The Best Places to Eat and Do in Turkey

Fresh pasta made in full view of the long communal tables is the engine of this casual Italian-Turkish restaurant in Ataşehir, a neighborhood that rarely draws visitors from the city center but probably should. The kitchen leans on local Turkish ingredients, folding them into Italian shapes: Obruk cheese turns up in ravioli, sage and butter keep things honest. Sharing is the format, booking ahead is the move.

The fourth-floor perch inside The Peninsula puts the Bosphorus right in the window, which sets up what Gallada is selling: a large, polished Turkish-Asian restaurant that frames the meal as a journey along the Silk Road. The kitchen layers soy, yuzu, and tahini alongside tandoori preparations and its own take on baklava. Cocktails from the adjacent Topside Bar handle the opening act. Dress up; this room expects it.

A set mezze menu with drinks folded in is the whole program at this Cretan Mediterranean restaurant in Cankurtaran, and the kitchen happens to live on the terrace. Summer puts you outside under the vines; bad weather sends you across the street to the sister spot, which is somehow even more romantically Mediterranean. The food leans fresh and generous, herb-heavy and well-seasoned, the kind of cooking that makes you forget you were supposed to pace yourself.

The Gorgoli Valley sits just outside town, and the kitchen treats it as a personal pantry. This straightforward, simply decorated restaurant in the village of Mustafapaşa builds an extensive menu around what grows nearby, aubergine, peppers, slow-cooked lamb, all handled with the kind of restraint that lets the ingredients do the talking. The Cappadocia you came to photograph is right outside; this is where you eat after.

The open kitchen puts fire front and center, and the grill does most of the talking at this compact, buzzy gastrobistro in Beyoğlu. The cooking is modern Turkish, ingredient-led and confident without being precious about it. Dishes are designed for sharing, which suits the lively room. Come hungry and order widely; this is the kind of place that makes you wish the table were bigger.

The Aegean glitters through the open sides of this floating terrace restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental, which sets the mood before the food arrives. Hakkasan is a global name, and the Bodrum outpost keeps the formula intact: modern Cantonese cooking, a long cocktail list, and a wine list that gives oenophiles something to do. The dim sum and the honey-glazed sea bass make a case for the kitchen. Book ahead; this is a chic-night-out crowd.

A deli counter full of tempting provisions greets you before you even reach the dining room, which sets the tone nicely. This is a Turkish lokanta run by Ömür Akkor, a television chef and cookbook author with deep roots in Kilis, and the menu leans into that southern heritage without apology. The cooking is straightforward and regional, the kind that doesn't need explaining, just eating. Worth the trek out to Ataköy.

A single set menu of Anatolian cooking, no alcohol, and a husband-and-wife team who take the whole thing seriously without taking themselves too seriously. She runs the room and will happily talk you through the concept; he builds dishes around traditional flavors, tomatoes and peppers appearing in various forms across a menu that moves between vegetarian and meat. The dry fig millefeuille with Aegean olive oil is the kind of restraint that makes you stop talking mid-sentence.

A former Greek theatre in Urla's old town gives this seasonal restaurant an industrial edge that doesn't take itself too seriously. The kitchen leans on Aegean pantry staples, with the house-pressed olive oil doing quiet but serious work across the menu. Acidity and char pull the dishes in interesting directions. The crowd skews local and knowing, which is usually a good sign in a town this small.

An open-air restaurant perched above the Aegean at a Yalıkavak hotel, with a sea view that does most of the decorating. The chef behind it has a particular gift for coastal Aegean cooking, pulling from local fish and seafood with a light, considered hand. The vegetarian dishes get the same attention as everything else, which is rarer than it should be. Dress for a warm evening out; this is not a casual lunch stop.

A working vineyard and olive grove frames the terrace at this modern Mediterranean restaurant on the Hus wine estate outside Urla. The in-house wines are the real pull, and the service team steers you through them with enough confidence to make the pairing feel inevitable. Food is cooked to order, leaning on local ingredients, and the house focaccia has a way of disappearing before the mains arrive.

