Eating in Istanbul
What Seemor's reading of 5,201 Istanbul restaurants says about the food scene: how varied it is, what the places locals favour serve and charge, and how they compare with the ones that draw visitors. One section per question we have answered so far; more arrive with each post.
How varied is the food?
Compare with other cities →It takes 5 cuisines to cover 90% of the restaurants, 35th widest of the 38 cities measured. Turkish alone is 76%; 41 cuisines appear at all.
What this measures
Share of analyzed restaurants by cuisine. Home cuisine in navy, the next seven in blues, every other cuisine in gray. From Which city has the most diverse food: it depends how you count.
- Turkish76%
- American6.1%
- Italian6.0%
- Middle Eastern1.8%
- Japanese1.7%
- Cafe1.0%
- Chinese1.0%
- Pub0.9%
- + 33 more cuisines, 5% between them
Where the locals eat
Compare with other cities →1,103 local-leaning, 2,790 mixed-appeal and 1,308 tourist-leaning restaurants, split by Seemor's reading of the crowd each place draws. From Where do the locals actually eat?
Cuisine
Turkish is 92% of local-leaning restaurants, 69% of mixed-appeal ones and 73% of tourist-leaning ones.
What this measures
What each restaurant serves, grouped into cuisines. Cuisines under 15 restaurants in a city are pooled as Other. Under each city: the home cuisine opened up by kind of place (pizzeria, trattoria, pub, diner and so on), read from how each restaurant describes itself.
- Turkish92% · 69% · 73%
- American2% · 8% · 5%
- Italian3% · 7% · 5%
- 11 smaller ones in gray3% · 16% · 18%
Inside the Turkish places
75% of Istanbul · 3,873 restaurants · 1,011 local-leaning, 1,912 mixed appeal, 950 tourist-leaningKebab leads every row of Turkish places, 31% of local-leaning, 30% of mixed-appeal ones and 22% of tourist-leaning.
- Kebab31% · 30% · 22%
- Esnaf lokantası16% · 5% · 2%
- Tantuni / börek11% · 11% · 5%
- Cafe / bakery6% · 10% · 12%
Price
72% of tourist-leaning places are expensive or above, 49% of mixed-appeal ones and 21% of local-leaning ones.
What this measures
Price band read from menus and reviews, four bands from budget to very expensive. Places with no price reading are left out.
- Budget29% · 12% · 3%
- Moderate50% · 39% · 25%
- Expensive21% · 47% · 63%
- Very expensive1% · 2% · 9%
Food, value and setting
70% of local-leaning places score 8+ on food, 46% of mixed-appeal ones, 32% of tourist-leaning ones; on setting it is 34%, 60% and 84%.
What this measures
Share of restaurants reading 8 or higher on food quality, and 7 or higher on value for money and on setting appeal, on Seemor's 1 to 10 scale. Bands, not averages.
Neighborhoods
In Sultanahmet, 92% of restaurants are tourist-leaning and 2% local-leaning; in Goztepe it is 0% and 47%.
What this measures
Share of each neighborhood's restaurants in each crowd band. The whole city first, then the 5 neighborhoods with the most tourist-leaning restaurants and the 5 with the most local-leaning, each group ordered by tourist-leaning share. Neighborhoods are Seemor's own place hierarchy; only those with 25 or more restaurants carrying a crowd reading are drawn. Under it: every neighborhood of every city on one chart.
The whole city
2,196 restaurants inside a named neighborhoodWhere the tourist-leaning places are
the 5 neighborhoods with the most of them, ordered by shareWhere the local-leaning places are
the 5 neighborhoods with the most of them, ordered by shareThe same ten on the map of every city
1,549 neighborhoods in 43 citiesIf each city's restaurants were scattered across its neighborhoods at random, about 63 of these 1,549 neighborhoods would have a fifth of their restaurants in each crowd. 10 do.
1,016 of these restaurants carry a full Seemor analysis and 4,185 a lighter one; both give a crowd reading on the same 1 to 10 scale. The most local places count as local-leaning, the most tourist-drawn as tourist-leaning, the rest as mixed appeal. The diversity section uses the article's own count (5,095 restaurants, October 2026); the rest uses the October 2026 extract. Shares in bands, never individual scores. City boundaries are Seemor's own place hierarchy, not the municipal line.