subasi for a lokanta lunch, Tarihi Sultanahmet Koftecisi for meatballs, and Balikci Sabahattin for a special fish dinner.
Is the food in Sultanahmet expensive?
Only on the main square. Street food, lokantas, and the kebab shops cost a fraction of the tourist restaurants and serve better food.
Can vegetarians eat well in Sultanahmet?
Very well. The meze tradition and the olive-oil vegetable dishes (zeytinyagli) are vegetarian by nature, and the lokantas always have bean and vegetable mains.
What should you drink with Turkish food?
Tea with everything, ayran (the salted yogurt drink) with kebabs, and raki with meze and fish. Turkish coffee only after a meal, never with one.
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.
More guides like this
The Best Day Trips from Sultanahmet
Sultanahmet is a superb base for a week of Istanbul, partly because the city around it is enormous and partly because so…
Sultanahmet Airport and Transport Guide
Sultanahmet's transport situation is a gift to travelers: the neighborhood sits at the junction of the city's tram line, the Marmaray rail…
Nightlife Guide to Sultanahmet
Let's be honest about Sultanahmet's nightlife: it is not a party neighborhood, and pretending otherwise would be a disservice. m. — the…
Shopping Guide: What to Buy in Sultanahmet
Sultanahmet is a shopping district disguised as a historic neighborhood, and for good reason: the Grand Bazaar has been trading here since…
Photography Spots in Sultanahmet You Can’t Miss
Sultanahmet is a photographer's dream that does half the work for you.
A First-Timer’s Guide to Sultanahmet
Most first trips to Istanbul start in Sultanahmet, and most of them should.