Ankara Food Guide 2026: Central Anatolian Cuisine and the Capital's Food Culture

Ankara sits at the centre of the Anatolian plateau — 500km from the Mediterranean, 400km from the Black Sea, 450km from the Aegean. The food of the plateau is not the food of the coasts: it is lamb rather than fish, wheat rather than olive oil as the primary fat, slow cooking rather than the quick heat of the grill, dairy from Anatolian sheep and goats rather than the mild fresh cheeses of the Aegean coast.

This is the food of a continental interior — richer, heavier, more suited to cold winters on the plateau than to summer dining by water. It is also, because Ankara is the capital that gathers people from every province, the food of everywhere.

The Central Anatolian baseline

The Anatolian plateau has been farmed continuously for at least 10,000 years — the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations documents the transition from hunting to settled agriculture on these exact soils. The food tradition is correspondingly ancient and conservative.

Wheat: Anatolia is where wheat was domesticated. The bread tradition — yufka (thin flatbread), bazlama (thick round flatbread), somun ekmek (round white loaf), and the various börek pastries made from layered wheat dough — reflects this deep history. Central Anatolian bread is not a side dish; it is a primary food.

Lamb: The Anatolian plateau has supported sheep herding since the Neolithic. The lamb (kuzu) and mutton (koyun) tradition — slow-cooked in terracotta, grilled on horizontal spits, made into köfte, ground into kebab — is the protein backbone of the cuisine. The specific Ankara preparations (tava, cağ kebabı, the various slow-cooked dishes) are variations on this fundamental.

Lentils and legumes: Mercimek (red lentil), nohut (chickpea), kuru fasulye (white bean), barbunya (borlotti bean) — the legume tradition is as old as the wheat tradition. These are the daily food of lokantas and households, slow-cooked with tomato paste and onion.

Sheep’s milk dairy: Beyaz peynir (white cheese, similar to feta but less salty), kaşar peyniri (yellow aged sheep’s milk cheese), and various regional cheeses reflect the plateau sheep economy. Turkish cheese tradition is distinct from European cheese culture — the focus is on fresh and lightly aged whites rather than complex aged varieties.

Offal culture

The Central Anatolian and Ottoman offal tradition — using every part of the animal — is more visible in Ankara than in the coastal cities, which have partially shifted toward a more internationally-recognisable cuisine.

Kokoreç: The defining street food — lamb intestine wrapped around sweetbreads, grilled on a horizontal spit. The Ottoman and Turkish tradition of nose-to-tail eating, concentrated into a sandwich.

İşkembe çorbası: Tripe soup — the overnight soup of Turkish cities, eaten as late-night recovery or early-morning sustenance by workers. The white, creamy broth with vinegar and garlic is one of the most distinctively Turkish dishes in existence.

Paça çorbası: Lamb’s trotter soup — collagen-rich, deeply savoury, eaten for breakfast in traditional settings. Less universally available than işkembe but found at dedicated çorba restaurants.

Ciğer (liver): Lamb liver — Urfa-style sliced thin and grilled, or Arnavut ciğeri (Albanian liver, cubed and fried with onion). More common in Ankara’s Eastern Anatolian restaurants than in the coastal cities.

The offal culture is honest about what it is — the plateau tradition of using an entire animal rather than selecting only the commercially fashionable cuts. It is also, at the right restaurant at the right hour, some of the most flavourful food in Turkish cuisine.

The capital’s aggregation effect

Ankara’s most distinctive food characteristic is not any single dish but the breadth of what’s available. As the capital, it has drawn waves of internal migration from every Turkish province since the 1920s. The result is a city where you can eat:

Southeastern Turkish cuisine: Gaziantep’s specific food culture — baklava layered in clarified butter (not vegetable oil), beyran soup (spiced lamb broth), lahmacun (thin flatbread with minced meat), Antep peyniri (Gaziantep white cheese) — is fully represented by Gaziantep diaspora restaurants.

Eastern Anatolian cuisine: Erzurum’s cağ kebabı, Van’s kahvaltı (breakfast) culture with otlu peynir (herb-embedded cheese), Kars’s kaşar, the Diyarbakır region’s kuyu kebabı (pit-cooked lamb).

