I grew up in Seferihisar on the Aegean coast, where meze was part of everyday food culture as well as restaurant and meyhane culture. Some mezeler were made regularly at home. Others were foods I associated more with a fish restaurant, a rakı table or a long dinner by the sea.

That distinction matters to me. Meze is not simply a small plate that arrives before the “real” food. Depending on the table, it can be a side dish, a companion to fish or meat, something eaten slowly with rakı, or even the main focus of the entire meal.

What Meze Means to Me

“Appetizer” is the easiest English translation of meze, but I think it is incomplete. An appetizer usually sounds like something you eat before the main course and then remove from the table. That is not always how meze works in Turkey.

A meze plate can stay on the table for a long time. You may take a little between bites of fish, return to it while talking, eat it with bread or combine several mezeler and never order a traditional main course at all.

For me, this flexibility is one of the great strengths of Turkish food culture. There are mezeler that work with fish, red meat, chicken, rakı or an ordinary home-cooked meal.

I sometimes describe it this way: if the main dish is the throne, meze is the crown that gives that throne its character. In a good fish restaurant, the quality of the fish matters enormously, but the meze selection matters almost as much. In a meyhane, I would rather see a smaller rakı selection and an excellent meze counter than twenty bottles of rakı beside tired, poorly prepared mezeler.

The Mezeler We Made Most Often at Home

Our home table was not filled with dozens of restaurant-style meze plates every day. The ones I remember most clearly were much simpler: vegetables and wild greens cooked with olive oil, cacık, beetroot with yogurt, hummus, fava, yogurt with purslane and roasted eggplant with garlic yogurt.

These dishes are much closer to my real understanding of home-style Turkish meze than an enormous list of everything that can possibly be served on a small plate.

Cacık

Cacık was a familiar part of our home table. Yogurt and cucumber give it a very different role from heavier or oilier mezeler. It can sit beside a normal family meal just as naturally as it can appear on a larger meze table.

I have written separately about cacık and tzatziki, including their differences and historical background, so I will not turn this page into another origin debate.

Pembe Sultan (Beetroot Yogurt Meze)

Pembe Sultan was one of the yogurt mezes we made regularly at home in Seferihisar. The beetroot turns the yogurt a vivid pink and adds a mild earthy sweetness, while the yogurt keeps the flavor fresh and tangy.

On a typical meze table, I prefer serving it next to stronger or saltier dishes rather than another mild meze. Its creamy texture and gentle flavor work especially well as a contrast to Aegean herbs, sea beans or seafood.

Yogurt with Purslane

Yoğurtlu semizotu, or purslane with yogurt, is another dish I associate strongly with a home table. The slightly juicy texture of purslane works very well with yogurt, garlic and olive oil.

It is simple food, and that is exactly why I like it. A good meze does not need ten ingredients to earn its place on the table.

Roasted Eggplant with Garlic Yogurt

The roasted eggplant meze I remember from home starts with the eggplant itself, not with a complicated sauce.

We used to place a square sheet of metal over the burner. Round eggplants, the type we called topan patlıcan, were wrapped in aluminum foil and cooked on that hot metal until completely soft inside.

After peeling away the skin, we used only the soft flesh. It was mixed with garlic yogurt, and dried mint could be added on top if we wanted it.

This is one of my favorite mezeler with fish. If I am eating fish around Seferihisar or Sığacık, yogurt-roasted eggplant is one of the dishes I am happiest to see in the meze counter.

Fava and the Way My Mother Served It

My mother made broad bean fava quite often. One small detail has stayed with me since childhood.

After putting the fava on a plate, she used the sharp edge of a fork to make lines from top to bottom and then from side to side, creating a diamond pattern across the surface. Then she poured plenty of olive oil over it.

I once asked her why she bothered making those lines. Her answer was simple: “If the olive oil goes inside, it tastes better, son.”

I still think about that whenever I see perfectly smooth restaurant fava. The pattern was decorative, but in her mind it also had a purpose: give the olive oil somewhere to go.

