I’ve lived in Istanbul for over ten years now and since I’ve been here, I’ve began to realise just how important food is to the local culture. If you ask most tourists to name a Turkish food, then I think most people would say kebab, which isn’t really wrong, but we just have so many other dishes! The city is a combination of so many ethnicities, to a point where one half of the city is in Asia and the other half is in Europe, meaning the food is a really nice mixture of both continents. The popular central areas like Galata have a good selection of restaurants, but it’s when you get off the beaten path that you really discover true Turkish cuisine! It’s when you realise that every individual district has its own specialised dishes, you can begin to see just how exciting but also how complex my city is for food lovers! The aim of this Istanbul food guide is to make it a little bit easier for you to find out exactly what to eat in Istanbul and where to eat it, because restaurants can be a bit different over here. It’s such an authentic experience to eat in this city, Istanbul's restaurants are more likely to be a stall on the street selling just one item than anything fancy, but that’s all part of the charm!