Black Sea cuisine: Hamsi (anchovy) dishes, mıhlama (corn and cheese fondue), laz böreği (sweet pastry) — from the Trabzon and Rize diaspora.

Aegean and Mediterranean: Zeytinyağlı dishes, olive oil culture, meze tradition — less dominant in Ankara than at the coast but present in the meyhanes.

This aggregation means Ankara rewards exploration. The Turkish food at the best restaurants in Ankara is not a generic version but a capital city concentration of regional specialties made by people from those regions.

Meyhane culture

The meyhane — the Turkish version of the tavern/trattoria, built around raki — is Ankara’s dominant evening dining format in the mid-range to upscale sector. Tunalı Hilmi Caddesi in Kavaklıdere is the primary meyhane street.

The meyhane structure is ritual: the raki bottle arrives with ice and water. The cold meze spread comes first — patlıcan ezmesi, tarator, zeytinyağlı yaprak sarması, white cheese with melon in summer, tuna with onion. Then hot meze — fried squid, small köfte, börek. Then, if the table continues, a fish or grilled meat main.

Raki (double-distilled grape spirit flavoured with anise) turns milky-white when water is added — “aslan sütü” (lion’s milk) in Turkish. The standard serve is 45ml; the evening measure is by the bottle. The combination of raki’s anise flavour with the meze tastes specifically Turkish in a way that’s difficult to describe before experiencing it.

Wine

Turkish wine is underrated internationally — the Anatolian plateau has been producing wine since at least the Hittite period (wine vessels and records from Hattuşa, 17th–13th centuries BCE). The modern Turkish wine industry has revived indigenous grape varieties:

Öküzgözü: A deep, full-bodied red from Eastern Anatolia (particularly Elazığ) — one of Turkey’s most successful indigenous varieties. Available at most mid-range and upscale restaurants in Ankara.

Boğazkere: Another Eastern Anatolian red — higher tannin, longer-aging. Often blended with öküzgözü.

Emir: White grape from Cappadocia (Nevşehir area, 3 hours southeast of Ankara) — light, mineral, dry. The most distinctive indigenous Turkish white.

Kalecik Karası: A red variety from the Kalecik district north of Ankara — one of the few wine grapes with Ankara as its origin point. Medium body, red fruit character.

Wine pricing: ₺200–400 for a restaurant bottle at mid-range; ₺400–800 at upscale. Turkish wine is better value at the restaurant than raki (which is taxed heavily).

Breakfast culture

Turkish breakfast (kahvaltı) is one of the world’s great breakfast traditions — and Ankara does it particularly well because the capital has access to ingredients from across Turkey.

Standard spread: Beyaz peynir (white cheese), kaşar (aged cheese), siyah zeytin (black olives), yeşil zeytin (green olives), domates (tomatoes), salatalık (cucumber), tereyağı (butter), bal (honey), reçel (jam), simit or fresh bread, eggs (fried or boiled), tea.

Van-style breakfast: Several Ankara restaurants serve the Van breakfast (kahvaltı) tradition — a more elaborate version with otlu peynir (herb cheese), Van honey (wildflower, one of Turkey’s finest), multiple cheeses, and çiğ köfte. ₺150–250/person.

Breakfast timing: Traditional lokanta breakfast from 07:00–10:00. Weekend brunch in Kavaklıdere cafes from 09:00–13:00, with longer menus and queue times.

Tea and coffee

Çay: The defining drink. Black tea from Rize, brewed in a double-stacked çaydanlık kettle, served in small tulip glasses. Şeker mi? (Sugar?) — one cube is standard; two for a sweet drinker. ₺20–40/glass.

Turkish coffee: Finely ground coffee boiled in a cezve copper pot with or without sugar, served with the grounds in the cup. Let it settle for 30 seconds before drinking. Don’t drain to the bottom. ₺30–60.

Third-wave coffee: Specialty coffee culture exists in Ankara — Kavaklıdere and Çankaya have several proper specialty cafes with pour-over, Aeropress, and single-origin options. ₺60–120 for a specialty filter coffee.

• Food to try in Ankara
• Best restaurants in Ankara
• History of Ankara