How do you order in a tradesmen's restaurant?
Short answer
Do not wait for a menu: you look at the pots on the counter and choose by pointing. Prices are on the board, there is one portion size, and the food comes hot. Midday is the best time; by evening the pots run down.
The tradesmen's restaurant is the heart of everyday Turkish cooking: the pots cooked in the morning stand in a row on the counter and you choose by looking. So you do not need to know the name of a dish — pointing is enough, and if you ask you will often be given a taste.
The order is simple: a soup, a stewpot dish, rice or bulgur beside it, and an ayran. If the waiter asks “pilav üstü mü?”, he is offering to put the dish on top of the rice. Dessert, if there is one, is also on the counter.
Between twelve and two the pots are fullest and the food freshest. In the evening what is left may have been reheated; the tradesmen's restaurant is not a dinner restaurant but an institution of lunch.
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Updated: 2026-10-06 · The guide offers technical and cultural information, not health advice.