What is a serpme kahvaltı, and what actually arrives at the table?
A serpme kahvaltı is a Turkish breakfast served as many small plates at once instead of one filled plate. The word serpme means scattered. Nothing is stacked on a single dish. Everything is spread across the table and everyone reaches into the middle.
Most tables include the following.
- Several cheeses, usually beyaz peynir (a salty white cheese) and kaşar (a firm yellow one)
- Black and green olives
- Tomato, cucumber, peppers and fresh herbs
- Honey, kaymak (thick clotted cream), jam and butter
- Eggs, usually fried, with sucuk or with kavurma
- Warm bread, sometimes with börek (a savoury filled pastry) or simit (a sesame bread ring)
- Black tea from a pot
The number of plates changes from place to place, and so does the region. Van, the Black Sea coast and the Aegean have all developed their own breakfast specialities. What does not change is that the table is shared.
How many people is a serpme kahvaltı for? Can I order one alone?
A serpme kahvaltı usually starts at two people. At Sultan Grill House it is served for two and costs 1900 TL. If you are on your own, pick a single plate from the breakfast section instead. A three cheese croissant is 750 TL and kelle paça soup is 620 TL.
Do not think of it as a portion. It is a spread built for sharing, and nobody expects you to finish every plate. With a larger group, one serpme plus a few extra plates works well.
What time do Turkish people eat breakfast?
Most people eat between eight and eleven in the morning. On weekdays it is quick. On weekends the whole thing changes. The table is laid properly and people stay for hours, which is why kahvaltı counts as a social meal rather than a fuel stop.
Breakfast is the main morning meal here and it often replaces lunch, because you leave the table full. Do not rush it. A Turkish breakfast is a meal you sit through, not one you get through. On weekend and holiday mornings a breakfast running a few hours is completely normal.
What are menemen and sucuklu yumurta?
Menemen is tomatoes and green peppers cooked down in olive oil with eggs stirred through at the end. It stays soft and spoonable rather than setting like an omelette. It arrives in the pan it was cooked in, and you scoop it up with bread instead of a fork. Whether onion belongs in it has been argued over in Turkey for years, with serious defenders on both sides. Versions with cheese or sucuk are common too.
Both dishes are usually made for one person, so adding a menemen alongside a shared serpme is a normal way to order.
Sucuklu yumurta is slices of sucuk fried in a pan with eggs cracked over them. Sucuk is a dry spiced beef sausage with garlic, cumin and red pepper. Turkish sucuk contains no pork.
How is Turkish tea served, and how do I drink it?
Tea is brewed in a çaydanlık, a two part stacked pot. Water boils in the lower chamber while strong tea steeps in the upper one. Your glass is filled first from the strong brew on top, then topped up with hot water from below. That means you control the strength. Ask for açık if you want it light, koyu if you want it strong.
It comes in a small tulip shaped glass, small on purpose, because tea is drunk hot and refilled often. Leaving an empty glass on the table usually reads as a request for another one.
The word kahvaltı comes from kahve (coffee) and altı (under), meaning the thing eaten before coffee. Despite the name, coffee is not part of the meal. Turkish coffee comes afterwards.
How do I fit breakfast into a Sultanahmet sightseeing day?
Start early. The Basilica Cistern opens its daytime session at 9am, with a separate evening session from 7.30pm. Hagia Sophia opens at 8am in the summer season and closes to visitors for a while around Friday midday prayers. Hours shift with the season, so check the official sites before you go.
Sultan Grill House is at Yerebatan Cd. No 36, directly across from the Cistern, and opens every day at 9am. Hagia Sophia is a two minute walk and the Blue Mosque about four. The kitchen is halal certified.
If you are using public transport, the nearest stop is Sultanahmet on the T1 tram. Trams run from six in the morning until around midnight, every few minutes, and you need an İstanbulkart to board.
