The art of Turkish breakfast
Kahvaltı is less a meal than an occasion: a table of small plates, endless tea and no particular hurry. Here is what to expect, and how to enjoy it.
Ask someone in Istanbul about their favourite meal and many will name breakfast, especially the weekend kind. A Turkish breakfast, or kahvaltı, is a spread of many small dishes, shared at a slow pace and accompanied by glass after glass of tea.
The word itself is often explained as coming from kahve altı, roughly “before coffee”, describing the food eaten before the day's first coffee.
What arrives at the table
Every table is different, but some things are almost always there:
- Cheeses, usually a white brined cheese (beyaz peynir) and a mild yellow kaşar, sometimes with aged or herbed varieties.
- Olives, both black and green, often from the Aegean coast.
- Tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, sliced simply, with a drizzle of olive oil.
- Honey and kaymak, a rich clotted cream, eaten together on bread.
- Jams and spreads, from sour cherry and fig to tahini mixed with grape molasses (pekmez).
- Bread and simit, the sesame-crusted bread ring sold on street corners across the city.
The hot dishes
Alongside the cold plates come dishes cooked to order. Menemen, eggs softly scrambled with tomatoes and peppers, is the classic. Eggs fried with sucuk, a spiced beef sausage, are another favourite, as are sigara böreği, thin pastry rolls filled with cheese.
The tea never stops
Tea is brewed strong in a double teapot (çaydanlık) and diluted to taste with hot water, then served in small tulip-shaped glasses. Ask for it açık if you prefer it lighter, koyu for darker. Your glass will be refilled until you lay your spoon across the top.
Serpme: the spread
Many breakfast cafés offer a serpme kahvaltı, literally a “scattered” breakfast, where dozens of small plates are set out for the table to share. It is generous by design, so come hungry, come with friends and plan nothing for the next two hours.
Where to have it
Weekend breakfasts are an institution along the Bosphorus, where villages such as Rumelihisarı and Emirgan have cafés by the water. In Beşiktaş, a short street lined with breakfast cafés is known locally as Kahvaltıcılar Sokağı, “breakfast makers' street”. On the Asian side, Kadıköy and Moda have their own neighbourhood favourites.
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