Anatolia Cafe

This place is really great! We started with falafel which was great, then I had the Doner and Lamb Adana combination and it was amazing! End with the baklava and you’ve had a fantastic meal!

My waiter had little knowledge of the menu and it showed. I was the only one there for lunch but no one came to check on my meal. I eventually waved someone down because the donas was dry and they told me they had no tatziki or cucumber yogurt to go with it. the red lentil soup was excellent. My waiter said he brought me the wrong size bowl to go with my lunch entrée and reluctantly left it. the wine was extremely overpriced at $ 8 per glass for a $ 7 bottle. as I said the soup, Red lentil was excellent

Food was excellent. The beef sautee was extremely tender and juicy. Highly recommended.

Anatolia is one of the most underrated restaurants in Cleveland. Their food is some of the best I have had. For those who want a little bit different, their Turkish cuisine is the way to go. I start with the Shepards salad with feta, which tastes really fresh and is a great way to start the meal. My favorite dish is their Lamb Shank, which is a special that they sometimes have depending on if it is available. The meat just falls off the bone and is cooked to perfection. To finish off a great meal, I would try their baklava, which is one of the best I have eaten. It is hard to go wrong with any other items on the menu. I have never received something I did not like. You can tell the food is prepared with care and they use fresh ingredients. They also have a patio where you can enjoy the food outside during the sunny days! I would highly recommend it. A great place to eat.

I love this place. The food is delicious and im a regular. Always great service and great for lunchtime!

While the hummus is too bland for my taste, the red lentil soup and doner were good. The menu notes items that are gluten free.

My first time here in Cleveland and I thought I should try something that is totally off the beaten path! because, I doubt I am ever coming back here again and second, I usually don’t get off the «beaten path»! With that, Anatolia Café at Cleveland Heights was the one I chose. And my God, did I make the right choice!
The food was how it should be served in The heartland of Turkey but lucky us, they are right here in Cleveland, OH! We had the Iskender Doner Kebab, and the Mixed Grill and I can vouch for the authenticity of them being how you would have it in Turkey, Just perfect.
For those who are lucky to be living in Cleveland, you are missing out on a jewel of an eatery if you haven’t been here already. And, if you are passing by this town like I am, I recommend you give this place a chance. Food and the service that comes with it is just worth a try. Enjoy

My family enjoyed the food, we all ordered something different so we could share. The coffee was amazing. The service was slow, which was weird because it was the middle of the day with almost no other customers. The waiter seemed uninterested in doing his job. But because the food was so good I was mostly willing to overlook that part of the dinner. Maybe he was just having a bad day. I would recommend this restaurant over many others in the Ceder-​Lee district.

Food was excellent — appetizers, meal and dessert! From the sautéed kalamari to the lamb patties, kebab, lamb shank and baklava, everything was amazing! Full of flavor. It was like eating at my grandmothers house. Friendly wait staff. Will definitely be back!

Excellent food. Very flavorful. Would definitely recommend. A little on the expensive side.

I really like this place! They have really great lunch specials and have a nice patio. The service is friendly and knowledgeable.
We also love to order take out as well. The hummas is amazing, best falafel in the city and the desserts are great as well. Highly recommended!

Hmmm… How can I start this.
Well first, I’ll start by saying the food was delicious.
Even though the waitress gave two people in our party the wrong dinners.
The service was SLOW & UNFRIENDLY!!!
She was new obviously, never smiled, very uninformative
regarding the menu. Owner of the resteraunt was cold, stoic &
very unproffesional. I will not be going back EVER!!!

My husband, brother and sister in law and I went here tonight and let me just say… Everything was so perfectly delicious! Everything from start to finish!
You MUST GO!

I enjoyed my meal at Anatolia and would be back to try more food. The menu had a good selection of items that included vegetarian and seafood options.
The falafel appetizer I had was good. I enjoyed the tzatziki sauce and the pita it came with. I had the combination plate with filet mignon shish kebab, and döner. I loved the filet mignon. I almost wish that was all I got because it was so tender and seasoned to perfection. The döner was really good too, but after having the filet mignon, I forgot about it.
I didn’t like that the cups were upside down on the table before we sat down, so I felt the need to ask for a straw. Also, the dish my coworker got (stuffed egplant), was bland a mushy. We asked the waiter for the one dish you would recommend to a newcomer that would get him/​her hooked, and that’s that he recomended. The flavors and the textures were one note: babyfood. I’m sorry my coworker’s food wasn’t as good as mine, because while I would come back, he assured me that he wouldn’t want to give this place a second chance.
One last note: the parking lot out back is cramped, but at least there is a non street parking option.

I came here for a graduation dinner with some family and friends. We were looking for a place to go last minute and this one was able to accommodate us on short notice (we had called a couple other places first), given that there was a marathon, graduation, and a festival all going on in Cleveland the same weekend. That was nice.
This place serves amazing baba gannoush. A friend took me here years ago, where I first tried it, and since then, I’ve compared all others to this one. It has an intense, smoky but light flavor to it and it’s paired with baskets of warm pita bread. It’s definitely my favorite thing to get here.
We all got some combination of kabobs with rice. I got lamb and filet mignon – super tender, juicy and cooked just right. I gobbled mine up in a totally lady-​like fashion, finishing first at the table. No one really had complaints about their food. My mom just casually mentioned that hers was a little dry and the waiter immediately brought some yogurt sauce, which improved it for her.
The décor’s really nice with lots of windows, and luckily it was a nice weekend so it felt really bright. The service was a little on the slower side and the restaurant was maybe 80% full the day. There’s a small parking lot in the back, enough for maybe 10 cars, so you may have to deal with street parking.

