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Taste of TürkiyeTaste of Türkiye

Mediterranean Region

Antalya

We often think of Antalya as a city of sea and sun, yet once you sit down at the table, another Antalya opens up before you. The piyaz served alongside şiş köfte cooked over embers stands apart from the bean salads you know because of its tahini tarator. Tahini meets garlic, lemon and spices in hibeş, and at the end of the meal it is poured, together with walnuts, over pumpkin dessert. The story of this cuisine, however, will not fit on a single table in the city center. Along the coast you come across Finike’s oranges, Manavgat’s sesame and Alanya’s bananas. In Alanya, gülüklü çorba with its small meatballs takes its place at wedding tables, while the roads leading towards the Taurus introduce you to Yörük cooking. A curiosity that begins with a plate of piyaz grows from there towards the districts, their local products and different tables. This time, discover Antalya not only through its sights but through the flavors to taste, and the stories to learn, at every stop.

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Kaleiçi's old harbor with wooden boats, a lighthouse and the fluted minaret below the Taurus Mountains, with a white bean salad topped with egg and tomato and a glass of ayran.

Where the Taurus meets the sea

Sea, mountains and a table rich with tahini.

Signature dishes

Explore the dishes that shape the city’s table.

White bean salad with tahini, tomato, parsley and hard-boiled egg wedges on a blue-and-white platter beside a coastal window.
Antalya style

White Bean Salad with Tahini

Cooked white beans with a lemon-tahini dressing, tomato and parsley, topped with hard-boiled eggs. An Antalya-style home adaptation.

Smooth tahini meze dusted with red pepper and cumin in a blue patterned bowl, with bread and lemon nearby.
Antalya style

Tahini Meze

A smooth Antalya tahini meze with lemon, garlic, cumin and red pepper, whisked until thick and spreadable. Hibeş is associated with Antalya’s tahini-rich cooking. Its base is sesame paste, lemon, garlic and spices; this version contains no chickpeas.

Grilled meatball fingers over pide with grilled onion and green pepper, sliced tomato and parsley on a blue-patterned plate.
Antalya style

Grilled Meatball Skewers

Beef and lamb seasoned with table salt, shaped onto skewers and grilled over charcoal, served over pide with grilled onion and peppers.

Tender orange pumpkin slices in syrup with chopped walnuts and a drizzle of tahini
Antalya style

Pumpkin Dessert

Pumpkin slowly cooked in its own syrup, lightly browned in the oven and finished with double-roasted tahini and walnuts.

Antalya paça çorbası

Creamy beef soup

Beef head meat and bone broth with a creamy egg, flour and saffron liaison, served with koşma bread.

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Braised lamb with small pearl onions, zucchini, carrots, potatoes, green beans and short noodles in a copper pan.
Antalya style

Lamb and Vegetable Stew with Noodles

Tender lamb, whole pearl onions and vegetables simmer together before cooked erişte is folded through the juices. A hearty Antalya-style stew.

Yanık dondurma

Burnt ice cream

Ice cream made from Taurus goat milk, cream, salep and sugar, with a distinctive smoky note.

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Antalya serpme böreği

Hand-stretched börek

Dough stretched paper-thin by hand, without a rolling pin, folded around minced meat or cheese and baked; served at weddings, religious gatherings and funerals.

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Locally cooked

Thick white fish steaks with potato, carrot, tomato and lemon in a shallow copper pan beside the sea
Antalya style

Steamed Grouper

Thick grouper steaks gently cooked over potatoes, carrots, tomato and lemon.

A round toasted roll with sucuk, frankfurters, melted cheese, a cooked egg with broken yolk, pickle slices and ketchup on a blue-and-white plate on a stone terrace table.
Antalya style

Yumurtalı Yengen

A hot büfe sandwich with a ring-cooked egg, melted cheese and pickles. Inspired by our editor’s childhood memories of eating yengen at Antalya Spor Büfesi, this version features a round bun, grilled sucuk and sosis, melted kaşar, and an egg cooked in a metal ring.

Local ingredients

Smooth beige sesame paste with a shallow spoon groove

Tahini

A paste of roasted sesame kernels that gives dressings sesame flavor and body.

A whole fresh grouper lying on crushed ice on a stone ledge, its mouth open, with the sea and hills behind.

Grouper

Thick raw grouper steaks that hold their shape in gently cooked fish dishes.

Food culture

Antalya’s table brings together the Yörük cooking of the Taurus highlands and the vegetables, herbs and seafood of the coast. Yogurt came from the Yörük, and herb-rich dishes from Cretan families who arrived in the 1924 population exchange, while keşkek remains a fixture of weddings and special days.

A tahini table

Tahini binds piyaz, gives hibeş its body and finishes pumpkin dessert.

Highlands to coast

The Yörük cooking of the Taurus meets the Mediterranean’s vegetables and seafood.

What to bring home

  • Finike oranges
  • Citrus-peel preserves
  • Tahini
  • Tavşan yüreği olives
  • Taurus thyme
  • Hand-made copperware

History & landscape

Start exploring Antalya’s past in Kaleiçi. Antalya, which takes its name from the city’s founder Attalos II, was a port city that flourished in the Roman period. Hadrian’s Gate, the old harbour and the walls enclosing Kaleiçi are traces of that past still visible today. Considered together, these structures help you understand the place the city’s relationship with the sea holds in urban life. A stroll from around the old harbour out to the walls is a fine way to follow the city’s history within the present-day city.

The Taurus Mountains rising behind the city give Antalya’s geography a different scale. Across the province, the Mediterranean shore and mountainous terrain draw close to one another; beyond the citrus groves, greenhouses and beaches come mountain villages and highland pastures. Getting to know this broad geography means bringing both the coast and the uplands into an Antalya journey. As you carry the discovery that began in Kaleiçi, facing the harbour, onward towards the Taurus, the province’s different settings of life come into view as well.

Nearby

Mediterranean Region

Pine-covered hills around a turquoise bay with sailboats, with beef strips, yogurt and tomato over thin fried potatoes, a salad, olive oil and a glass of ayran.MuğlaLake Salda's turquoise water and white shores below mountains at sunset, with skewers of grilled meat cubes, grilled green peppers and red onion salad beside a copper cup of ayran.BurdurRice with chickpeas topped with shredded meat in a patterned bowl, a glass of yogurt drink and dried rose petals, overlooking pink roses, tiled roofs and a blue lake below mountains.IspartaKızkalesi, the castle on an islet in the sea, at sunset, with flatbread wraps of chopped meat and tomato, lemon, parsley, pickled peppers, sumac onions and a glass of ayran.Mersin