A 350-year-old plane tree shades the terrace at this winery restaurant on the Isabey estate outside Izmir, where the vines run mostly to Sauvignon Blanc and the kitchen runs to Mediterranean cooking that takes its time. Lamb appears in more than one form, and the wine list is the estate's own. The kind of lunch that makes the afternoon disappear, which is probably the point.

Tucked into the entrance floor of a corporate tower in Levent, Itsumi is a Japanese restaurant that makes no effort to announce itself, which seems to suit the regulars just fine. The kitchen works with careful precision across sushi, glazed eel dishes, and broth-based noodles, all grounded in Japanese technique rather than local compromise. Lunch runs set menu or à la carte; the omakase requires advance booking and a certain commitment to handing over control.

A chilled display counter piled with raw meat and an open grill at the center of the kitchen tell you everything about this big, bustling Turkish grill house before anyone takes your order. Lamb cutlets come with pide, sumac, and yogurt; sac tava arrives sizzling with spices. The terrace is a surprisingly peaceful escape from the street outside. They're open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which in this part of Aksaray makes them practically a public service.

A family wine estate in the Bodrum hills where lunch on the terrace, looking out over the vines toward the water, makes you feel like you've stumbled into someone's very charmed life. The chef runs a farm-to-fork kitchen, pulling herbs from the garden and fish from local boats, then does interesting things with both. The estate's own wines pour throughout, which is a reasonable argument for staying longer than you planned.

Sultanahmet is tourist-menu country, laminated photos and all, and Khorasani sits right in the thick of it without apologizing. What separates it is the grill, where meat goes over the coals to order and the kebabs arrive with lamb that earns its reputation, crisp vegetables, and pita that makes everything else feel like an afterthought. A straightforward grill house with no ambitions beyond cooking the thing properly.

A steam-table lunch spot in Konacık where you grab a tray, scan the counter, and point at whatever looks good, the way it's done in a proper Turkish lokanta. Meatballs, stuffed vegetables, slow-cooked pulses, and a syrup-soaked walnut pastry that closes the deal. Lively at midday, quiet about price, and full of people who have no interest in the menu because they already know what they want.

Paintings cover the walls, the marina fills the windows, and the fish comes straight from the display fridge, prepared however you like. This old-school seafood restaurant on the Bosphorus shore has been a Tarabya fixture forever, the kind of place where you start with mezze, point at the catch, and let the kitchen handle the rest. Ask for a table upstairs, where the views justify the trip up the stairs on their own.

A spit turning at the entrance and a bread oven going flat out set the tone at this garden restaurant in the middle of Bitez. Tables sit under olive and lemon trees, and the cooking leans into Gaziantep tradition, kebabs above all, though the mezze and a pistachio roll with sheep's cheese are reasons to linger longer than you planned. Casual, generous, and genuinely rooted in a regional style most tourists never find this close to the resort strip.

Grapevines grow close enough to the terrace that you could, in theory, help yourself. Levan is a casual restaurant in the wine country outside Izmir, where the chalkboard menu runs a dozen dishes, mezze for sharing and plates meant for one. The kitchen works Aegean traditions into something a little more current, though the setting in the vineyards does most of the heavy lifting before the food even arrives.

Dishes arrive under a cloche in a dining room hung with Turkish artefacts, the staff in traditional dress, the whole scene leaning hard into Cappadocia's taste for atmosphere. The kitchen earns the theatrics, though, pulling from its own garden to cook Anatolian recipes that feel genuinely recovered rather than performed. Grilled lamb glazed with sesame and honey, set against aubergine cream and pistachio yoghurt, is the kind of dish that makes the cloche feel less silly.

A terrace suspended over the Bosphorus sets the stage at this modern Turkish restaurant inside Galataport, where the view alone tends to silence the table for a moment. The kitchen works from traditional recipes, refining them with careful technique rather than obscuring them entirely. Start with a cocktail downstairs before heading up; the room is relaxed enough that you won't feel underdressed, stylish enough that you won't regret the effort.

