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Are you looking for a good restaurant in Turkey?

Are you looking for a good restaurant in Turkey?

Are you looking for a good restaurant in Turkey?

Are you traveling in a foreign country as a tourist and also want to eat the dishes that the locals also eat?

Basic requirements of every tourist are cleanliness, tasty cuisine, friendly service and reasonable price.

But where and how can you find these restaurants that meet your requirements?

That is the crucial question. Anyone who goes on their own search knows how difficult it can sometimes be to find the right restaurant.

The most frequently used method is to search for the nearest and most recommended restaurant with the desired cuisine using a smartphone in the search engines. Here they are showered with dozens of restaurants. Then you look at the ratings. Many ask the justified question of how old and objective the ratings and comments are. The fact is that many of you feel torn by the high number of comments and ratings.

Restaurants in Alanya, Side, Belek, Antalya, Kemer


Another method would be to follow your nose with a little gut feeling. This is more for the self-employed with a spirit of discovery and a lot of time. The best way to explore a city and to discover the alleys, streets and squares, where only locals are is on foot. And if you are specifically looking for a good restaurant with a cuisine that is not adapted to tourists, you will certainly find it here. Here are some tips on how to significantly increase your chances of finding a really good restaurant:

Restaurants in Alanya, Side, Belek, Antalya, Kemer

  • An important characteristic of a good restaurant is that many locals or regular guests are guests there. You can usually see that at first glance. It is the same as at home. There are only regular guests in the good restaurants. In a bad restaurant, especially Locals at most once and then usually never eat again.
  • Restaurants that need to pull customers directly from street (sometimes very vehemently, with specially employed advertisers) are usually a very bad choice. There is a reason why guests don't come by themselves ...
  • It is well known, that good restaurants with reasonable prices are not to be found directly on the streets and squares, where are mostly tourists. Experiences shows that the restaurants with better quality and better prices are usually two or three streets away from the hustle and bustle. Unless you want to mingle with the rich and beautiful of the local scene and are willing to pay multiple for the same dish.

Restaurants in Alanya, Side, Belek, Antalya, Kemer



If you are a type of person who would rather ask an insider directly, we can help you. A list of restaurants in your area that we can recommend with a clear conscience can be found here.

Restaurants in Alanya, Side, Belek, Antalya, Kemer

Are there only kebap restaurants in Turkey?

Since the Turkish kitchen is the third largest kitchen in the world and we do not want to stray from the subject (we will write a detailed blog about the Turkish kitchen shortly), we leave it with this short but meaningful sentence: Kebap means "grill dish" and represents only a very tiny fraction of the large Turkish kitchen. And we would be wrong if we only combined the taste of the Turks with the kebab.

Now back to the question of whether there are only kebap restaurants in Turkey. Of course not. Years ago, the Turks had the taste of other kitchens. With the consumption frenzy that began after the 2000s, the curiosity for foreign consumer goods and foreign tastes also increased. That is probably also in the nature of man. Because curiosity is the insatiable desire to find out what there is in the world.

Restaurants in Alanya, Side, Belek, Antalya, Kemer

It is not the norm that a tourist in Turkey goes out to eat at an Italian restaurant or vice versa in Italy when visiting a Turk. But in the event that after a few days you want to eat something different, Turkey has a large range to offer. There is hardly a city left where there are no Italians or Chinese or even a steak house.

Restaurants in Alanya, Side, Belek, Antalya, Kemer

Appropos Steakhouse; they are currently very trendy and the Turks really have the best prerequisites to make the best of meat. Nusret Steakhouse is just one example, but not the only representative of its craft.

4 comments

  1. Posted by Mariam| 27.12.2023|

    When I come to Turkey, I want to try a lot of restaurants and street food from Turkish cuisine, but Turkey is a region that many tourists visit so I want to be careful about what I eat. How can I determine if the meat used in these dishes is halal? Thanks in advance.

    • Replied by Admin| 27.12.2023

      Many restaurants in Turkey hang halal meat certificates to emphasize that they use halal meat. These certificates can be seen on the restaurants wall, menu or website. Documents and certificates confirming that restaurants use halal meat are reliable as they are issued by the Turkish Standards Institute, a government-affiliated institution. In addition, you can get information from the restaurant staff or the owner of the business. Since the local people also consume halal meat, halal meat is used in almost all restaurants or street food in Turkey.

  2. Posted by Brona| 27.12.2023|

    Many Thanks to Levant for organising our dinner last night in the beautiful Appollan restaurant in Side Old Town. 
    We were picked up from our hotel. 
    The setting, service and our food was definitely five stars. Their customer service brilliant. We also were brought back to our hotel afterwards. 
    A real treat to remember. 

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