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Eskişehir has a good variety of restaurants offering national and regional Turkish cuisine. We did all our dining in the Odunpazarı district.
The only negative is that in Odunpazarı, it was difficult to find anything open for dinner. I don’t know if it’s because we visited in November, but it gives me an excuse to go back in the summer!
Arya Mantı
We popped into Arya Mantı for lunch in Odunpazarı. It’s run by a wonderful, friendly family and set in a cozy historic Ottoman home. As the name indicates, they make delicious homemade mantı, which is tiny Turkish dumplings slathered in yogurt, butter, and tomato sauce. The mantı is stuffed with your choice of meat or lentils, and they also have a few other Turkish specialties available.
We both started off with a bowl of lentil soup (mercimek çorbası). The server brought us complimentary stuffed grape leaves to try.
For our main course, we couldn’t pass up a chance to try the mantı, which was absolutely delicious. After the meal, we had a cup of Turkish coffee served with cookies. We were very happy and would definitely eat there again.
Kırım Tatar Kültür Çibörek Evi
Since we failed to find a place that was open for dinner, we stopped into Kırım Tatar Kültür Çibörek Evi right next to our hotel at the Arasta Bazaar. They serve çibörek, which is a deep fried turnover filled with minced meat and onions. It’s the national dish of Crimean Tatars, and a large diaspora community lives in Eskişehir.
We ordered a bowl of yogurt soup to go along with our çibörek. The çibörek was a little greasy and heavy, but definitely delicious. Service was friendly and fast.
Kasr-ı Nur (Permanently Closed)
On my very first stay in Eskişehir in March 2013, I ate dinner at Kasr-ı Nur, which is in a restored Ottoman home in Odunpazarı. It turned out to be one of the most memorable and best tasting meals I had while living in Turkey.
I ate the keşli cevizli erişte, which are homemade buttered noodles topped with crushed walnuts and a dried yogurt called keş. They were served with a few dips and bread. I washed it down with ayran, and finished my meal with a Turkish coffee. Everything was incredible, and the setting added to the experience.
Fast forward to November 2019. I was visiting the city for the second time, this time with my wife, Marisol. I had been raving about the meal I had at Kasr-ı Nur since the moment I booked our stay in the city and wanted to repeat the experience with her. Unfortunately, the restaurant has lost its touch.
We started with a bowl of ezogelin soup and yaprak sarma (stuffed grape leaves). The soup was good and we enjoyed the yaprak sarma.
We also ordered the erişte, but it was nothing like I had six years earlier. Just compare the toppings in the earlier photo.
Overall, we were satisfied with the meal, but service wasn’t up to par and it simply wasn’t the same experience I had expected. It also seems as if they’ve switched their focus to Turkish breakfast.
Hafız Ahmet Efendi Konağı
We sat down in the small garden of the Hafız Ahmet Efendi Konağı, a historic Ottoman mansion built in 1717, to warm up with a nice hot salep. The location was nice and service was friendly, but the salep was too watery and had way too much cinnamon on top. It wasn’t nearly as good as it should have been. The garden could also use a good cleaning.
Tüfekçizade Konağı
The Tüfekçizade Konağı, yet another historic Ottoman mansion, serves as a restaurant and café. Too full from lunch, we sat and had a Turkish coffee and salep. We’d like to go back and try their Turkish breakfast one day.
