Düzce köftesi
Grilled Düzce meatballs
Beef or lamb mince with no added fat, a little spice and corn flour in place of bread.
Black Sea Region
Düzce
In Düzce, Circassian, Abkhaz, Georgian and Manav cooking share one table, and you can meet that mix plate by plate. Haluj, a Circassian and Abkhaz pastry, comes filled with local cheese or potato, fried or boiled and served with yogurt. Georgian hinkali gathers thin dough around minced meat like a little bundle; boiled, it is eaten hot with the broth still inside. Düzce köftesi stands out for its restraint: beef or lamb mince with no added fat, only a little spice and corn flour in place of bread. For something sweet, look to Akçakoca’s melengücceği, thin dough spread with dartı, made from buffalo or cow cream, and ground hazelnuts or walnuts, then fried and left to soak in syrup. And if you step away from the table to seek out local products, don’t miss the Circassian cheese smoked over dried mulberry and acacia wood, or Düzce’s chestnut honey.
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Hazelnut country between sea and plateau
Hazelnut orchards, highland pastures and the Black Sea coast.
Signature dishes
A small grilled köfte is one starting point for a table that also includes leafy pastries, rice and dairy.
Yufkalı Konuralp pilavı
Konuralp rice under yufka
Rice grown around Konuralp, soaked, cooked and served on a tray beneath a thin sheet of pastry.
Akçakoca mancarlı pidesi
Pide with wild greens
Dough filled with mancar greens such as beet or spinach leaves and baked in the oven.
Akçakoca melengücceği tatlısı
Fried pastry with cream filling
Thin dough spread with dartı, buffalo or cow cream cooked down, and ground hazelnuts or walnuts, then rolled, shaped, fried and soaked in syrup.
Akçakoca ekşilisi
Bonito with tomato and lemon
Black Sea bonito seared in oil, then cooked with onion, garlic, tomato, butter and lemon juice.
Haluj
Circassian and Abkhaz pastry
Circassian and Abkhaz pastry filled with local cheese or potato, fried or boiled and served with yogurt.
Hinkali
Georgian meat dumplings
Georgian dumplings of thin dough gathered around minced meat, boiled and eaten hot with the broth inside.
Düzce fındıklı tahin helvası
Tahini halva with hazelnuts
Tahini halva made with hazelnuts, often taken with tea after a fish meal in Akçakoca.
Locally cooked
Recipes from this city are coming soon.
Local ingredients
Düzce kestane balı
Chestnut honey from Düzce.
Guide not written yetAkçakoca sarı fındığı
Hazelnuts grown around Akçakoca.
Guide not written yetDüzce kestanesi
Chestnuts grown in Düzce.
Guide not written yetDüzce kestane kabağı
Winter squash baked in syrup or used in soups and rolls.
Guide not written yetDüzce şeker kamışı pekmezi
Syrup made once a year from sugar cane grown around Çilimli.
Guide not written yetÇerkez füme peyniri
Circassian cheese smoked over dried mulberry and acacia wood.
Guide not written yetFood culture
The provincial heritage inventory records practices ranging from basketry and knife-making to yufka preparation and Circassian and Abkhaz cheese traditions. This variety reflects different kinds of knowledge, including both craft and food production. The official culinary account also acknowledges Caucasian, Georgian and Crimean Tatar connections. Naming those influences is more informative than treating the province as culturally uniform or assigning a shared dish to one exclusive origin.
Many kitchens, one table
Circassian, Abkhaz, Georgian and Manav cooking share the province’s table.
Hazelnuts and chestnuts
Hazelnuts go into halva and melengücceği, while chestnuts and chestnut honey are registered local products.
What to bring home
- Hazelnut tahini halva
- Chestnut honey
- Sugar cane molasses
- Akçakoca hazelnuts
- Hand-made Düzce knives
History & landscape
Düzce’s ancient past begins in the Konuralp neighbourhood of the city center, which is why Prusias ad Hypium is also known as the Ancient City of Konuralp. The city’s history reaches back to the 3rd century BCE. Its theatre, which local people call “forty steps,” was built in the Hellenistic period and received additions in Roman times, and it is among the vivid surviving traces of the Prusias Kingdom, which ruled the region until the first century CE. Düzce Konuralp Museum was established to protect the rich cultural heritage of this ancient city.
The province meets the Black Sea at Akçakoca. Known as Diapolis, it was an important coastal and commercial town in Roman and Byzantine times, came under Genoese sway in the 13th century and then passed to Ottoman rule. Across the province, mainly in the villages of Manav Turks, you can find wooden stack mosques built without nails by notching logs into one another. The Hemşin Village Mosque in Akçakoca was built by Hemşin people who came from Artvin after the 1877 Ottoman-Russian War.
