13:20 · The best hour of the day
Lunch is not a break in the tour. It is the tour.
Ruins are what you came for. The long Aegean table afterwards — twelve small plates, bread off the griddle, olive oil from the next valley — is what you will still be describing at home in January.
The local grammar
In Turkey, nobody eats quickly on purpose. A table is a place you arrive at, not a thing you get through.
Here is the honest truth about lunch on an Ephesus tour: most operators treat it as a logistics problem. Forty minutes, a set menu, a room with a coach outside. We treat it as the second half of the experience — because the Aegean coast of Turkey is one of the great eating regions of the Mediterranean, and you are standing in the middle of it with a local who knows exactly which kitchen is worth your afternoon.
This is what that hour and a half actually looks like.
The table, in order
How a proper Turkish lunch arrives
First · the small plates
Meze, and the pleasant problem of arithmetic
Lunch begins with a tray you did not order: eight, ten, twelve small dishes set down at once. Smoked aubergine whipped with yoghurt. White beans in olive oil. Stuffed vine leaves rolled that morning. Şakşuka — fried aubergine and pepper under tomato. Sea beans, samphire, purslane dressed with lemon. On this coast the herb mezes (ot mezeleri) are the local pride: wild greens picked from the hillsides, blanched, and given nothing but good oil and lemon because they need nothing else.
Then · the bread
Gözleme, rolled a metre from your table
A woman sits cross-legged at a low wooden board with a long thin pin, rolling dough into a disc the width of a bicycle wheel, filling it with cheese and parsley, or spiced mince, or potato, and laying it on a domed iron griddle called a sac. Ninety seconds a side. It arrives folded, blistered, too hot to hold, and it is the single food most of our guests ask us to help them find again the next day.
Underneath everything · the oil
Olive oil that has travelled about nine kilometres
The hills between Selçuk and Şirince are olive groves, and have been since before Ephesus had a harbour. What is poured over your beans and greens was pressed a valley or two away, often within the year. The Aegean style of cooking — zeytinyağlılar, "the ones with olive oil" — is a whole category of vegetable dishes served cool, and it is the reason vegetarians eat better on this coast than almost anywhere else in Turkey. Ask your guide where to buy a tin to take home. They will have opinions and a preferred producer.
The main event · slowly
Whatever the kitchen did well that morning
Sometimes it is köfte — hand-rolled lamb meatballs off the coals with grilled peppers. Sometimes it is fish, if we are near the water and the boats came in. Sometimes it is a clay pot of lamb and vegetables that has been in the oven since nine. In Şirince it might be a village chicken with a plate of the day’s greens. We do not hand you a laminated menu of eleven options, because the good places here cook a few things properly rather than forty things adequately.
Last · and not optional
Çay, in the tulip glass
Tea arrives without being ordered, in a small waisted glass on a saucer with two sugars you may or may not want. It is not a drink so much as a punctuation mark: it means the meal is finished and the conversation is not. Turkey drinks more tea per person than any other country on earth, and after ninety minutes at a table under a vine you will understand the mechanism completely.
Where we actually take people
It depends entirely on where the morning ended and what you told us you like — which is the point of travelling with someone local rather than someone with a contract.
- The artisan centre near Ephesus. On our classic tours, lunch is often a generous spread of whatever is local and fresh that day, cooked by local chefs, in a large centre where masters of traditional Turkish handcrafts — weavers, ceramicists, leather workers — are at work around the room. You eat well and watch real craft happen between courses. Guests with an eye for good things invariably find something; your guide will tell you honestly what is worth its price and what isn’t.
- A courtyard in Şirince. Up the hill: vine shade, village food, and cellars of quince and mulberry wine a few doors away. Our Ephesus & Şirince day is built around this table.
- A çöp şiş house in Selçuk. Small skewers of lamb over coals, flatbread, onion and rocket — the town’s own dish, eaten where local families eat it on Sundays.
- A fish table by the water in Kuşadası. If your day ends at the coast and the boats have been out, this is the easy call.
The practical bit, said plainly
From 2026, lunch is included in the price of every tour we run that visits Ephesus. The private day, the opening-hour walk, the cruise day, the Şirince day — you sit down and it is already paid for. No hunting for somewhere at the end of a hot morning, no working out whose turn it is, no surprise at the end. Only personal drinks are settled by you at the table.
What that fee is buying is not just food. It is a table we would sit at ourselves, chosen by someone who eats in these villages on their days off — which is the difference between a good lunch here and the coach-park version.
Tell us in advance about vegetarians, vegans, gluten, allergies, children who only eat beige — all of it is easy on this coast, and easier still when we have booked the table. The Aegean vegetable repertoire is enormous, and "no meat" is a normal sentence in every kitchen we use.
Questions about eating here
Is lunch included on your Ephesus tours?
Yes. Since 2026, every tour of ours that visits Ephesus — or has Ephesus in its itinerary — includes lunch in the per-person price. That covers the private day, the opening-hour walk, the cruise day and the Şirince day and the long day trip from Bodrum. Personal drinks are the only thing you settle at the table.
Which tours do not include lunch?
Two. The Ephesus night tour runs from 19:00, so there is no lunch sitting to include — dinner in Selçuk afterwards is yours to choose. And Hire Ephesian Guide is a guiding service only at a flat €145, with no transport or meals attached by design. The Selçuk day stays in the town rather than entering the ancient city, so lunch there is still your own.
What is a typical Turkish lunch?
A tray of cold mezes to share, hot bread — often gözleme cooked in front of you — a main of grilled meat, fish or a slow-cooked vegetable dish in olive oil, and tea to finish. Portions are generous and the table is communal; ordering three mains for four people is normal and sensible.
Can vegetarians and vegans eat well?
Exceptionally well. The Aegean’s zeytinyağlı tradition is a whole cuisine of vegetable dishes cooked in olive oil and served cool, and mezes are largely vegetable-based. Vegans should say so clearly, as yoghurt and cheese appear widely.
How long does lunch take?
Ninety minutes if we are doing it properly. On a tight cruise schedule we can compress it to a fast, good hour — tell us your all-aboard time and we will be honest about what fits.
Should we tip at the restaurant?
Around 10% is normal and appreciated in a sit-down restaurant. That is separate from anything you might give your guide — we wrote a whole honest note on tipping guides in Ephesus.
The ships we meet
We bring people back on time.
Guests from these cruise lines have walked Ephesus with us for over twenty years. Not one of them has missed a ship — we plan every shore day backwards from your all-aboard time.
21:00 · ONE MESSAGE, ONE PLAN
Tell us your date.
We’ll tell you the plan.
A licensed local guide replies personally — usually the same day, from info@ephesusbylocals.com.
TÜRSAB licence 15746 · Nothing paid in advance · Skip-the-line tickets held for you