Open a Turkish restaurant in East Counties

Thinking of opening a Turkish restaurant in East Counties? We compare all 45 councils in the region on one table. The region has 403 Turkish restaurants in total, with roughly 48,484 monthly searches across councils with known volume. 64% of the 322 rated Turkish restaurants here hold a 5-star food hygiene rating. On demand score, the three best-placed councils are Dacorum (driven by search demand), Norwich (driven by search demand), South Cambridgeshire (driven by search demand). The table below ranks every council by score, restaurants, searches and residents per restaurant, so you can see which councils are least saturated.

Councils

Turkish restaurants

403

Monthly searches

48,484

Rated 5 for hygiene

64%

● Editorial note: East Counties

East of England Turkish food is concentrated where the A12 and the Cambridge line meet population: Colchester, Chelmsford, Southend and Cambridge itself. Norfolk and Suffolk beyond Norwich and Ipswich have only scattered takeaways, so a small number of restaurants serve large rural catchments and rank highly on residents per restaurant. Cambridge is the clearest anomaly in the region, with thousands of monthly searches, an affluent student and research population and a handful of restaurants, most of them in the city centre. Peterborough and Luton have larger Turkish and Kurdish communities than their restaurant counts suggest, which usually means home cooking is strong and eating out is price-sensitive; those are markets for grills and bakeries rather than premium meze.

Turkish Restaurants UK Editorial Team — updated 2026-09-04

01/Ranking

Every council in East Counties

#	Council	Demand score	Verdict	Turkish restaurants	Monthly searches	Residents/restaurant	Hygiene-5 share
01	Dacorum	80	underserved	5	1,475	19,385	57%
02	Norwich	78	underserved	8	2,320	13,083	33%
03	South Cambridgeshire	77	underserved	4	1,922	23,160	—
04	Peterborough	77	underserved	10	2,180	16,591	88%
05	Welwyn Hatfield	71	underserved	5	1,140	14,980	75%
06	Harlow	65	balanced	2	800	18,665	—
07	Central Bedfordshire	65	balanced	17	2,020	14,713	65%
08	Thurrock	65	balanced	18	2,310	8,381	36%
09	Tendring	65	balanced	9	1,710	12,358	38%
10	Ipswich	62	balanced	10	1,530	10,741	100%
11	Epping Forest	61	balanced	14	1,557	7,940	75%
12	Fenland	61	balanced	4	1,215	14,637	100%
13	East Suffolk	60	balanced	11	1,490	17,576	63%
14	Castle Point	58	balanced	12	1,960	5,973	89%
15	Southend-on-Sea	58	balanced	16	2,080	9,510	45%
16	South Norfolk	58	balanced	5	1,131	17,743	80%
17	East Hertfordshire	58	balanced	13	1,390	9,385	50%
18	Huntingdonshire	58	balanced	18	2,144	8,611	53%
19	North Norfolk	56	balanced	2	821	20,596	—
20	East Cambridgeshire	54	balanced	6	1,041	9,751	33%
21	Breckland	53	balanced	7	1,127	14,148	57%
22	North Hertfordshire	53	balanced	10	1,267	10,247	50%
23	Hertsmere	52	balanced	12	1,025	7,188	73%
24	West Suffolk	51	balanced	12	1,232	11,996	64%
25	Luton	50	balanced	15	1,090	12,514	33%
26	Colchester	50	balanced	7	680	19,271	80%
27	Chelmsford	48	balanced	12	920	12,101	56%
28	St Albans	48	balanced	10	830	11,397	70%
29	Three Rivers	47	balanced	8	892	8,525	100%
30	Great Yarmouth	47	balanced	4	740	14,249	33%
31	Basildon	46	balanced	14	860	11,033	78%
32	Uttlesford	41	balanced	7	820	9,134	33%
33	Mid Suffolk	40	saturated	6	703	11,411	83%
34	Cambridge	38	saturated	7	310	14,568	25%
35	Babergh	37	saturated	7	632	9,235	83%
36	Braintree	34	saturated	10	410	11,944	71%
37	Broadland	32	saturated	4	450	18,818	—
38	King's Lynn and West Norfolk	32	saturated	5	320	19,291	100%
39	Watford	29	saturated	10	310	7,865	100%
40	Broxbourne	28	saturated	13	240	6,188	91%
41	Brentwood	28	saturated	8	400	7,003	67%
42	Bedford	27	saturated	11	390	13,231	83%
43	Stevenage	21	saturated	7	100	8,950	83%
44	Rochford	21	saturated	5	260	10,708	50%
45	Maldon	17	saturated	3	240	11,034	67%

02/Geography

Where the clusters are

Across East Counties, Turkish restaurants cluster most heavily in these postcode districts: LU1 (10), EN8 (10), PE1 (9), SS7 (8), CM1 (8).

03/Next