Park Rest Journal — September 2026 · Food
In Northern Cyprus four dishes are worth seeking out on purpose: şeftali kebab from the charcoal grill, stewed molohiya, kolokas in tomato and künefe for dessert. In September the harvest joins them, grapes, pomegranates and the first carob, and the dishes themselves are easier to find in village restaurants and home-style lokanta (simple eateries serving cooked dishes) than on the Girne harbour front.
What to order
Şeftali kebab (şeftali kebabı) is minced lamb with onion and parsley wrapped in lamb caul fat and grilled over charcoal; it comes with pitta, salad and lemon, and it is a purely Cypriot thing. Molohiya is a thick stew of jute leaves with chicken or lamb, tomatoes, garlic and lemon; the leaves are dried all summer and it is eaten with crusty bread. Kolokas is taro root stewed in tomato sauce with meat or chicken. Künefe is a hot dessert of fine kadayıf pastry threads with cheese and syrup; ask for it in kebab houses and patisseries. Hellim (the local halloumi) is fried and put in flatbreads or served with watermelon.
Where they serve it
Look for şeftali in the kebab houses: Niazi's in central Kyrenia (Girne), opposite the Dome hotel, with an open charcoal grill and its 'full kebab' of 14 meze, six kinds of meat and a dessert table (about 440–500 TL a head without drinks, according to 2023 reviews); Carpenters in Karaoğlanoğlu with home-made mantı and kleftiko; Archway in Zeytinlik; in Nicosia (Lefkoşa), Büyük Han. Molohiya and kolokas are home cooking: they are served at lunchtime in the small lokanta of Nicosia's old town, and in Kyrenia at Tervetuloa, which does home-style Cypriot food. In Famagusta (Gazimağusa) there is Aspava for kebabs and meze and the Petek patisserie for sweets and coffee.
What to budget
Lunch in a village restaurant costs less than dinner in the harbour; check exact 2026 prices on the menu at the door, since they change several times a year. Home-style dishes like molohiya run out by evening, so come at lunchtime.
Look for molohiya and kolokas at lunchtime in a lokanta, not in the harbour.
The September market: grapes and pomegranates on the stalls, pekmez (syrup) being boiled from grapes and carob in the villages, and the new season's olives not until November or December. Buy fresh hellim and zeytinli, the olive flatbreads, from the bakeries in the morning.
- Order the full kebab at Niazi's on an empty stomach and between two: the portions are enormous.
- Ask about molohiya and kolokas in a lokanta before 14:00; by evening they are gone.
- Order künefe at the end of dinner: it is made to order and served hot.
- Take home vacuum-packed hellim and carob pekmez from the village markets.