Olive trees and open air on all sides give this lounge-style modern restaurant in Bodrum a calm that the menu quietly matches. The kitchen leans hard into local produce and sustainable sourcing, and the cooking has a fine-dining seriousness about it, with a spicy edge that keeps things interesting. The setting is as close to eating outside as a restaurant can get without admitting it.

The roof terrace next to Cağaloğlu Hamam sets the mood before the food arrives. This modern Turkish restaurant reaches back centuries for its recipes, then updates them with unexpected textures without losing the thread of the original. Evenings shift to a more formal fine dining menu. The wine cellar rewards anyone curious enough to ask about it.

A grand piano anchors the first room, and if you show up when someone is playing, the whole dining room shifts a little. Lokanta is the restaurant inside the old Divan Hotel near Taksim, and it carries the same formal, unhurried energy as the building around it. The menu is à la carte and modern Turkish, drawing on regional ingredients with enough ambition to feel like an occasion. Dress accordingly.

A Mediterranean restaurant set inside a refurbished Ottoman palace on the Bosphorus, where some guests arrive by boat and the Ortaköy Mosque glows across the water. The open kitchen keeps things honest, and the cooking leans classic rather than fussy, with dishes like yoghurt-laced aubergine alongside grilled lamb. The balance of chic room and relaxed service is the real trick, and the view practically does the entertaining for them.

Bright walls and closely hung artwork make this Yeniköy lokanta feel more like someone's well-curated living room than a neighborhood restaurant. The team leans into generous mezze spreads that reframe classic Turkish flavors, tuna cured in raki sitting comfortably alongside lamb's liver with fried potatoes and onion. Tables are packed close enough that sharing becomes the obvious move, which is rather the point.

Sitting inside the Divan hotel in Beyoğlu, Maromi is a sushi restaurant where the counter seats are the ones to ask for. The chef works close enough to watch each piece come together, octopus and pickled daikon settled into warm rice, salmon rolled in toasted sesame with a chilli kick. You can order à la carte or hand the decisions over entirely with the omakase. A Michelin Selected pick.

Carved into the cave walls of Uçhisar, this traditional Turkish restaurant inside the Taskonaklar hotel earns its setting: stone overhead, Pigeon Valley below, and a menu built with local village women on old regional recipes. The chef threads in a few modern touches without unsettling anything. The terrace aperitif ritual, with that view, is apparently non-negotiable among regulars. The Michelin Guide lists it as a selected restaurant.

Inside the Conrad Hotel in Beşiktaş, Monteverdi is a formal Italian restaurant that anchors itself in Lombard cooking while quietly letting the rest of the peninsula in, Neapolitan pizza included. The kitchen leans on the kind of combinations that feel both obvious and considered: porcini risotto, sea bass dressed with fermented tomatoes and mascarpone. Service is polished without being stiff, which at this price point is the least surprising thing about it.

An open fire anchors the kitchen on the top floor of the Novotel Bosphorus, with meat and fish hanging to dry alongside it, which sets the tone: this is a grill restaurant with smoke and char running through everything. Cocktails come first, then a terrace with the kind of Istanbul skyline view that makes people linger. The menu leans on regional produce, and the food is deliberately bold, spicy, and fire-driven.

A terrace seat at this Galataport bistro puts you level with the Bosphorus traffic, which turns out to be better entertainment than most things on a screen. The kitchen runs Spanish tapas through a Turkish filter, so patatas bravas share the menu with pide, and grilled squid turns up alongside spicy cherry cream. It draws the kind of crowd that orders another round of cocktails just to stay outside a little longer.

The terrace is the opening move: views over the Cappadocian valley, stone walls inside hung with quietly elegant details, the whole thing part of the Argos hotel complex in Uçhisar. This is a Turkish restaurant where the kitchen pulls ingredients from within 60 kilometers and means it, the kind of place where warm dolmas come laced with cherry and dill and taste like someone's grandmother made them, except the technique is sharper than that.

