Istanbul Street Food Tour

You do not need a guide to eat well in Istanbul. A simit from a street cart and a fish sandwich by the water take no planning at all. What a food tour buys you is the next layer: the counters with no English sign, the dishes you would not order blind (kokoreç, grilled lamb intestines chopped with spices, is the classic example), and someone to explain why the pickle juice comes in a glass. The big decision is where the tour happens, because the two main versions feel like different cities.

The old city: Eminönü, the bazaars and Fatih

Tours on the historic peninsula usually work the streets between the Spice Bazaar and the Grand Bazaar, where the wholesale lanes of Tahtakale sell coffee, cheese and cured meat, then climb into Fatih. Expect a Turkish coffee from a roastery queue, börek (layered pastry) from a bakery that sells nothing else, döner or dürüm, and often a stop at Kadınlar Pazarı, a square whose shops and restaurants specialise in food from Siirt and the southeast, including büryan, slow-roasted lamb. The food is traditional and the setting is the point: you eat inside the working city that the souvenir shops are built on top of.

Who it suits: first-timers staying in Sultanahmet, and anyone who wants history with the food. Who it doesn't: people who mind crowds and steep lanes. Around the bazaars on a Saturday it is shoulder to shoulder, and conversation with the guide gets hard.

Kadıköy on the Asian side

The Kadıköy version starts with the ferry across, which is half the pleasure, then works through the market streets near the pier: fishmongers, pickle shops, delis with forty kinds of olive, and small places doing home-style dishes from Anatolia and the southeast. Many tours finish in Moda or around the bar streets with meze or a sweet.

Who it suits: second visits, anyone who likes markets more than monuments, and evening tours. It is flatter and more local, with a younger crowd. Who it doesn't: travellers with one or two days, who are better off spending them on the peninsula.

Our pick

On a first trip, choose the old city, early in your stay, so you know what to order for the rest of it. If you already know Sultanahmet, go to Kadıköy. A tour that tries to cover both sides in one day spends more of it in transit than at the counters. Our neighbourhood guide explains how the two areas differ once the tour is over.

Food tours are sold by small local companies and by independent licensed guides. Look for a group of about ten or fewer; beyond that, the group blocks a narrow shop doorway and nobody hears the explanation. Before booking, check:

• which side of the city the tour covers, and where it starts and ends
• how many tastings are included, and whether drinks are extra
• whether a ferry ticket or an Istanbulkart is needed
• how it handles vegetarian, halal, gluten-free or allergy needs (tell them at booking, not on the day)
• the cancellation terms, and what happens in heavy rain

Most tours run in the morning or in the evening. Morning tours catch bakeries and breakfast counters; evening ones lean towards grills, meze and the ferry at dusk. During Ramadan the rhythm changes, and some tours are built around the iftar meal at sunset instead. Ask how they adapt.

Come hungry and skip breakfast, or at least keep it small. Portions are tasting size, but there are many of them.

• Carry small notes and coins. Tastings are usually covered, but you will want to buy more of something.
• Treat midye dolma with care in hot weather. Buy stuffed mussels (rice, spices and a squeeze of lemon inside the shell) from a busy stall with a fast turnover, and skip them if the tray has been sitting in the sun.
• Wear flat shoes. Both routes involve cobbles, and the old city involves hills.
• Ask for the name of everything. The point is to order it again yourself later, for instance on the Kadıköy afternoon in our 3-day itinerary.
• Do not plan around the fish sandwich boats. The balık ekmek boats by the Galata Bridge have been through years of lease disputes with the municipality, so what you find at the Eminönü waterfront may differ from older guides.
• Avoid Sundays for the old city. The Grand Bazaar is shut and many wholesale shops around it close too, so a bazaar-area tour loses much of its street life.
• Drink the ayran. The salty yoghurt drink is the natural partner to anything grilled.