cast your mind back to the history lessons of your youth, recall the huge banquets typical of tudor meals, and you’ll have something close to how the turks often treat the first meal of the day. forget bowls of spiritless cereals or slices of granary and marmite inhaled as the front door slams behind you, breakfast time in turkey is a pretty big deal. when done to its fullest, you’ll be met with a dizzying spread of fresh produce that will often keep you going until dinner time, perhaps with a small snack (simit? see above) somewhere in between.
there are some very typical dishes that can be found at the turkish breakfast table and to experience the full works, van kahvaltı evi in beyoğlu delivers in spades. run by a team of young kurds and replicating the breakfast joints prolific in the city of van in the east (not far from turkey’s border with iran), the spread includes typical turkish breakfast appearances (such as tomatoes, cucumber, olives) along with cheeses from the city of van itself, eggs, pastries and more.
here’s what you can expect from the serme kahvaltı (breakfast spread) menu - this is the bad boy:
peynir - cheese, several different types
kaymac ve bal - clotted cream served in a dish of honey, quite exceptional
tereyağı - butter
zeytin - an assortment of olives
murtuga - local to van, bread coated in egg and flour and fried in oil
kavut - local to van, ground wheat, black pepper and sugar simmered together in butter
pekmez - fruit molasses
tahin - tahini
reçel - jam
haşlanmış yumurta - boiled eggs
domates, salatalık - tomatoes, cucumber
sınırsız çay - unlimited turkish tea
ekmek - endless baskets of freshly baked bread
in addition to this set menu, you can (and should - come hungry) order extras which simply cannot be missed. these include menemen (scrambled eggs cooked with peppers and a bit of spice) and gözleme (very thin and fresh bread dough folded around a filling such as spinach, potatoes or cheese and cooked on a flat griddle). round off with a türk kahvesi and possibly a nap.
is it acceptable to have breakfast three times a day? it should be.