Turkish Breakfast in the UK: what it is, how to order it, where to find it

Name: Turkish Breakfast
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 2
Ingredients: 3 eggs; 2 ripe tomatoes, grated; 1 long green pepper, finely sliced; 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil; half a tsp salt, black pepper, a pinch of red pepper flakes; crumbled white cheese, optional; fresh bread to serve

Quick answer

Turkish breakfast, kahvaltı, is a spread of small plates rather than one dish: white cheese, olives, tomato, cucumber, honey with clotted cream, jams, eggs cooked with sucuk or as menemen, simit and fresh bread, and endless tea in small glasses. In UK restaurants it is sold per person as a 'serpme' spread and has become a weekend event, especially in North London and Manchester, with queues from ten in the morning.

Calories and nutrition

Calories: 900
Protein: 35 g
Carbs: 80 g
Fat: 50 g
Salt: 4.0 g

Portion: One share of a serpme spread for two, with tea.

The cheese, olives, honey and kaymak add up; the spread is meant to be eaten slowly over an hour.

Estimates for a typical portion, based on standard UK and USDA food composition data. Actual values depend on the recipe and the restaurant.

What is on the table

A full serpme kahvaltı for two arrives as twenty or more small dishes. The fixed core is beyaz peynir, the salty white cheese; black and green olives; sliced tomato and cucumber; butter; honey and kaymak, the thick clotted cream; two or three jams, usually sour cherry, fig and rose; and bread, both a loaf and simit. Hot items come after: eggs fried with sucuk, the spiced beef sausage, or menemen, eggs scrambled with tomato and green pepper; sigara böreği, the crisp filo cigars filled with cheese; and sometimes bal-kaymak served warm. Tea is served in tulip glasses and refilled without asking; you will be charged for it in some places and not in others.

How it differs from an English breakfast

There is no meat beyond the sucuk, no fried potato, no sauce and almost nothing that can be cooked and held. Everything is at room temperature except the eggs, which are made to order, and the meal is meant to last an hour or more. It is also better value than it looks: a spread for two at a North London kahvaltı house costs less than two full English breakfasts in central London and feeds three. The cheeses and honey are the quality markers; a good place buys aged Ezine or Erzincan cheese and real kaymak rather than the supermarket kind.

What to look for

Ask whether the menemen is made to order; it should take ten minutes and arrive in the pan it was cooked in. Check that the simit is that morning's, crisp outside and soft inside, not a supermarket bagel. The tea should be brewed in a double teapot, not from a bag. And look at the cheese plate: three or more cheeses is a good sign, one block of feta is not. Weekend queues are a reliable signal; the best kahvaltı houses in Harringay and Enfield turn tables from 9am to 2pm and do not take bookings.

Where in the UK it is done well

Green Lanes in Harringay is the centre of the UK's kahvaltı culture, with a dozen places within a mile and the highest search demand for Turkish breakfast in the country. Enfield, Dalston and Stoke Newington follow. Outside London the format has taken hold in Manchester's Rusholme and Didsbury, Birmingham and Leeds. The ranking below counts restaurants in our directory whose name signals breakfast or kahvaltı.

How to order it

Order one serpme spread per two people and add menemen or sucuklu yumurta separately. Go before 10am at weekends or expect a queue. Tea is bottomless in most places; ask if it is charged. Skip the coffee until the end, and have it Turkish, not filter.

Where it's done well

UK councils with the most turkish breakfast specialists, by restaurant name, in our directory.

Restaurants near you

Search by postcode or use your location to find restaurants likely to serve turkish breakfast near you.

Make it at home

Serves 2 · 30 min

Ingredients

3 eggs
2 ripe tomatoes, grated
1 long green pepper, finely sliced
1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil
half a tsp salt, black pepper, a pinch of red pepper flakes
crumbled white cheese, optional
fresh bread to serve

Method

Warm the butter and oil in a small frying pan and soften the pepper for three minutes.
Add the grated tomato and cook over medium heat until it thickens and loses its raw taste, about eight minutes.
Beat the eggs loosely, season, and pour into the pan. Stir slowly with a wooden spoon so the eggs set in soft curds through the tomato, not as an omelette.
Take off the heat while still glossy; it will carry on cooking. Scatter cheese and pepper flakes on top and serve in the pan with bread.

Menemen is the one dish from the kahvaltı table worth making at home, and the whole argument in Turkey is whether onion belongs in it. This version has none. Cook the tomato properly first; that is the difference between menemen and scrambled eggs with tomato.

Related dishes

Menemen

Menemen is eggs cooked slowly with tomatoes and green peppers in olive oil and butter, served in the pan it was made in with bread for scooping. It is the standard Turkish breakfast dish and the subject of a national argument about whether onion belongs in it. In the UK it has spread beyond Turkish cafés to brunch menus everywhere, and the difference between good menemen and scrambled eggs with tomato is how long the tomato is cooked before the eggs go in.

Simit

Simit is a ring of bread dipped in grape molasses and coated in sesame seeds, baked until crisp outside and chewy inside. It is the street bread of Istanbul, sold from carts and eaten with cheese and tea, and it is thinner, crisper and less doughy than a bagel, which it is often compared to. In the UK, Turkish bakeries bake it fresh every morning and it appears on every breakfast spread.