10 Turkish Street Foods You Have to Try Before You Leave

Turkey's street food culture is serious business. In Istanbul alone, the streets are lined with vendors selling everything from sesame-encrusted bread rings to stuffed mussels, grilled corn to liver sandwiches. The quality is high, the prices are low, and the experience of eating while standing at a street corner is often as memorable as the food itself. Here are the ten things you have to eat before you leave.

1. Simit

The simit is Turkey's most iconic street food — a circular bread ring encrusted with sesame seeds, sold from glass-fronted carts by vendors who wheel them through every neighbourhood, every hour of the day. Fresh simit is crispy on the outside, soft and slightly chewy inside. Eat it plain, with white cheese, or with tea. It costs almost nothing and tastes extraordinary. Do not leave Turkey without eating a simit still warm from the cart.

2. Balık Ekmek

Fish sandwich. In Istanbul, specifically at Eminönü or the Galata Bridge, fishermen and vendors have been grilling fresh fish and stuffing it into bread with onion, lettuce and lemon for generations. The smell alone will stop you. Balık ekmek is one of Istanbul's great street experiences — chaotic, flavourful, and completely unreproducible elsewhere.

3. Döner

Not the approximation of döner you may have eaten elsewhere. Turkish döner — slow-roasted meat on a vertical spit, shaved thin and served in bread or on a plate — is the original, and the difference is significant. Chicken or lamb, depending on the vendor. Eaten standing up, usually quickly, often with a cup of ayran (cold yoghurt drink) alongside.

4. Midye Dolma

Stuffed mussels — rice seasoned with spices, pine nuts and currants, packed into fresh mussel shells and sold by the tray on the street. Istanbul is the home of midye dolma. Vendors squeeze a wedge of lemon over each shell as they hand it to you. You eat several in rapid succession directly from the shell. It is one of those street food experiences that requires no cutlery, no plate and no table — and is better for it.

5. Kumpir

A baked potato unlike any you have encountered before. The potato is enormous, baked until perfectly soft, split open, and the insides mixed with butter and cheese until creamy. Then comes the topping selection: corn, olives, pickles, sausage, coleslaw, and a dozen other options. Ortaköy in Istanbul is the kumpir capital. The stretch of vendors there is a genuine destination.

6. Lahmacun

Often called "Turkish pizza" though the comparison is imprecise. Lahmacun is a thin, crispy flatbread topped with a spiced minced meat mixture — lamb or beef with onion, tomato, parsley and red pepper — and baked at high heat. It arrives flexible, almost pliable. You squeeze lemon over it, roll it around fresh parsley and eat it as a wrap. It is fast, cheap and very good.

7. Kokoreç

Not for the faint-hearted, but essential for the adventurous. Kokoreç is seasoned lamb intestine, wrapped around a skewer and grilled over charcoal, then chopped fine and served in a half-loaf of bread with tomato and spices. It has a devoted following in Turkey and is eaten late at night almost as a matter of cultural obligation. Try it at least once.

8. Gözleme

A thin flatbread cooked on a griddle, filled with cheese, spinach, potato or minced meat and folded into a half-moon. Gözleme is made to order, usually by a woman working a saç (large round griddle), and eaten hot. The best versions are found at village markets and roadside stops throughout Anatolia — simple, filling, and entirely satisfying.

9. Mısır (Grilled Corn)

Corn on the cob, grilled over charcoal or boiled and seasoned with salt, sold from carts in parks and tourist areas throughout Turkey. Simple, seasonal and ubiquitous in summer. There is something genuinely pleasurable about eating grilled corn while walking through a park or along a waterfront — it is one of those unremarkable foods that somehow always tastes better outdoors.

10. Islak Burger

"Wet burger" — a small, soft steamed burger bun filled with spiced meat patty, left to steam in its own juices until the bread is soft and slightly saturated with the cooking liquid. Found specifically in Istanbul, primarily late at night, most famously in Taksim Square. It is not refined food. It is, however, addictive in a way that is difficult to explain until you have tried one.

Turkey's street food culture is best experienced on foot, ideally without a fixed agenda. Browse our guided Turkey tours at alatourqo.com/tours — most itineraries include time in local markets and street food areas.