5 Best Restaurants in The Black Sea Coast and Lake Van, Turkey

With excellent food and stylish ambience, this restaurant has won itself a place at the top of Mardin's dining scene. There is a mix of Western dishes such as steak and pasta, with Turkish standards and local specialities like kaburga (stuffed lamb) and kuz tandir (slow oven-cooked lamb). The meze dishes are also unusual regional specialities and very tasty. Local wine is available. Meals are served on a pleasant outdoor terrace in the evening and the vaulted stone rooms of an old house during the day.

One of Mardin's best restaurants (known throughout Turkey) occupies a restored stone house with several terraces that provide spectacular views of the plain that unfolds below the town. Dishes served are authentic local ones, such as lamb braised in a tangy green plum sauce and kitel raha, layers of mince and chickpea dough. There is also a full spread of tantalizing cold and hot mezes, including tasty chickpea fritters and, owing to the Arab influence on Mardin, hummus and falafel. A locally made red wine is served traditionally, in metal bowls, although you can ask for a glass.

Open since 1887, Imam Çağdaş is certainly doing something right, as the crowds that pack this restaurant in the bazaar district day and night will tell you. Besides top notch lahmucan (crispy stone baked dough topped with spiced minced meat), there's a small menu of standard kebabs such as ali nazik (minced-meat kebab served on a puree of roasted eggplant, garlic, and yogurt) and the sebzeli kebab, a skewer of grilled vegetables and lamb minced with garlic and parsley. The star however is the terrific syrupy baklava, so widely regarded as the best in the country that orders have regularly been received from Turkish presidents and from as far afield as Fidel Castro.

This charming, family-run restaurant is all dark wood and nostalgia, and is said to have been serving the same dishes since 1856. The specialty is buttery rice with either slow-cooked lamb or kuru fasülye (white beans in a tomato sauce). Accompany your meal with a frothy ayran (salty yogurt drink) or another house speciality: a sweet, refreshing drink made from sun-dried apricots.