Vegetarian at a Turkish grill: more choice than you'd expect
You are going out with a group and one person does not eat meat. A Turkish grill restaurant is usually the first place to be crossed off the list: the name says grill, the smell at the door says grill, and nobody wants to spend the evening with a plate of salad while everyone else has a full platter in front of them. That assumption is wrong. Turkish cooking is far greener than a kebab menu suggests, and there is plenty on our menu that is prepared without meat.
Turkish cooking has always been vegetable-heavy
In Turkey, meat was for a long time a dish for holidays rather than everyday food. What came to the table daily were beans, lentils, aubergine, tomato, pepper, yoghurt and bread. There is an entire category of dishes named after being cooked without meat: zeytinyağlılar, vegetables braised in olive oil and eaten cold. The grill is a speciality that was added on top of that tradition, not a replacement for it.
You can see it in the way people eat. A Turkish table is not one plate per person but a spread of small dishes that everyone shares. If you do not eat meat, you simply eat along with the rest.
Breakfast until 4 p.m.: menemen, kuymak and omelette
Turkish breakfast is the easiest vegetarian moment of the day, and ours runs until four in the afternoon. Menemen is scrambled egg with tomato, green pepper and olive oil, cooked in a pan and eaten with bread — exactly what you want after a long morning. Kuymak comes from the Black Sea region and is melted cheese with cornmeal, rich and warm. And there is a plain omelette for anyone who wants to keep it simple.
Do note that the dishes with sucuk or kavurma do contain meat. They are listed separately on the menu, so the name gives them away immediately.
Soup: lentil, yoghurt and tomato
Three of our soups are made without meat stock. Mercimek, the classic red lentil soup, is the best known: smooth lentils with onion and carrot, served with a lemon wedge you squeeze over it yourself. That lemon is not a garnish — it is the difference between something filling and an actual dish. There is also yayla çorbası, made with yoghurt, rice and mint, and a tomato soup.
The chicken soup and the lamb soup are, of course, not part of this list.
Falafel: sandwich or dürüm
Falafel is not an afterthought on our menu but a category of its own. You can choose a falafel sandwich or a falafel dürüm, rolled in thin bread with fresh vegetables and sauce. It is also the dish that works best late at night: it arrives quickly, is easy to take away and does not sit heavy.
Pasta: vegetarian or funghi
Two pastas on the menu come without meat: the vegetarian pasta and the pasta funghi with mushrooms. Useful if you are here with children, or if someone at the table does not feel like bread and grill.
Snacks to share
For the start of the evening or somewhere in between: mozzarella sticks, onion rings and a twister. These travel well around the table and appeal to the meat eaters too, which is exactly the point — you do not want one separate little plate standing apart from the rest.
These three do contain cheese or egg, so they are vegetarian, not vegan.
What if you eat vegan?
Then the choice is smaller, but not empty. Falafel itself is plant-based; ask for the sauce to be left out or served separately, because the standard sauce is yoghurt-based. The lentil soup and the tomato soup are plant-based as well, and you can order vegetables and salad as a side. We work in a single kitchen, so do mention it when you order if it has to be exact — that way you know where you stand straight away.
Ordering with a mixed group
The practical reason to eat here with a group where not everyone eats the same thing: everything arrives at the same table at the same time. A mixed grill for one person, a falafel dürüm for another, soup and bread in the middle, and nobody is left waiting. If you are coming with a larger group, give us a call in advance on +31 20 341 6285 and we will take into account who eats what.
Practical: where and how
Tuana Grill is at Bos en Lommerweg 313 in Amsterdam-West, open seven days a week from 9 a.m. Until 1 a.m. on weekdays and until 3 a.m. at the weekend; the kitchen closes half an hour earlier. You can eat in or take away, and delivery is available through Thuisbezorgd, Uber Eats or directly through our own ordering page.
Take a look at the full menu to see what else is on offer. And if you are unsure whether something contains meat, just ask.