Alanya Food & Drink Guide: What to Eat & Where
Alanya is a feast for the senses, where Mediterranean sunshine, fertile valleys and the sea all land on your plate. This guide walks you through the dishes and drinks every visitor should try — from a sprawling Turkish breakfast to the harbour's freshest fish — so you can eat like a local with confidence.
Start with a Turkish breakfast (kahvaltı)
No meal sums up Turkish hospitality like kahvaltı. Expect a table covered in small plates: white and aged cheeses, green and black olives, ripe tomatoes and cucumbers, honey with clotted cream (bal kaymak), fruit preserves, boiled eggs and warm bread. Don't miss menemen, soft eggs scrambled with tomatoes, peppers and a little chilli. Glasses of çay (black tea) are refilled endlessly and usually included. Locals treat breakfast as an unhurried, sociable affair, often stretching across a whole morning. Many hotels lay on a generous spread, but a village or mountain breakfast house is well worth the trip — and we're happy to drive you there.
Street food, kebabs and quick bites
Alanya's casual food is fast, fresh and brilliant value. Döner — meat slow-roasted on a vertical spit — comes wrapped in flatbread or stuffed into crusty ekmek. Try lahmacun, a thin, crispy round topped with spiced minced meat, dressed with lemon, parsley and rolled up by hand. Pide, the boat-shaped Turkish flatbread, arrives bubbling with cheese, egg or sucuk (spicy sausage). For something homely, gözleme is a thin pastry griddled with cheese, spinach or potato. Budget only a modest sum for a filling lunch. Wander the back streets and harbour-side stalls, follow the queues of locals, and you'll eat very well indeed.
Fresh seafood and the harbour
With the Mediterranean on its doorstep, Alanya does seafood beautifully. The harbour and old-town waterfront are lined with restaurants where the day's catch is displayed on ice — sea bass (levrek), sea bream (çipura), red mullet (barbun) and king prawns are reliable choices. Fish is typically sold by weight, so confirm the price before ordering and ask what's freshest that day. Start with cold meze and warm bread, then have your fish grilled simply with lemon and olive oil. Dining as the sun sets over the castle headland is an Alanya highlight. Tell us if you'd like a lift to the harbour — we'll happily arrange it.
Meze and main courses to try
A Turkish meal often begins with meze — a parade of small dishes meant for sharing. Look out for haydari (thick strained yoghurt with garlic and herbs), smoky aubergine salad, stuffed vine leaves (sarma), spicy ezme and creamy hummus. For mains beyond the kebab, try güveç, a slow-cooked clay-pot stew, or testi kebabı, meat sealed and cooked inside an earthenware pot that's cracked open at your table. Köfte (grilled meatballs) and tender şiş kebabs are dependable favourites. Vegetarians are well catered for, with hearty bean, lentil and aubergine dishes throughout. Pace yourself — portions are generous and the bread keeps coming.
Sweets and desserts
Save room — Türkiye's desserts are legendary. Baklava layers wafer-thin pastry with pistachios or walnuts and sweet syrup, best enjoyed with strong coffee. Künefe is the showstopper: shredded pastry packed with melting cheese, soaked in syrup and served hot, often topped with crushed pistachio. Turkish delight (lokum) comes in countless flavours — rosewater, pomegranate, double-roasted nut — and makes a lovely gift. In summer, cool down with dondurma, the famously stretchy, chewy Turkish ice cream that vendors love to serve with a bit of theatre. For something lighter, try sütlaç, a baked rice pudding with a golden, caramelised top.
Drinks: from çay to rakı
Drinking in Alanya is its own ritual. Çay, served in tulip-shaped glasses, accompanies almost everything and is a constant offer of welcome. Turkish coffee is thick, unfiltered and rich — order it sade (no sugar) to az şekerli (a little). On a hot day nothing beats ayran, a salted yoghurt drink, or a freshly squeezed orange or pomegranate juice from a street stall. With meze and fish, locals reach for rakı, the anise spirit poured over ice and topped with water until it turns milky white. For a memorable day out, we run food-focused trips and can drive you to the riverside restaurants on the Dim river, where you dine over cool mountain water.