Nobu needs no introduction, and the Istanbul outpost earns its spot by leaning into the view: the terrace looks out over the Bosphorus toward the Asian shore, which is quite a thing to have behind your sushi. Inside, the room runs minimalist and polished, the kind of place where the lighting flatters everyone. The kitchen blends modern Japanese technique with South American inflection, and the omakase is the clearest way to understand what the team is up to.

The view from the 20th floor of The Marmara Taksim is the kind that makes you put your phone down and stare for a minute, Bosphorus and all. This contemporary Turkish restaurant pairs the panorama with market-fresh fish, often cooked over open fire, and silky manti with yoghurt and tomato sauce. The wine list leans into Turkish labels worth exploring. Book ahead; the room fills with people who planned for this.

A free boat from Göcek Marina drops you on a private island in ten minutes, and that ride sets the mood for everything that follows. ONNO is an open-air Mediterranean grill and seafood restaurant built right at the water's edge, where the kitchen leans on whole fish aged for depth and technique that shows in a crisp-skinned octopus that somehow stays tender. The kind of lunch that makes afternoon plans feel optimistic.

A family-run seafood restaurant on a bay in Bodrum, where the brothers who own it also fish it, which explains a lot. The cooking is plant-forward alongside the seafood, the supply chain is almost comically short, and the wine list, which includes a few of their own labels, reads like a side project that got out of hand. The Michelin Guide has its eye on it.

A seafood restaurant on the Göltürkbükü waterfront where the terrace sits under tall trees close enough to the shore that the setting does half the work. The kitchen keeps things unfussy, letting the day's fish speak for itself, and the cold mezze counter near the entrance is worth circling before you sit. Cold baklava finishes things on a note that sounds wrong until it isn't. The Michelin Guide has selected it.

Crates of the day's catch are stacked by the entrance, and a row of tanks holds king crabs and lobsters that haven't been told what's coming. This is a traditional seafood restaurant on the Bosphorus in Kuruçeşme, where you pick your fish and name your method, grilled, steamed, meunière, tandoori, and the kitchen obliges. The waterfront terrace puts boats drifting past on the Strait directly in view, which makes it very easy to convince yourself you're on holiday.

Stone walls, wood beams, and enough period detail to make you feel like you stumbled into a very well-appointed farmhouse. This Turkish restaurant in Uçhisar leans into the cave-country setting without going full theme park: traditional mezze and manti arrive plated with a contemporary edge, local wine flows freely, and by evening a DJ turns the whole rustic room into something livelier than you'd expect from the stonework.

Tucked behind the GAIA BY THE SEA hotel and open to the water, this outdoor restaurant earns its setting with modern Turkish cooking that reaches toward Asia when the mood suits. The chef's menu moves across grilled seafood and citrus-forward desserts without losing the thread of where it is. On a warm Aegean evening with that view in front of you, the case for eating outdoors basically makes itself.

The robatayaki grill running along the open kitchen is the anchor of this contemporary Japanese restaurant on the Galataport promenade, where the Bosphorus fills every window. The menu leans into sharing: sushi, king crab dumplings, yuzu miso-marinated cod from the grill. The crowd arrives dressed for the view and stays for the cocktails, which are exactly as stylish as the room insists they should be.

An alfresco restaurant tucked into one of Alacati's narrow stone-paved lanes, Roka Bahçe runs on the logic that Turkish flavors and Bosnian influences have more in common than you'd think. The kitchen leans into that overlap with confidence, and dishes keep arriving at a pace that suggests nobody behind the stove is taking a break. The whole thing has the easy, crowd-pleasing energy of a place that knows exactly what it's doing and refuses to be solemn about it.

The retractable roof slides open on warm nights to frame the Bosphorus, which gives you a sense of Ruby's priorities. It's a Mediterranean sharing-plates restaurant in Ortaköy with a terrace that a DJ takes over on weekends, so the vibe shifts depending on when you arrive. The menu runs from traditional Turkish plates to pasta and risotto, and the kitchen leans toward rich, generous flavors rather than restraint.

