Izmir Street Food Guide: Boyoz, Kumru, Gevrek, Söğüş and Bomba

Izmir possesses a street-food culture completely distinct from Istanbul or south-eastern Anatolia. Rather than heavy kebabs and syrupy phyllo baklava, Izmir's everyday street snacks grew out of Sephardic Jewish, Rum (Greek), Balkan and Levantine baking traditions. You can taste all five icons in a single day between Alsancak and Kemeraltı.

1. Boyoz with a Slow-Baked Oven Egg (The Essential Izmir Breakfast)

Brought to Smyrna by Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 (derived from the Spanish bollos, "small buns"), boyoz is the only pastry of its kind made commercially only in Izmir. Flour, sunflower oil, a splash of tahini, water and salt are kneaded, rested in oil, flipped through the air until paper-thin, rolled into a tight spiral without yeast, and baked in a scorching stone oven until crisp and thousand-layered outside and soft inside. How to order it in the late morning: go to a classic bakery such as Alsancak Dostlar Fırını (on Kıbrıs Şehitleri Caddesi since 1983) and ask for plain, spinach or tahini boyoz alongside a fırınlanmış yumurta (an egg baked slowly in the dying embers of the stone oven for hours until the white turns nutty brown and creamy, dusted with black pepper and cumin) and a slice of sharp sheep's-milk Bergama tulum cheese.

2. Kumru (In Two Distinct Styles: Bakery Cold vs Çeşme Hot)

Named because its sesame-crusted, chickpea-yeast dough is shaped with tapered ends like a turtledove (kumru), this sandwich comes in two forms: the classic cold daytime market version stuffed with thick slices of salty Izmir tulum cheese, green pepper and tomato inside Kemeraltı, and the famous hot Çeşme Kumrusu, where the sweetish roll is split, toasted over charcoal, and packed with grilled beef sausage (sucuk), salam, sayas/kaşar cheese and tomato.

3. Gevrek, Hisarönü Söğüş, Midye Dolma and İzmir Bombası

• Gevrek & Şambali: crunchier and darker than an Istanbul simit because the dough is boiled in hot grape molasses (pekmez) before hitting the oven. For dessert in Kemeraltı (especially at historic 1942 Hisarönü Şambalicisi), order warm semolina şambali cake sliced open and layered with thick clotted water-buffalo cream (kaymak) and cinnamon.
• Hisarönü Söğüş: finely hand-chopped cold slow-boiled lamb cheek and tongue tossed with red onion, parsley, tomato, cumin and sumac, rolled tightly in thin lavash flatbread inside Kemeraltı.
• İzmir Bombası (at Çelebi Unlu Mamuller in Alsancak): a paper-thin pocket of dough baked for just two minutes around a molten, flowing centre of warm hazelnut chocolate praline.