8 Best Restaurants & Places to Eat in Üsküdar
Villa Bosphorus for seafood on the water, Kanaat Lokantası for a classic lokanta lunch: the 8 best restaurants in Üsküdar, from köfte to doner.
Where should you eat in Üsküdar? For seafood at a table right on the Bosphorus, the answer is Villa Bosphorus. For a classic lokanta lunch at humble prices, it is Kanaat Lokantası, in the middle of the district and backed by 150 years of family food tradition. This guide covers those two and six more, from charcoal-cooked doner on a cobblestone street to tea under a centuries-old plane tree in Çengelköy. It is part of our Istanbul neighborhood food guides.
Üsküdar earns the detour. A cool breeze carries the scent of the sea, seagulls and foghorns trade calls over the water, and the district is Istanbul’s most ancient residential area, founded by Ancient Greek settlers a few decades before Byzantium took the European shore and long before the Ottomans arrived. Its libraries, museums, and mosques have hosted some of the most important names in Byzantine, Ottoman, and modern Turkish history.
Üsküdar is also home to Kâtibim, one of Turkey’s oldest and best-known songs. It reached the US as early as the 1920s and is still sung across the Balkans.
Best restaurants in Üsküdar:
Here are all eight at a glance, then the full rundown below.
| Place | Area | What to order | Price level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Villa Bosphorus | Üsküdar, on the Bosphorus | Seafood, fresh and light | Special occasion |
| Metet Közde Döner | Üsküdar, cobblestone street | Charcoal-cooked doner, İskender, wraps | Cheap eat |
| Nakkaş Kebap | Üsküdar | Kebabs | Mid-range |
| Filizler Köftecisi | Üsküdar, facing the Maiden’s Tower | Balkan-style köfte and the famous fries | Mid-range |
| Kanaat Lokantası | Central Üsküdar | Lokanta classics, vegetable dishes, dessert | Cheap eat |
| Borsa Restaurant | Üsküdar | Ottoman and Anatolian dishes, red meat | Special occasion |
| Del Mare Ristorante | Üsküdar, on the water | Swordfish, seafood, quince dessert | Special occasion |
| Çengelköy Tarihi Çınaraltı | Çengelköy | Tea, Turkish coffee, a hot hamburger | Cheap eat |
1. Villa Bosphorus
The first thing you notice is how bright the room is. The white, marble-heavy decoration sparkles in a way that tells you hygiene is taken seriously here. Ask for a table at the water’s edge and the meal feels like dinner on the deck of a ship; sit a little further back and you are surrounded by garden instead.
The seafood matches the setting: light, fluffy, built on fresh ingredients. With a business meeting room, a fireplace room, and a VIP lounge, this is also where Üsküdar goes to impress guests. Book it for the night that matters.
2. Metet Közde Döner
They do one thing well: doner kebab cooked over a charcoal ember pit. The menu has grown beyond its old three-choice simplicity to take in İskender, rice-topped doner, and wraps, but every dish is still built around that same meat, and you pick your own portion size. Meat this succulent is hard to find elsewhere in Istanbul, which is why the shop also appears in our citywide guide to the best doner kebab in Istanbul.
The setting holds its own. The shop sits on a cobblestone street, and inside, wooden floors and pretty curtains recall a grandmother’s living room, with striking artwork on the walls. If you would rather be outdoors, take one of the tables on the street, watch people pass, and let the setting sun do the rest.
3. Nakkaş Kebap
The colorful kids’ room may have you wishing you were a child again, and it tells you exactly who Nakkaş is built for: big families, weddings, and group events. This is a huge restaurant with parking out front and several halls. Sit in the fairy-tale-style room, or take a window table and watch the greenery outside.
The dishes are the usual suspects Turks order when they eat out, kebabs above all, served by waiters in sharp uniforms who add a touch of class to a family room.
4. Filizler Köftecisi
The specialty is Balkan meatballs, made here since 1994, and the French fries have a fan club of their own; ex-patrons still talk about them years after a visit. The dining room is quaint and rustic, and the views take in the Maiden’s Tower, Hagia Sophia, and the Bosphorus.
The menu runs wider than the köfte sign suggests, from soups and salads to fish and even breakfast, with desserts worth breaking a diet for. If köfte is the reason you came, our list of the best köfte in Istanbul keeps going.
5. Kanaat Lokantası
Turks love their red meat, yet Kanaat is one of the kindest places in the city to vegetarians and vegans tired of the same plain salads. There is no Bosphorus view here. There are humble prices, the kind that surprise you when the bill arrives, and a kitchen that sacrifices nothing for them.
The three brothers who founded it inherited 150 years of family history in dairy confectionery and ice cream, and you can taste that tradition in every bite. Good ingredients, authentic cooking, plenty of choice: an honest Turkish lokanta in the middle of Üsküdar.
6. Borsa Restaurant
Since 2006, Borsa has blended Ottoman, contemporary Turkish, and local Anatolian cooking into something close to an art form. The dining room lands somewhere between an Ottoman palace and a cave of wonders, and the effect is of being hosted at an embassy dinner.
Red meat is the focus, with fish and vegetarian dishes holding their own. Leave room for the dessert menu; it deserves a course of its own.
7. Del Mare Ristorante
A high-class seafood restaurant soaked in history. The building went up under the Ottomans in the early 1800s as an elephant barn, later turned spirits factory, and now serves an award-winning a la carte menu to seafood devotees.
Order the swordfish with white wine and finish with quince dessert and a shot of whiskey, or keep it light with salad, fish, and freshly squeezed orange juice. The views are superb, and you can arrive by land or by sea: the restaurant runs a free boat service.
8. Çengelköy Tarihi Çınaraltı
Çengelköy Tarihi Çınaraltı in a few words: a seat under the centuries-old plane tree, sea air, locals at the next table, and the world going by at its own speed.
This is a family-oriented tea and coffee house where you can order a hot hamburger or bring food from home for a picnic feel, though outside drinks are not allowed. If you are allergic to cats, beware: a couple of them usually patrol beneath the tables. Reasonably priced and unhurried, this is the kind of place you come to write that novel.
Final words:
These are the 8 best restaurants in Üsküdar. The district rewards eating the way residents do: Turkish cuisine at a lokanta counter for lunch, tea under a plane tree in the afternoon, seafood on the water at night. If this shore agrees with you, our guide to the best restaurants on the Asian side of Istanbul carries the list further.
And if you would rather eat the Asian side with a local ordering for you, our Kadıköy street food tour runs three hours in a group capped at 10 guests, winding through Kadıköy’s market stalls and the backstreets of Moda on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 6:00 p.m. Grab your appetite and come hungry.