A glass pavilion right on the Bosphorus, where the view competes hard with the food and neither quite wins. This is a classic Istanbul seafood restaurant: mezze arrive at the table without your asking, then you walk up and choose your fish and tell them how you want it cooked. The kitchen keeps things clean and direct, letting the fish do the talking. Boats drift past the window the whole time, which makes it easy to lose an entire afternoon.

The day's catch sits on ice near the entrance, which is the most direct menu a seafood restaurant can offer. Sait is a family-run spot on Yalıkavak's marina, where the terrace looks out over yachts that have no business being this glamorous. The cooking leans into home-style generosity, sharing plates of fish and seafood built around whatever came in that morning, with enough colour on every plate to make you forget you ordered too much.

Tucked into the quieter edge of Uçhisar, away from the tour-group bustle, this warm, traditional Cappadocian restaurant is where locals point you when you ask about testi kebab. The manti here comes with grilled aubergine, butter, tomato sauce, and a yoghurt dressing dusted in dried herbs, which is the kind of thing that makes you reconsider whatever you'd planned for dinner. The team leans hard into regional recipes and local produce, and there are guestrooms if you'd rather not leave.

A villa in Levent that's been filling business lunches for decades, Şans is the kind of Turkish-Mediterranean restaurant where someone always seems to know your name. The kitchen moves between cheese dumplings, mushroom risotto, and slow-cooked lamb neck without any identity crisis, and the sommelier will steer you toward a Turkish red whether you asked or not. Private dining rooms make it a reliable pick for deals that need a proper table.

Open flames are the starting point at this stylish, spacious modern Turkish restaurant in Ataşehir's corporate belt, where the kitchen balances charred intensity with a lighter contemporary touch. It runs all day, breakfast through dinner, and the set menu from midafternoon is where the cooking shows off most clearly. The suited lunch crowd and the evening regulars both seem to know what they're doing when they skip the à la carte.

The terrace on the ninth floor of Swissôtel looks straight out over Izmir Bay, and at sunset the light does things that would embarrass a photographer. Scappi is a Mediterranean-Italian restaurant where the kitchen, partly open, runs a wood-fired pizza oven alongside house-made pasta and fresh local fish. The cooking leans into Aegean ingredients with an Italian hand. Book ahead; the terrace fills fast with people who clearly planned better than you did.

The restaurant sits inside a former monastery carved into a Cappadocian hillside, which sets a high bar for any meal before you've even ordered. Seki serves Anatolian and Mediterranean food in a room that feels warm rather than grandiose, with valley views that do most of the heavy lifting. Mezze, lamb, and a wine list running to some 300 labels give you plenty of reasons to linger well past a polite hour.

The wood-fired oven does a lot of the talking here, turning out Turkish cooking built around local producers whose goods you can also buy in the shop on your way out. The chef sources Trakya Kivircik lamb specifically to keep old Anatolian recipes from disappearing, and the içli köfte made with it is the thing to order. A spacious, modern restaurant a little outside the city center, with a menu that follows the seasons closely.

Floor-to-ceiling glass frames a sweep of hilly parkland on Istanbul's northern edge, and inside, soaring pillars and white linens set the tone for a Turkish restaurant that takes Anatolian traditions seriously. The menu is built for sharing and leans into regional heritage, with the chef finding contemporary angles on dolma and slow-developed flavors without turning it into a lecture. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected restaurants.

Perched at the highest point in Göreme, this open-air restaurant sits on the terrace of Sultan Cave Suites with a view that makes the walk up feel completely incidental. The kitchen runs on traditional Anatolian cooking, with produce and even wine coming from the property's own garden. No reservations, so arriving before sunset is both practical and deeply advisable.

Small pots of cumin and oregano sit on every table, which tells you something about the philosophy here. This meat-focused grill in Urla started as a butcher shop and still sells cuts to take home, so the sourcing conversation is shorter than most. Mezze come first, then lamb cutlets or a rump steak marinated for a week in milk and herbs. The grilling is confident enough that the spice pots mostly go untouched.

