Work through the list in order. Hide the notes when you know what to do.
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Try Antalya piyaz
A white bean salad with tahini, garlic, vinegar and boiled egg — the local version, absent from the rest of Turkey. Served cold with köfte.
The tahini is the key difference; the Istanbul version has none. The beans are the small local kind from Isparta, softer than usual.
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Eat pide
A boat-shaped flatbread topped with mince, cheese, sucuk or egg and baked in a wood oven. It is cut into pieces and eaten by hand.
Kıymalı is minced meat, kaşarlı cheese, yumurtalı egg. Ask for butter on the edges; that is what locals do.
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Try lahmacun
An ultra-thin flatbread with a fine layer of mince, tomato and herbs, baked in two minutes. Rolled with parsley and lemon and eaten by hand.
It is never eaten with a knife and fork, only rolled. It goes with ayran or şalgam rather than tea.
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Try tandır kebab
Lamb slow-cooked in a sealed earth oven for many hours until the meat falls off the bone. Served on lavash with onion and sumac.
It is sold by weight and usually until lunch: one batch is cooked per day. The fat soaks into the lavash underneath, and that is eaten too.
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Eat grilled fish
Sea bream, sea bass or small red mullet picked from the ice and grilled over coals with lemon and rocket. Fish restaurants cluster by the market and the old harbour.
Agree the price per kilo before the fish goes to the kitchen. Fish goes with meze and rakı rather than tea.
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Have a Turkish breakfast
A dozen small plates: white cheese, olives, tomato, cucumber, clotted kaymak with honey, jams, eggs and endless tea. Ordered for the group.
Tea is refilled without limit and is included. Menemen and sucuklu yumurta are ordered separately as the hot dish.
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Try hibeş and local meze
Hibeş is an Antalya starter of tahini, cumin, lemon and garlic, bright orange with paprika. Served with bread alongside other meze.
Tahini turns up both in the meze and in the piyaz salad, which is a local trait. It is eaten with bread rather than a spoon.
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Try saç kavurma
Meat with pepper, tomato and onion fried on a large round saç pan in front of you. Served on the same pan over a burner.
The vegetables should be browned rather than stewed in their own juice. Lavash comes as a stack and the meat is wrapped in it.
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Eat köfte
Grilled minced meat patties with piyaz, roasted peppers and lavash. A plain dish by which a kebab house is judged.
In Antalya köfte almost always comes with the local tahini piyaz. Chilli peppers are served separately and can be skipped.
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Try zeytinyağlı dishes
Vegetables braised in olive oil and served cold: stuffed leaves, artichokes, green beans, aubergine. An entirely plant-based section of the menu.
They are served at room temperature rather than hot, which is intended. In a lokanta they occupy their own row of the display.
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Eat künefe Desserts and pastries
Stretchy unsalted cheese between layers of kadaif pastry, soaked in syrup and dusted with pistachio. Served hot straight from the pan.
Eat it within five minutes, while the cheese still pulls. It often comes with dondurma ice cream on top.
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Try dondurma Desserts and pastries
A stretchy ice cream of goat milk with salep and mastic that resists melting and is cut with a knife. Vendors perform tricks with it.
The Maraş version is the stretchiest and comes with a knife and fork. In a pastane it is denser than from street vendors.
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Try baklava and sütlaç Desserts and pastries
Pistachio baklava and sütlaç, a rice pudding baked until the top browns and served cold. The second is lighter and less sweet.
Baklava should crackle and not leak syrup; if it does, it has been sitting. Sütlaç comes in a clay dish straight from the fridge.
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Drink pomegranate juice Non-alcoholic drinks
Freshly pressed pomegranate juice, squeezed in front of you on a hand press. The pomegranate season is autumn, when the juice is sweeter and cheaper.
Ask for it without sugar or added orange if you want the pure taste. Out of season it is sourer and costs more.
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Drink ayran and şalgam Non-alcoholic drinks
Ayran is a salted yoghurt drink for meat; şalgam is a sour-salty juice of fermented turnip with carrot, hot or mild.
Şalgam comes acılı (hot) or acısız (mild), so specify. It is meant to go with kebab and rakı rather than on its own.
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Try rakı Local alcohol
An anise spirit that clouds with water, sipped slowly with meze and fish. It is diluted roughly one to one with water, then iced.
Rakı first, then water, then ice, or it will not emulsify. It is drunk through the whole dinner rather than as a shot beforehand.