The Turkish Ministry of Culture’s traditional meze guide also includes broad bean fava among established meze preparations, but the fork marks are very specifically the version I remember from my mother’s kitchen.

Hummus

Hummus was another meze we made at home. Chickpeas, tahini, lemon and garlic give it enough body that a small amount can make a meze table feel much more substantial.

I do not think every dish on a meze table needs to be light. What matters more is balance. If I have hummus or another dense meze, I like to place something acidic, green or yogurt-based beside it.

Aegean Herbs and Olive Oil Are a Different Side of Meze Culture

Living in Seferihisar has strongly shaped the way I think about meze. Around here, wild and cultivated greens are not decorative extras. They can become some of the most important plates on the table.

Depending on the season, I have eaten dishes made with Şevketibostan, radika, hindiba, sarmaşık and other Aegean greens. At home, olive-oil herb dishes were among the mezeler we made most often.

When I am choosing mezeler in a Seferihisar meyhane, I almost always want one herb dish on the table. Şevketibostan and deniz börülcesi are usually my first choices when they are available.

You can see more of this local food culture in my Izmir cuisine guide.

Deniz Börülcesi: The Small Detail That Makes Preparation Easier

Deniz börülcesi is eaten frequently around Seferihisar, but boiling it is only half the work. After cooking, you still have to remove the firm inner fibers.

The easiest method I know is to hold a stem between the thumbnail and the side of the index finger, then push upward in one movement. The soft green flesh slides off and the hard inner fiber stays behind. Once you learn the movement, cleaning a plate becomes much faster.

The Culture Portal also describes boiling deniz börülcesi and cleaning away its inner fibers before seasoning it. The dressing I prefer is very simple: lemon juice, olive oil and grated garlic mixed in a bowl and poured over the cleaned greens.

For me, that sharp lemon-garlic dressing is what makes the dish. Deniz börülcesi is one of my favorite companions to fish.

Zeytinyağlı Dishes Can Also Become Part of the Meze Table

There is not always a hard border between meze, side dish and zeytinyağlı. A dish can play a different role depending on how the table is built.

Artichokes, fava, stuffed vegetables and seasonal greens can all work naturally as part of a meze spread. At a meyhane, if I have already chosen yogurt-based dishes and a herb meze, I often add one olive-oil dish such as artichoke, fava or occasionally şakşuka.

Şakşuka itself was not something we regularly cooked at home. We occasionally bought it from a meze shop, but it was never one of our family staples. I prefer saying that clearly rather than pretending every famous Turkish meze was part of my childhood table.

Stuffed Vegetables and Zucchini Blossoms

Along the Aegean coast, stuffed zucchini blossoms are another seasonal dish that can fit naturally into this kind of table. In my experience around Seferihisar, zucchini blossoms become much easier to find during their summer season.

Rice-filled vegetables can play a similar role. My family’s meatless olive-oil stuffed peppers are made with rice, onion, mint and olive oil. You can see the complete method in my Turkish stuffed peppers recipe.

How I Choose Meze at a Meyhane

Seferihisar is a coastal district with a strong meyhane and seaside restaurant culture. In many of the places I have visited over the years, the mezeler are displayed in a refrigerated meze counter. I prefer this to choosing only from written names because you can actually see what was prepared that day.

The staff in the places I know are usually part of the experience too. A good waiter knows the meze counter, explains what is fresh or seasonal and often develops a friendly relationship with regular customers.

My own choices change according to the season, whether I am drinking alcohol and what the rest of the meal will be. If I am going to a meyhane specifically for rakı, my usual starting point looks something like this:

• Two yogurt-based mezeler, preferably one mild and one spicy
• One Aegean herb or sea-vegetable meze, with deniz börülcesi or Şevketibostan high on my list
• One olive-oil meze such as artichoke, fava or şakşuka
• A hot meze if the table needs something more substantial

That is not a rule for Turkish meze. It is simply the balance I have arrived at after years of eating in meyhanes.