I loved this place, the service great, the atmosphere elegant and Mediterranean. But the food speak for it’s self the Turquish flavors are infused in all their dishes and they transport you to that earthy place of their mother land. AMAZING!!!

Anatolia! After hearing so many great things for a few months, I was excited to finally come here. Metered street parking is available directly along the same street, it was Sunday and I had no trouble finding a spot.
It was a beautiful day so we sat outside, it took about 10 minutes to be acknowledged, though not too busy outside, maybe it was busy inside.
We ordered the traditional Turkish salad, the cheese cigars, and the chicken and lamb kabobs. The salad I am used to and absolutely love, loved it here too. The cheese pastry cigars are amazing, kind of salty but I love salty and these were really delicious. The chicken was undercooked, rubbery texture which grossed me out. The lamb was flavorful but still felt like something was missing, also didn’t think that it was cooked to its full potential.
For dessert, we ordered the knaffeh, which is a dessert I am very familiar with, and they earned 5 stars on dessert! It was absolutely delicious and I would probably come back just for the knaffeh dessert.
We experienced service with a few different waiters, all of whom were pleasant. I will definitely be back here for the knaffeh but next time I will try different menu items with better luck, hopefully.

Anatolia is on my restaurant rotation list. Food has always been good. It always feels like they are understaffed, but that may be due to the configuration of the space. The tables they are in charge of are not constantly in their peripheral.
There is parking in the back. We’ve never had to park on the street over the years. Restaurant has walls of windows, making it very bright, which I love.
Here are dishes we frequently order:
— cold appetizer combo: good for those to try different cold appetizers in smaller doses. In the end we knew we just love baba ganoosh.
— baba ganoosh. Ask for whole wheat bread (each table gets a basket) to go with it. You can see the eggplants. Very light. We order it every time.
— Turkish tea: is a kind of black tea. Strong, fragrant.
— combo of two meats, kefte, donor, filet mignon, chicken. Comes with plain white rice, cabbage salad, and cucumber yogurt. The cabbage and yogurt are great balance against the meat; tangy, tad sweet, cooling. Health-​conscious folks should probably go with visible meat, eg beef mignon, chicken cubes, rather than ground meat, eg donor, kefte. I like it, simple, straight forward, healthful.
— lamb okra: for a period of time I was obsessed with it; had to order it every time. There’s something about the tomato-​butter sauce. I eventually got tired of it because I feel the sauce has too much butter than tomato to my liking. Feel heavy afterwards.
— lamb shank: today is my first time ordering it, because it’s not on the menu. It’s not the lamb chops, which are on the menu. Lamb shank are offered in limited quantities. Today they only made 3 orders. It was braised for 3 – 4 hours; soft, not gamy at all. Similar sauce as in lamb okra, perhaps less butter. Pretty good.
— yogurt kebab dishes: they have a series of Adana/​kebab which essentially all have pita croûton underneath meat with yogurt sauce. I love it. The tomato sauce tastes similar as above. I think they use the same tomato base throughout different dishes.
— liver cube hot appetizer: it’s rare to see liver on a restaurant menu. I liked it. Big portion for an appetizer.
— all their Turkish desserts are great:
If you want crispy: baklava; kunefe, kadayif (see other Unilocalers photos, texture on top reminds me of bird’s nest) interesting texture.
If you want soft: Kazandibi (the menu says milk pudding, but it’s not liquid-​y. It’s rolled up, kind of like a pillow. Try it.), sutlac (rice pudding)
— warning, un-​appetizing scene below —
Today after we finished the meal, as we were signing the check, we noticed the whole wall of the windows was covered in some type of flying insects. We mentioned it to our server when came to collect the check. He literally said «oh sh*t! Let me tell manager». The manager came, the two of them, plus us customers, are all in awe. For a blink second I felt like we were in a disaster movie. God sends swarms of flies to warn you of the flood coming. The manager decided to vacuum them and quickly acted on it. This is the first time in years we’ve ever experienced it, and the staff acted on it promptly, so I don’t fault them on this one.

I’m still between a 3.5−4 for Anatolia.
Came here recently on a Saturday night with out of town guests. I called Saturday afternoon and they still had reservations available for 7pm. Getting reservations was the right idea though because the restaurant filled up quickly!
The atmosphere in the evening is quite cozy, with the warm interior colors and light fire in the back. We definitely enjoyed ourselves.
We ordered the hot sautéed liver cubes appetizer, and I definitely think this was one of my favorites. Really good spices and flavor. We also had the cigar burek filled with feta.
I ordered one of the specials, vegetarian moussaka! I can’t resist moussaka. Overall, it was satisfying and completely filling, but was slightly lackluster flavor-​wise. The others got the lamb shank special (it was huge!) and the lamb kofte. It is a little pricy, but again, we were satisfied. And it’s lamb.

I can only rate their happy hour, which had half off certain appetizers, $ 3 select beers, $ 4 house wines, $ 5 select mixed drinks, $ 5 wraps (choice of doner — gyro meat, chicken, or falafel)
Their happy hour options were alright. I think if the appetizers were not half priced, it would have been wayy too overpriced for what we got. My friend and I tried the tabouli (cracked wheat salad with various minced herbs and peppers) and the babagannush (mashed eggplant dip) for appetizers, which came with pita.
The doner wraps came with a yogurt dip — I asked for turkish hot sauce and that was a good combo, although the wrap wasa little dry on its own.
Their house white wine was quite delicious. Ambience was relaxing on a weekday afternoon. It’s a rather large restaurant and it has outdoor seatings.
What were the stars of the meals were the desserts. We had the baklava and the kadayif. I’d never had the kadayif before but i’m so glad I decided to try something new. Both were really good but the kadayif was perfection — not as sweet as the baklava, which I felt needed some tea to balance the sweetness. Definitely recommend trying that out!