Traditional Turkish Cypriot Restaurants

There are so very many excellent and high quality restaurants in Northern Cyprus that visitors and residents are literally spoilt for choice. The range of styles and tastes is impressive, and there is most certainly a restaurant to suit every palate and every whim.

But some of the best traditional Turkish Cypriot restaurants are tucked slightly away from the main tourist routes and if you’re on a brief visit to the island you might miss them.

Most visitors to the main town of Girne head straight for the harbour area, and while the harbour boasts a good selection of cafes, bars and restaurants to choose from, you only have to venture a little further afield for first class cuisine and service levels, at extremely affordable prices.

Here are just a handful of our favourite traditional Turkish Cypriot restaurants, they all offer extremely tasty and beautifully cooked meals for you to try.

Padisah Restaurant - located up a side street opposite the Colony Hotel in Girne is the small and welcoming Padisah Restaurant.

In the heat of the summer sun diners can eat outside in the pretty walled and shaded courtyard garden and in the winter the tables and chairs are moved inside to create a cosy warm and friendly atmosphere.

Padisah are specialists in clay oven cooking or kleftico. Kleftico or kleftiko (spellings differ depending who you speak to!) is a cooking style found across Cyprus, basically the meat a diner chooses has been slow cooked in its own juices in the clay oven. When it is served up it is so beautifully cooked it just falls of the bone! By cooking in this way the food retains its flavour and succulence.

Padisah also have a range of specials which change from day to day and serve other traditional favourites such as beans and kebabs. And just for the record, beans may sound dull, but actually the meal consists of minced and spiced lamb and beans with rice. Very tasty and filling!

Beyti’s - located on the street that runs parallel to, but behind the Colony Hotel is Beyti’s Restaurant. This is a true favourite with local people and is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week...so popular is their menu!

In the summer diners can choose to either sit outside on the covered terrace and watch the impressive water wall fountain or sit inside in the air-conditioned interior.

The restaurant’s name comes from a type of kebab called beyti and indeed the beyti kebab is one of their most popular dishes comprising of spied and minced lamb. But apart from the full range of kebabs the restaurant also offers pides which are Turkish pizzas, together with salads and even steaks and burgers. The more frequently you dine at Beyti’s the better the service and meal sizes you will enjoy!

Mangal - this restaurant is more popular as a takeaway but it does have a waiter service and as it is located at the far end of the main street that runs from the roundabout by the Colony Hotel to join up with the main through road to Lapta and beyond, you are ideally placed to watch the world go by!

To start with you can choose from an impressive range of meze dishes which can be brought to your table for you to select on an individual basis, and then Mangal offer an excellent selection of traditional meat based dishes with lamb and chicken being the main meats available. You can watch the chefs cooking over their huge charcoal grill and the smoke and cooking smells from Mangal entice many a passer by in for dinner!

Niazis - Niazis have two restaurants in Girne to chose from, one is just down the road from Mangal and the other is opposite the Dome Hotel.

The first one is mainly their takeaway hub! However there are plenty of tables to chose from outside where you can sit and people watch whilst dining on a fine selection of salads, mezes and traditional kebabs.

But if you want more from your dining experience then try the main Niazi restaurant opposite the Dome. The centrepiece of the restaurant is the massive traditional charcoal grill and diners literally watch their meal being cooked in front of them.

Erol’s - and finally, I’ve saved the best until last! Erol’s Bar and Restaurant in the pretty village of Ozankoy offers the best hot and cold meze in Northern Cyprus! It also has an impressive array of traditional meat, salad and kebab dishes for your main course, but beware! After the hot and cold meze you might find you have no room for any more!

Ask to speak to Caroline and ask her about any specials that day before you place your order. If they find some nice, special or rare ingredients at the market that day then they will cook them up for the enjoyment of the guests that evening...but make sure you ask because the specials might not be on the menu.

Erol’s is well worth the short trip to Ozankoy! Despite the fact that the restaurant’s indoor dining area is quite big it is very intimate and friendly in the winter when all the tables are centred round the main cooking area, and then in the summer when the tables are moved out onto the raised terrace, diners have beautiful views of the northern coast and the Mediterranean before them.