The Main Dish Changes My Meze Choices

I do not choose the same mezeler for every meal.

If the main course is fish, I usually want something fresh and yogurt-based, such as haydari. If I am eating chicken or red meat, I often prefer an olive-oil vegetable dish such as artichoke salad, deniz börülcesi or beetroot with yogurt.

When I eat fish around Seferihisar or Sığacık, an Aegean herb dish is almost compulsory for me. Radika or hindiba works beautifully. Artichoke salad is another choice I enjoy.

But if I had to choose only two mezeler with fish, I would take deniz börülcesi and roasted eggplant with yogurt.

I also like a very sour çoban salad beside fish. With a relatively rich fish such as sea bass or red mullet, I find that lemon and other acidic flavors make the whole table feel better balanced. That is my own preference rather than a rule of Turkish cooking.

Hot Meze I Actually See Most Often

Cold dishes dominate many meze counters, but hot mezeler can completely change the weight of the meal. The ones I encounter most often include calamari, sigara böreği and shrimp casserole.

İçli köfte can also work in a meze-focused meal. It is much more filling, so I treat it differently from a small spoonful of yogurt or greens.

Fried Calamari

Calamari is one of the hot mezeler I see most frequently at seaside tables. Crisp fried calamari can make a meze-and-rakı table feel much more complete even when there is no separate main course.

Because it is fried and filling, I personally like putting something sharp and lighter next to it, especially lemony deniz börülcesi or a yogurt meze.

Sigara Böreği

Sigara böreği is another hot item I regularly encounter. Thin yufka is rolled around a filling, commonly cheese, and fried until crisp.

It can appear at breakfast or tea time as well, so I do not think of it as exclusively a meyhane dish. But on a meze table it gives you the hot, crisp element that cold yogurt and olive-oil dishes do not provide.

Shrimp Casserole

Shrimp casserole is another familiar hot choice in coastal restaurants. It arrives bubbling hot and is much richer than the cold greens and yogurt mezeler around it.

For that reason, I would not build a whole table from dishes like this. One rich hot meze surrounded by lighter cold plates usually makes more sense to me.

İçli Köfte

İçli köfte is substantial enough that one or two pieces can change the entire meal. On a table built around meze and rakı with no main course, I can happily pair içli köfte with calamari.

But that is exactly when I want lighter mezeler beside them. Lemony deniz börülcesi and haydari work well for me because their acidity, yogurt and mint keep the table from becoming too heavy.

A Meze Table Does Not Need Every Famous Turkish Dish

One thing I have deliberately avoided in this guide is calling every small, traditional or shareable Turkish dish a meze.

Türkiye has an enormous regional food culture, and the boundaries between meze, salad, side dish, snack, zeytinyağlı and main course are not always rigid. But putting kumpir, muhlama, Hünkar Beğendi and every other well-known dish into one “Turkish appetizers” list does not help someone understand an actual meze table.

I would rather show the foods I have genuinely eaten this way at home, in Seferihisar and in meyhanes, and be clear when something was not part of my own experience.

What Makes a Good Turkish Meze Table?

For me, a good table is not about having the largest possible number of plates. It is about choosing mezeler that do different jobs.

One can be creamy. Another can be sour. One can carry the flavor of olive oil. Another can bring herbs, heat or crispness. If there is a rich fried dish, I want something fresh beside it. If the main course is heavy, I usually move toward greens, yogurt and acidity.

This is also why I think meze gives Turkish cuisine so much flexibility. The same main course can feel like a completely different meal depending on the small plates surrounding it.

And sometimes the mezeler stop being supporting dishes altogether. With the right selection, good bread and a long conversation, they become the meal.

That is the Turkish meze culture I know from Seferihisar: not a checklist of fifty appetizers, but a way of building a table around season, company, the main dish and what you feel like eating that evening.

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