An open-air restaurant on the Bodrum coast where olive trees frame the view and the day's catch arrives from the water just below. The kitchen runs Mediterranean and then keeps going, turning out ceviche, an original take on mezze, and crispy red mullet tempura alongside herbaceous salads and cocktails. Lounge music, sea air, and candlelight after dark give the whole thing a romantic lean that the setting does most of the work delivering.

A wood-fired kebab restaurant in Beşiktaş with ceilings high enough to make the place feel like a hall that just happens to serve lahmacun. The kitchen is open and the fire is very much the point, turning out kebabs and flatbreads with the kind of attention that shows in the finishing details. Good for a table of two or a group working through the menu together, which is the right way to approach it.

A spacious Turkish restaurant on Niğde's main boulevard, Sofram dims the lights after dark and turns distinctly convivial. The menu is long, the kitchen is focused on flavor over flair, and the staff make you feel at home with a warmth that isn't performed. Confit lamb neck with flatbread, tomato, and yoghurt is the kind of cooking that does the talking. Open every day, and there's even a corner for small children, because Turkish hospitality plans ahead.

The smoked salmon pizza on the menu is your first clue that Wolfgang Puck is running the kitchen. This rooftop restaurant sits atop the St. Regis in Nişantaşı, with terrace views over Istanbul that do most of the selling. The menu wanders freely through California, Italy, and Asia, sharing plates of duck spring rolls alongside modern sushi, held together by the kind of confidence that doesn't need to pick a lane.

The Bloody Mary here is made with raki, which tells you almost everything. This is the brasserie inside the St. Regis Nişantaşı, polished and unhurried, the kind of room where the menu wanders confidently from Turkish mezze to gyoza to Italian risotto without apologizing for it. The kebab with meatballs, grilled peppers, and a yogurt-butter sauce is the house signature, and portions land on the generous side of luxurious.

Perched in Ulus Park above the Bosphorus, this upscale restaurant looks like a location scout found it first. The menu roams from classic French to Asian-leaning dishes to sushi, with a wine list long enough to require strategy. The crowd dresses for it, and the service keeps pace. A window table is not optional, it's the whole argument for being here.

A vegan restaurant tucked inside a sports complex in Kuzguncuk, which is either the most unexpected address in Istanbul or a perfectly logical one depending on your outlook. The ornate, plant-covered exterior does the signaling before you're even through the door. The kitchen leans hard into zero-waste cooking and local sourcing, turning out creative vegan plates, mushroom ceviche among them. Cocktails are on the menu too, which never hurts.

The terrace table by the old stone well is the one to ask for at this modern Turkish restaurant tucked into the cobbled lanes of Alaçatı. The kitchen leans Aegean, pairing wild sea bass with cherries or frying veal liver with thyme and garlic, the kind of cooking where the ingredients do the heavy lifting and the chef steps back. Service is genuinely warm in a way that doesn't feel like a script.

Perched on a sprawling terrace above Istanbul's skyline, Terrazza Italia is the sit-down Italian restaurant inside Eataly at Zorlu Center, so the produce sourcing is rather well sorted. The kitchen leans into the classics with enough creativity to keep things interesting, vitello tonnato and handmade pasta among the familiar landmarks. The menu runs long, which is either reassuring or a mild commitment depending on your disposition.

The farm outside supplies the kitchen, the kitchen wastes nothing, and the resident dogs patrol the terrace as if they own it. This plant-forward restaurant in Silivri, a long drive west of central Istanbul, sits on a working estate and leans into it: poultry, vegetables, and herbs grown on-site, with estate wine to wash it all down. Kasseri tortellini and veal tongue pastrami give the menu just enough swagger to keep things interesting.

The vintage red tram rattles past on İstiklal below, but you take a lift to the fourth floor of a hotel and step into something closer to a Belle Époque fever dream. This intimate Mediterranean restaurant has the kind of decor that makes people lower their voices slightly. The chef works North Aegean ingredients into familiar forms, adding enough of a contemporary edge to keep things from feeling like a costume. The cocktail bar softens the landing.

