Food And Drink in Cappadocia

Cappadocian food rests on one dish and one ritual. The dish is testi kebabı: meat and vegetables stewed in a sealed clay pot that is carried to the table whole and broken open in front of you; the pot is single-use, and that is the whole point of the service. The ritual is the Turkish night in a cave restaurant — vaults cut into the tuff, a folk programme with belly dance, drinks without a tab in some versions, and dinner served either before the show or during it.

The second layer is breakfast. A Turkish breakfast in the valley takes two or three hours rather than thirty minutes: a dozen small bowls of cheeses, jams, olives, tomatoes, fresh bread and eggs done several ways, all of it on a terrace facing the rock cones. The third layer is built into the tours: the red and green routes include lunch along the way, so on those days food needs no separate planning.

Practical notes. Testi kebabı takes a long time to cook and often has to be ordered in advance — say so at booking if that is what you came for. Turkish nights start around eight or nine and finish by midnight; the transfer is usually included, but check it for hotels outside Göreme and Ürgüp. Evenings in the valleys are cool all year: at a thousand metres the air turns noticeably fresh after sunset, even in July.