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Dining out along the Aegean coast is a pleasure, especially if you enjoy seafood and fresh produce. There are countless seafood restaurants at all price ranges. A typical meal includes an assortment of hot and cold meze (appetizers), a mixed salad, and the catch of the day, capped off with a Turkish dessert. To make it authentic, accompany your meal with rak? (a spirit similar in taste to oúzo). Some of the more common fish you'll find along the Aegean coast are levrek (sea bass), çipura (sea bream), barbunya (red mullet), and lahos (grouper), as well as tasty smaller fish like sardalya (sardines). Note that most fish restaurants charge per kilogram for whole fish, and the prices often aren't listed; ask before ordering to avoid receiving an unexpectedly large bill at the end of an otherwise pleasant meal. Of course, there are plenty of meat and kebab restaurants around, too, if that’s what you’re craving.
For dessert, try local dondurma (Turkish ice cream, often thickened with orchid root or mastic resin), as well as milk puddings and baklava. It’s often better to avoid hotel restaurants at lunch and dinner—you can frequently find better and less expensive food a short walk away—but luxury and boutique hotels might be an exception as they are often firm favorites on the local restaurant scene. And don’t forget street snacks! In season, you can grab fat local Smyrna figs; a cup of icy, dark berry ?erbet (think of it as Ottoman Gatorade); or a sesame-studded feta-and-tomato sandwich, each for less than a dollar in central ?zmir. Simit, the classic Turkish bagel-like street snack, is called gevrek in the ?zmir region, and often purchased along with a piece of tulum peyniri (goat's milk cheese) and a hard-boiled egg, following an old Sephardic culinary custom.
This local favorite is the place to come for dessert; in addition to black forest cake and semolina cake, there's ice cream in many different flavors, served in a homemade waffle cone. Sakızlı muhallebi, a local specialty, is Turkish milk pudding flavored with gum mastic, the aromatic resin of the mastic tree. A beloved local brand, İmren has opened a casual Turkish restaurant on the same street (Kemalpaşa Cad. 70), as well as an Alaçatı hotel.
Bitez Dondurma's creamy ice-cream concoctions full of fresh fruit have proved so popular that the shop now has branches all over the Bodrum Peninsula, and as far away as Istanbul. The waterfront location in Bodrum's town center is a convenient spot to grab a scoop or two as you stroll along the promenade.
With a huge variety of baked goods and desserts, excellent house-made ice cream and chocolates, this pastry shop has been popular for decades. This branch of the legendary patisserie, in the heart of trendy Alsancak, is also a sit-down café serving coffee and Turkish-style breakfast.
Since 1945, the Rumeli bakery has been the place in Çeşme for treats like sakızlı dondurma (thick, chewy Turkish-style mastic ice cream) in flavors such as karadut (black mulberry) and tarçın (cinnamon), as well as jams, sweet mastic paste, and other traditional goodies. It's on the main shopping street, not far from Ayios Haralambos church.
This popular bakery on Bodrum's main pedestrian shopping street is know for classic puddings, cheesecakes, pastries, and luxurious fruit-and-cream parfaits. There's also an outlet on Neyzen Tevfik Caddesi across from the marina.
On a hot, hectic day in the Kemeraltı bazaar, you’ll be happy to stumble on this little şerbet stall that’s been selling ice-cold and very delicious fruit juices and nectars since 1971. They sell jars of their own fruit jams, too.
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