A women's cooperative runs this small, easy-to-miss corner restaurant in Ürgüp, cooking the kind of food that doesn't have a recipe card because it never needed one. The creaking floors and red-and-white checked upholstery set the mood, and the open kitchen lets you watch manti being shaped and meatballs going into a deep tomato jus. The menu is short and the good stuff goes early, so arrive before the lunch rush or revise your expectations.

On the seventh floor of a Beyoğlu hotel, this rooftop restaurant trades on a panorama of Istanbul that makes it hard to focus on the menu, which would be a shame. The kitchen leans Mediterranean with a Turkish lean-back, braising and slow-cooking its way through bold flavors. A cocktail bar keeps things going after dinner for anyone unwilling to surrender the view just yet.

Marble columns frame a straight-on view of the Bosphorus inside Çırağan Palace, which sets the stage before anyone has touched the menu. This is a formal Ottoman dining room where the kitchen pulls from centuries of culinary tradition and plates it with fine-dining precision, think fermented milk quenelles alongside beef fillet, or pine nut mashed potatoes done with genuine care. The crowd tends toward special occasions, and the room obliges.

The top floor of The Marmara Hotel earns its keep: from the dining room you can take in Bodrum's castle, its rooftops, the Aegean, and on a clear day a few Greek islands doing their best impression of a postcard. The restaurant is a modern Mediterranean spot where the kitchen leans on regional ingredients and old recipes, then applies a little polish. The house-made pasta and the baklava have apparently achieved legendary status among regulars.

Meals begin with complimentary mezze and sweet drinks before you've ordered anything, which tells you most of what you need to know about the priorities here. This halal Turkish restaurant sits on the first floor of a cave hotel, with views across the Göreme valley, and a menu that moves through the culinary traditions of Turkey and the broader Islamic world. Note the dress code: covered legs are required.

A converted olive oil mill on the Reşadiye peninsula, its stone bones intact and a garden spreading out beneath actual olive trees for open-air dining. The chef tends her own kitchen garden and has a particular fondness for the less-celebrated creatures of the Aegean, blue swimmer crab among them. The menu is modern Mediterranean with a strong regional pull, and the local wine list rewards a slow read.

A side-street restaurant off İstiklal Avenue that takes Turkish cooking seriously without taking itself too seriously. The kitchen works with vegetables and local produce to give familiar flavors a lighter touch, though nothing feels stripped down or timid. Ezine cheese, dried sour cherries, herb oils, Turkish wines: the pantry is proudly local. Come à la carte or let the set menu make the decisions for you.

Moored inside Yalıkavak Marina, where the yachts are roughly the size of apartment buildings, Zuma fits right in. The global izakaya chain's Bodrum outpost runs seasonally, trading contemporary Japanese small plates, robata-grilled fish, and sushi against views of the Aegean. The crowd arrives dressed for a party and tends to stay for cocktails at the bar, which is somewhat inevitable given the setting.

The sushi counter runs long enough that watching the chef work becomes its own entertainment at this sleek Japanese restaurant inside Istinye Park. Zuma's Istanbul outpost follows the same formula as its London and Dubai siblings: robata grill, tempura, sushi, and a room full of people who dressed for the occasion. The gyoza filled with beef, lamb, paprika, and lemongrass signals that the kitchen isn't treating tradition as a cage.

Ferida sits in a stone square inside the Fişekhane complex in Zeytinburnu, which sets the mood before you even sit down. It's a contemporary restaurant built around new Bosnian and Balkan cooking, with Neapolitan-style pizza reinterpreted through local instincts, dried meats and truffles doing the talking. The wine list is taken seriously, the service matches the room, and the whole thing feels more international than its address might suggest.

Steel beams, a glass facade, and long bare tables set the tone at this contemporary pizzeria in Ankara's Beytepe neighborhood, where the architecture makes as strong a statement as the dough. High-hydration, high-cornicione pies come in both classic Italian and locally inflected versions, and the kitchen offers tasting menus that walk you through the whole philosophy course by course. It ranked 53rd on 50 Top Pizza Europe, which in Turkey is not nothing.