Breaking Down the Bounty of a Turkish Breakfast at a Suburban Chicago Restaurant and Bakery

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Turkish breakfast, or “kahvaltı,” has roots in the Ottoman Empire – and it fittingly reflects sultanic levels of extravagance. On a recent trip to Turkey, I often began the day by choosing from a teeming cornucopia of delights: fresh fruits and vegetables, soup, eggs, meats, cheeses, olives, and baked goods – more than you could ever try in one sitting.

Many Chicago area Turkish restaurants offer a full-blown Turkish breakfast, including city places like Bereket Turkish Mediterranean Restaurant (333 S. Franklin Street) and Café Istanbul (2014 W. Division Street). The northwest suburb of Mount Prospect, meanwhile, has A Thousand Tales (2340 S. Elmhurst Road).

As with many morning meals I enjoyed in Turkey, Turkish breakfasts in Chicagoland are usually served buffet-style. The weekend breakfast buffet at A Thousand Tales is the surest way to appreciate the broad spectrum of options. (Caution: option overload may approach critical status).

A Thousand Tales promises a variety of neighboring cuisines, including Mediterranean, Balkan, Middle Eastern, and Turkish. Turkey straddles Europe and Asia, and it was historically traversed by invaders and merchants going in both directions, among them Greek, Roman, Phrygian, Seljuk, Persian, and Ottoman. These multi-cultural influences contribute to the immense range of foods on the Turkish breakfast table.

Turkish breakfast, A Thousand Tales’ site explains, “holds a significant place in Turkish culture and is revered as a celebration of flavors, textures, and communal dining. It goes beyond a mere morning meal, embodying a tradition that brings people together to savor an array of delightful dishes.”

Fruit is usually the first thing to greet you at a Turkish breakfast. Expect an assortment of grapes, oranges, and melons. The latter might include watermelon, cantaloupe, and what many Turks refer to simply as “melon,” but is technically kırkağaç, an oval-shaped, honeydew-like melon that grows readily in the country’s warmer climates. Turkey is also known for its apricots, and a Turkish breakfast frequently features this fruit fresh, dried, and in preserves. In Turkey, I also became very fond of tiny pears that feel hard but have soft flesh, very sweet and juicy.

Vegetables are not commonly found in an American breakfast, but on every Turkish breakfast table – including the one at A Thousand Tales – there are raw carrots and cucumbers. Indeed, it would be challenging to name a food group not found on the Turkish breakfast table.

Just about every restaurant and breakfast spread I came across in Turkey had lentil soup, and I sipped it – accompanied by simit, a circular, bagel-like bread, often studded with sesame seeds – daily. Lentils have been cultivated in Anatolia (now Turkey) since 6700 BCE, and they remain a low-cost, high-protein favorite.

While I was enjoying tea and Turkish pastries at A Thousand Tale’s adjoining bakery, I ran into owner Burak Canbolat, who told us that every Turkish breakfast table “must have cheese, olives, and simit.” At A Thousand Tales’ breakfast, cheeses include Turkish tulum (made of goat’s milk), kashkaval (which uses many milks, and is nutty with a hint of olive oil), shallal (fresh, salty cow’s milk cheese), and feta (you know that one). They’re accompanied by olives in a variety of shapes, colors, and tastes – worth the plunge even if eating an olive first thing in the morning seems challenging to the Western palate.

Baked goods are popular in Turkey. Simit is often served at street stands as well as brick-and-mortar restaurants. It’s a regular at traditional Turkish breakfasts – an instant comfort food. Achma is flakey, also bagel-like, and pide is round or oval bread; add some cheese and sausage, and you have what’s commonly called a “Turkish pizza.” Lesser known pogacha is a soft and chewy flatbread. You get the picture: there’s lots of Turkish bread.

Like Judaism, Islam prohibits the pork sausage and bacon of the prototypical American breakfast. Instead, at a Turkish breakfast, you’ll likely see kofte kebabs (ground beef or lamb, spiced and grilled), chunks of grilled beef or lamb, and borek (a pastry filled with meat or cheese).“We’re one of the few [restaurants] serving meat cooked in clay pots imported from Turkey,” says Canbolat. In this traditional dish, the pot is cracked tableside to release the steaming meat.

Eggs are perhaps a universal breakfast food, and many Turkish breakfasts include them hardboiled and scrambled, no surprise. I came to prefer menemen, a traditional preparation of eggs, tomatoes, green and red peppers and spices, mixed together and simmered in olive oil. “What’s most important in menemen,” Canbolat explained, “are the very fresh tomatoes and peppers.”

Though alcohol is forbidden in Islam, sugar is not. Sutlac is a very popular sweet, and it’s basically a super-creamy rice pudding with a pleasantly crusty brown top, much like a crème brulee. Kazandibi is another milk pudding, also with a caramelized crust, that originated in the Ottoman palace. In Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar and from street vendors across the country, baklava comes in many shapes and sizes, some triangular, others like little cakes. To source the honey for baklava and other pastries, Canbolat prefers Amish farms, where honey is of very high quality, as are poultry and eggs.

A Thousand Tales has a superb bakery section. Order sweets you’ve never tried before; chances are good you’ll like what you’re eating. And if your Turkish breakfast has whetted your appetite for more Turkish foods, stop next door at Canbolat’s Grand Istanbul Bazaar & Café, a truly wonderful place to look for carefully sourced Turkish foods. Shopping there, I found some house-made sujuk, a sausage I first enjoyed in Istanbul, usually made of both ground beef and lamb, fermented and dry-cured. Delectable…as is so much on the Turkish breakfast table.