In Turkey, kebab is not a singular dish. Adana kebabı, a spicy grilled skewer of ground meat from the southern city of Adana, is the most iconic and beloved style of kebab in the country. At Zübeyir, a lively grillhouse on two cozy floors of a historic building, the Adana kebab has just the right mix of meat, fat and red pepper. It comes to the table juicy and sizzling, and each bite melts in the mouth. Sitting at the grill is an experience all in its own. Reservations required.

In late 1960s Istanbul, kokoreç – stringy, springy lamb intestines wrapped around a core of skewered sweetbreads or other offal – was a street food delicacy loved by a few but not yet discovered by the masses. The popularity of this streetfood has grown, as has the offal dish’s presence across the city (and rather tasteless offerings). At Ozzie’s Kokoreç in the Asmalımescit neighborhood, the son of a kokoreç master is serving up smoky, earthy kokoreç like no other. Reservations required.

Hamsi are a much-loved winter fish in most countries with Black Sea shoreline, but nowhere is this European anchovy fished with such gusto, prepared in such a variety of ways and eaten in such quantity as in Turkey. At Hayvore, you can taste food from the Black Sea without leaving Istanbul. When in season, you’ll find hamsi in multiple forms: cooked into corn and leek cakes, layered atop rice or fried to order. On any given day, Chef Hızır has more than a dozen items bubbling at the steam table.

One of our favorite spots for a raucous night of rakı balık is Giritli, an elegant yet comfortable fish restaurant serving Cretan Turkish cuisine in Sultanahmet. Here, tables are filled with groups of locals and tourists taking advantage of a tasty and varied prix fixe menu, though you can also order a la carte. The grilled octopus leg is close to perfect, as is the seafood and orzo salad. In the warm months, Giritli’s garden is as divine as any rooftop. Reservations required.

Serpme kahvaltı (loosely, “breakfast spread”), a pastime of Eastern Turkey, has made its way to Istanbul in the last decade. This version takes the traditional Turkish breakfast of cheese, tomato, cucumber and bread and turns it up several notches. At the family farm-to-table Pulat Çiftliği in the ever-charming Kuzguncuk, your breakfast plate comes with: fried eggs, local cheeses, clotted cream, butter, jams, fruits and more – along with endless glasses of strong tea.

The scrambled egg dish menemen comes with most set-menu breakfasts, but is often at its best at hole-in-the-walls that make only that. The scramble consists of onions, green peppers and tomatoes sauteed down to a sauce, with a few eggs tossed in at just the right moment. We like to get ours at the conveniently located, no-frills Lades Menemen off of Istiklal in Taksim. A Turkish version of the American-style greasy-spoon diner, this restaurant is known for its menemen and fried eggs with meat.

Sold by roving vendors, street carts and bakeries, spread with a triangle of soft cheese or tossed to circling seagulls from the ferry, the humble simit has become a quintessential symbol of Istanbul – and of Turkey more broadly. While we are always happy to pick up a simit from a street vendor – to snack on while taking in the Bosporus – bakeries like the third-generation Tophane Tarihi Taş Fırın roll out freshly made simit throughout the day from their 130-year-old wood oven.

Across Istanbul, the once raw-meat snack of çiğ köfte has now become a totally vegan “meatball” treat. At Hacı Beşir Usta in Fatih’s Kadınlar Pazarı, the raw beef is subbed for ground walnuts that are added to bulgur and tomato-pepper paste. The real treat is the spice: the heat of the pul biber is smoothed out by smoky isot. The köfte is rolled in spring onions, a nice final touch before loading it into a crisp leaf of iceberg lettuce and squeezing a fat lemon wedge over the whole operation.

Lahmacun checks all of the boxes of a perfect savory snack: crispy, oven-fired crust, light and spicy meat spread, a fresh green garnish and a tangy spray from a lemon – for the price of a shoeshine. The lahmacun at Borsam Taşfırın in Kadıköy (specifically, the location on Serasker Sokak) snaps a bit before giving way to a soft, stretchy layer of crust. This is the lahmacun usta’s magic touch. The topping, a peppery, musty spread reminds us that this is not a vegetarian treat.

For our money, the classic Turkish combo of kaymak – rich, pure, white clotted cream made from water buffalo’s milk – served with honey and crusty white bread is one of the finest breakfast dishes anywhere, particulary at Boris’in Yeri in Sultanahmet. It has been keeping Kumkapı’s restaurants and residents stocked with bal-kaymak for over a century. Their kaymak is glorious, but simple – rolled up into little logs that have a consistency that hovers somewhere in between liquid and solid.

Mass-produced Turkish delight is anything but delightful. But, like most other Turkish treats, once you’ve had good lokum, you’d join the White Witch for it too. At Altan Şekerleme in the chaotic streets of Eminönü, fresh lokum is stacked in psychedelic pyramids. The perfumed gül (rosewater) Turkish delight is an almost sensual experience, and the fındıklı lokum, filled with hazelnuts, is a real show-stopper. These delights could would win over even the most committed chocoholic.

At Şanlıurfa Zaman Kebap Salonu, a grilled liver specialist, liquid white gold is made fresh daily in the form of frothy ayran, a salty, yogurt-based beverage. Here, the rich ayran arrives in a metal bowl with a gauzy white head. Not as sour as other homemade ayran we’ve tasted, this one goes down easily. Their recipe calls for a combination of cow’s milk and water buffalo milk. “Think of this as the ayran you get in the village; it’s all natural,” says Bedir Usta, who mans the ayran tank.

It’s a dirty secret nobody wants to talk about: finding a good cup of Turkish coffee in Turkey can sometimes be very difficult. Thin and watery, rather than thick and viscous, is frequently the order of the day. Mandabatmaz, a once-tiny café off İstiklal Caddesi, makes one of Istanbul’s finest cups of Turkish coffee. Here is what Turkish coffee should be, creamy and thick – and it better be, since the café’s name roughly translates into “so thick even a water buffalo wouldn’t sink.”

Karaköy Güllüoğlu is one of our favorite places in Istanbul for the pure baklava experience. Like most worthy baklava makers in Turkey, the founders hail from Gaziantep. Located a stone’s throw from the Bosphorus, this baklava emporium has been catering to Istanbul sweet tooths since 1949. The place serves more than a dozen kinds of phyllo-based sweets, none of them resembling the cardboard-like baklava that is often dished out outside the Middle East.