The Sundarban
This article used to be produced by Nationwide Geographic Traveller (UK).
Best identified as a seaside getaway, Antalya’s resort-lined soar draws travellers from all the method through the world with its turquoise waters and surfside restaurants serving worldwide dishes. Yet in its metropolitan centre, you’ll procure a meals scene fashioned by the regional cuisine of local migrants who toughen the stout tourism commerce that underpins the metropolis and its eponymous area. It’s easy to stroll down any main avenue and procure restaurants championing flavours from all the method through Turkey: from the hearty sheep and dairy dishes of Antalya’s highland Yörük communities and central Anatolia’s mantı minced meat dumplings, to yağlama – a pie of stacked flatbreads layered with minced meat and garlicky yoghurt – from Kayseri, and Erzurum’s horizontally roasted lamb cağ (skewer) kebab, plus the traditional grill homes of Turkey’s southeast. Mix this with the sunshine-soaked farmland surrounding the metropolis and the cattle-wisely off highlands of the Taurus Mountains that upward push sheer off the Mediterranean, and Antalya offers a various menu of distinctive method. Here are a few of the best restaurants in Antalya to procure a accurate taste of the area.
The iconic kabak tatlısı (pumpkin dessert) is made using Antalya’s Döşemealtı pumpkins, dull-cooked unless mushy and gooey, then executed with a cramped char in a picket-fired oven.
Photograph by Mehmet Ateş
With its extensive terrace overlooking the Antalya shoreline, 7 Mehmet lets diners revel in the metropolis’s warm local weather, which sees around 300 days of sunshine every twelve months.
Photograph by Haşime Altaylı
Best for: primitive meals in an upscale setting
Quiz a local for a cafe advice and it’s likely that panoramic hilltop area shut to the soar west of downtown Antalya will be their first desire. Speed by Mehmet Akdağ, 7 Mehmet has superior from a modest soup shop function up by the chef’s grandfather in 1937 to a Turkish eating institution frequented by celebrities. Diners are welcomed to the tall terrace overlooking the waters of the Med with a thick, leather-sure menu taking in every thing from seafood, tandoori meats, recent salad and wisely off vegetable stews to deeply indulgent cakes.
For a taste of primitive southern Turkish cooking, attempt olive oil-wisely off stews including braised vine leaves studded with pumpkin seeds. The restaurant’s approved pilav recipes also revel in cult function, where the traditional buttery rice nasty is combined with savoury and candy parts, comparable to roasted walnuts and candied figs. To enact, the picket oven-roasted pumpkin pudding is a must: a decadent dessert buried below a mountain of clotted cream and topped with double roasted tahini and walnuts.
Like any great ocakbaşı, Kadirşinas offers seats beside the charcoal grill for a front-row glance of the hearth, smoke and culinary theatre.
Photography by Kadirşinas Ocakbaşı
Best for: fireside kebabs
At this traditional ocakbaşı (charcoal grill restaurant), you’ll procure skewers of kebabs expertly handled by the moustachioed usta (grill master) who instinctively is aware of when the meat is completely cooked. These on tables centred around the flaming grill pit seek with hungry eyes to stare if their direct will emerge from the smoke next. At the same time as you happen to don’t desire to be in the thick of the trudge, e book one of the white-clothed tables on the wisely-lit terrace, where locals sip glasses of the aniseed-flavoured rakı, chasing the spirit with plates of meze — the likes of baked hummus topped with pastırma cured meat, or çiğ köfte — a fake-tartare made with bulgur wheat and spices.
Amongst the must-attempt kebabs, are the traditional Adana with minced lamb including tail elephantine seasoned with crimson pepper flakes and — the showstopper — the dil tava, with mushy cubes of beef tongue served silent bubbling away in a piping-scorching solid iron pot.
The proprietor and chef İbrahim Günebakan hand-whips the tahini sauce and freshly chops the onions, tomatoes and parsley for each and each serving of piyaz.
Photograph by Seçil Taylan Erdemli
Piyaz is standard all the method through Türkiye as a cold bean salad with onions, parsley and sumac — but in Antalya, it stands out for its creamy tahini and vinegar sauce, and is typically served lukewarm.
Photograph by Seçil Taylan Erdemli
Özgül Kebap Şişçi İbo
Best for: discovering Antalya’s piyaz
Amongst Antalya’s signature dishes, piyaz is perchance the most widely identified in the path of Turkey: white beans coated in a pointy tahini sauce and topped with chopped boiled eggs, tomatoes and parsley. While many casual restaurants in Antalya pride themselves on their piyaz, the humble Özgül Kebap — a tiny, favoured lunch area in the metropolis’s central Elmalı neighbourhood — stands out from the crowd. Every allotment is prepared to direct, the tahini whisked by hand with vinegar unless silky before being folded through the beans and topped generously with the final ingredients. The tiny shop also serves appropriate shish köfte (grilled skewers of minced meat) but the piyaz is substantial enough to stand on my own — a filling and relaxing midday meal for a measly 230 lira (around £5). Contend with: Elmalı, 17. Sk. 2/C, 07040 Muratpaşa, Antalya.
Best for: crisp böreks
On a serene residential road west of the metropolis centre, you’ll procure one of Antalya’s best places to eat. Hidden in the serve of a white conceal that shades a handful of horrid picket tables, Yıldız Serpme Börek is the tiny realm of proprietor and börek master Metin Dönmez. He has perfected the artwork of Antalya’s serpme börek, a thin and crunchy pastry with a range of savoury fillings. His yufka (filo pastry dough) that’s key to the success of an accurate börek is so thin, you would read a newspaper through it.
