What food is typically served at Turkish all-inclusive hotels?

Some hotels have a separate Italian à la carte restaurant (alongside an Asian one): service is fast and attentive, with salads and appetizers already on the table when seated, and mains also served quickly. Food rated a solid 4/5 — kids enjoyed soup, pizza, and pasta, while adults had Caesar salad, fish, and appetizers. The kids' menu listed 'cutlets' but they turned out to be Turkish kofte made from spiced lamb, which the kids refused to eat.

Food variety differs noticeably between hotels: at a cheaper 5-star 'senza' hotel, fish was something like mackerel, the grill offered chicken backs and skewers, baklava appeared only 3 times in 2 weeks, and fruit selection was minimal. At a pricier 4-star hotel (also without crayfish), guests got daily sea bass, dorade, hot-smoked trout, grilled chicken fillet and wings, cutlets, beef slices similar to shawarma meat, skewers, plus baklava and honeycomb.

A separate fish à la carte restaurant serves a multi-course set (about 1.5 hours): meze spreads and a vegetable salad are already on the table, followed by a fish soup (something between bouillabaisse and ukha), pre-booked hot appetizers (e.g. calamari rings and salmon), and for dessert, fig fried in pistachios and walnuts served with ice cream. Guests can choose white, red, or rosé wine.

At one dinner, sides included brussels sprouts alongside the usual rice and mashed potatoes; meat options featured meatballs in creamy mushroom sauce, stewed turkey, sausages, and a casserole-type dish. The cheese board had about 6 varieties plus yogurts and dressings, and around 5 types of olives were offered. Among the fruit, besides watermelon and the usual choices, guests noted large, tasty plums.

Once a week (Wednesdays) the hotel runs a themed seafood dinner, though Turkish cooks handle seafood poorly — crayfish and shrimp are served cold, even on ice, and mussels come stuffed with rice. On the plus side, there's a large daily grilled fish selection (about 7 kinds), plus grilled vegetables, meat, chicken, various side dishes, and lots of greens.

The themed fish dinner menu included a vegetable salad, a tom-yum-style soup, a seafood appetizer, fish with vegetables, and for dessert, ice cream with hot halva.

Clarification on the 'tuna': it's actually a cheaper mackerel-type fish, tasting closer to mackerel or saury rather than red tuna. Lunch has also become more varied, now including trout and cheese-filled flatbreads.

At the à la carte restaurant, the menu included tomato-and-onion salad, a cheese plate with standard kaymak-based spreads, bread from the main restaurant, french fries, plainly fried white sea fish, and for dessert watermelon, melon, and baklava; a bottle of water was on the table along with a choice of wine or champagne (the champagne was described as sour).

At Marmaris Park hotel guests describe the food as simple but varied: stewed beef and small elongated kofte-style patties, fish regularly grilled outdoors and sometimes served in chafing dishes stewed with vegetables or fried. Desserts get special praise; fruit selection is small (3-5 kinds) but always ripe. One quirk: you can't carry a dessert from the main restaurant to the lobby bar, but the good coffee is only brewed there — guests work around this by grabbing cardboard plates from the beach bar to freely carry desserts (or watermelon) to their room or the lobby bar.

Besides meat and fish, the evening grill sometimes offers liver skewers and roasted peppers, with red fish also grilled. Sides included mashed potatoes, cucumber-tomato salad, corn, and fermented red cabbage — the mashed potatoes this time turned out very good, almost homemade.

In early June, the main restaurant regularly served lentil soup, chickpeas with vegetables, beans, pilaf, mashed potatoes, fresh vegetables, and fruit alongside the meat and fish; strawberries appeared only a few times.

Reports for this season say the food is more modest than last year: there was no themed seafood dinner and no tuna was served. Guests did praise the beef in gravy and turkey prepared in several ways.

In addition to the main restaurant, the snack bar may serve daily fast-food style items such as shawarma, burgers, hot dogs, baked potatoes, and onion rings.

The lobby bar may offer late-evening desserts and drinks; guests specifically praise cheesecakes, fresh pastries, small cakes, as well as Turkish coffee and tea.

Breakfast can also include fritters, omelets, pancakes, and various cereals with milk.

Lunch soups may include dishes familiar to Russian-speaking guests, such as cabbage soup with chicken, and the soups are described as mild rather than spicy.

The outdoor grill serves two types of meat each evening — typically beef and chicken in various forms (minced, skewered, etc.) — plus white fish. Red fish appears on the grill roughly 4 times per week and once as a cold-smoked or salted sliced option. Spices, sauces, and herbs are always available separately.

Cold-smoked red fish is available every evening at the cold appetiser station. A sauté of vegetables and seafood occasionally appears, though guests tend to pick out the seafood and leave the vegetables.

At breakfast, standout items include fruit compotes (cherry, pear, peach), soft cheese, and a red fenugreek paste. A selection of cheeses, vegetables, and salads is also available, though the variety can vary with the season and hotel occupancy.

White fish (sea bass, dorade, trout) is served daily in various preparations: grilled, braised in sauce, or steamed/boiled. Trout and dorade alternate on different days. Crayfish are a rare treat — appearing roughly once every 12 days — and are gone within minutes.

Food quality and variety are noticeably season-dependent: peak season (July–August) offers a wider selection, while quieter periods see a reduced menu — fewer cheeses, salads, and sometimes no outdoor grill. During slower periods, turkey is the main meat; beef appears mixed with vegetables (~30% meat). One guest noted that over 23 dinners in a previous year, beef was served mainly as neck, oxtail, and tongue — no steaks.

Dinner offers a wide selection: grilled meats, red fish, and a seafood mix. Chicken shashlik and wings are notably juicy. Rice/pilaf is fluffy and well-prepared. Mashed potatoes were reportedly disappointing.