Turkish Breakfast: From Istanbul to Van, let the all-you-can-eat party begin

Facing the well-appointed riverbanks of the rather bourgeois Bebek district, on Istanbul's European side, the restaurants are packed on this sunny summer Sunday afternoon. The view of one of the majestic bridges connecting Europe and Asia, and of the wide strait that divides the two parts of the Turkish megalopolis and its twenty million inhabitants, is splendid.

This is the case of Rumeli Kale, a small institution that has been watching over the Bosphorus for over forty years. Its long terrace is packed, as are the upstairs dining rooms, which are largely open to the outdoors. The restaurant is, after all, fairly ordinary, like thousands of others in Istanbul, with a very classic menu: grilled meats, pide – the Turkish “pita” stuffed with meat or vegetables – and lahmacun, those small, thin pizzas sprinkled with minced meat, herbs, and tomatoes that can be found from Armenia to Lebanon, and which are eaten in Turkey with a squeeze of lemon juice.

But until mid-afternoon, it is also possible to avoid the tedious reading of the long menu by simply saying two words: serpme kahvalti , a kind of "extended breakfast."

From then on, a well-oiled choreography is put in place, executed by a squadron of waiters: first the black tea, consumed in hectoliters by the Turks, here served by a tandem, one placing a steaming glass in front of each guest, the other carrying a heavy tray filled with these glasses.