What Is Meze? A Guide to Turkish & Greek Small Plates

Meze (also written mezze) are small dishes served alongside a drink, brought out together and grazed over slowly. The tradition runs across Turkey, Greece, the Levant and the Balkans, and the plates overlap heavily from one country to the next. It is a way of drinking as much as a way of eating, and the pace is the point.

The classics

Local name	Sounds like	English	Notes
haydari	hi-DA-ruh	Thick yoghurt with garlic and dill	Strained until it holds a spoon. The mildest thing on the tray
cacık / tzatziki	ja-JUK / tsa-TSEE-kee	Yoghurt, cucumber, garlic	The Turkish version is thinner, closer to a cold soup; the Greek one is thick and heavier on garlic
humus	HOO-moos	Chickpea and tahini purée	In Turkey often served warm, with pine nuts and butter
babagannuş	ba-ba-ga-NOOSH	Smoked aubergine with tahini	Smokier and looser than hummus
ezme	EZ-meh	Chopped tomato, pepper and onion relish	The spicy one. Ask for az acı if you want it mild
şakşuka	shak-SHOO-ka	Fried aubergine and courgette in tomato	Nothing to do with the North African egg dish of a similar name
yaprak sarma / dolma	yap-RAK sar-MA	Stuffed vine leaves	Cold ones are rice and olive oil; hot ones contain minced meat
fava	FA-va	Yellow split pea purée	The Greek version sets firm and is cut into squares with onion on top
çiğ köfte	CHEE kuf-TEH	Spiced bulgur paste	Sold without raw meat almost everywhere now. Eaten rolled in lettuce with lemon
lakerda	la-ker-DA	Salt-cured bonito	Firm white slices with raw onion. The classic partner to rakı
atom	a-TOM	Yoghurt with hot pepper oil	The hot counterpart to haydari, sometimes with fried chilli on top
muhammara	moo-HAM-ma-ra	Walnut and red pepper paste	Sweet, hot and thick. Listed as acuka in parts of Turkey
taramasalata	ta-ra-ma-sa-LA-ta	Cured roe and bread dip	Properly made it is pale beige. Bright pink means colouring
saganaki	sa-ga-NA-kee	Pan-fried cheese	Greek, served hot with lemon. Ordered from the hot list
patlıcan salatası	pat-luh-JAN	Smoked aubergine salad	No tahini, just olive oil and lemon. Lighter than babagannuş
barbunya pilaki	bar-BOON-ya	Borlotti beans in olive oil	Served cold, slightly sweet, with carrot and potato
sigara böreği	su-GA-ra bu-reh-YEE	Fried cheese and parsley rolls	A hot meze. Eat it while it is crisp
midye dolma	MID-yeh dol-MA	Stuffed mussels	Rice-filled shells, opened and eaten with a squeeze of lemon

Hot and cold

Meze arrive in two waves and the distinction shapes the whole meal. Soğuk meze (cold) come first: the yoghurt dips, the olive-oil vegetables, the cured fish, the bean dishes. They land together, stay on the table for the rest of the night, and are meant to be picked at rather than finished.

Sıcak meze (hot) are ordered afterwards, usually two or three at a time so they arrive crisp — börek, fried calamari, grilled prawns, sautéed liver. Only after that does anyone consider a grilled main, and plenty of tables never get there. Treat the hot round as the middle of the evening, not a side order.

How it's served and how you're charged

At most Turkish and Greek meyhanes there is no menu for the cold meze. A waiter brings a large tray or wheels a trolley to your table, lifts the cloth, and waits while you look. This is where visitors lose control of the bill.

Each plate you accept is charged individually, at its own price, and none of the prices are on the tray. A tray holds fifteen to twenty dishes and the waiter is not going to stop you taking all of them. Wave a hand or say yeter (that's enough) for the ones you don't want; there is nothing rude about taking three plates from a tray of twenty.

Two practical rules. Two or three cold meze per person is genuinely enough, and you can always add more later — the tray comes back. And if a plate is unusually expensive, seafood especially, it is normal to ask the price before it is set down. Bread, and at some places a cover charge, appear on the bill whether you asked or not.

What to drink with it

The traditional pairing is rakı, an aniseed spirit served neat in a tall thin glass with a separate glass of cold water. You add the water yourself, which turns the drink cloudy white — hence aslan sütü, lion's milk. Add water first and ice after, never ice into neat rakı. In Greece the equivalent is ouzo or tsipouro; in Lebanon and Syria, arak.

Anise, salt and yoghurt work together in a way that beer and wine don't, which is why the pairing survived. The other half of the tradition is time. A meyhane evening runs three or four hours, often with live fasıl music, and the food is paced to keep up with the drinking rather than the other way round. Do not book anything afterwards.

Regional differences

Turkey leans on yoghurt, aubergine and salt-cured fish, and the meyhane is a drinking house first. Greece serves the same idea at a mezedopoleio or ouzeri, with more grilled octopus, fried cheese and boiled greens, and smaller tables. The Levant goes biggest: a Lebanese mezze covers the table with tabbouleh, fattoush, kibbeh and labneh before any grilled meat appears. In the Balkans you'll meet ajvar and kajmak instead. Cyprus is the exception worth knowing — there, ordering "meze" means a fixed procession of twenty or more plates at a set price per person, not individual dishes.

Names travel badly across all of this. The tray carries no labels, printed lists appear in Turkish or Greek only, and near-identical spellings hide real differences, including how much chilli is in the bowl. Photographing the list, or the tray itself, and reading it back in your own language before you start pointing is the difference between choosing five dishes and accepting fifteen.