The Karakoy waterfront is where Beyoglu goes out. The strip between the Galata Bridge and Tophane holds rooftop bars, meyhanes, coffee places and small restaurants, most of them within a few hundred metres of each other. The rooftops are the draw: several buildings along Kemankes Caddesi have terraces facing the water, with the old city […]

Babylon opened in 1999 and spent two decades as the venue that brought international acts to Istanbul before most other stages did. It now operates in Bomonti, but the Beyoglu presence remains part of how people navigate the district’s music scene. Programming leans towards electronic, world music, indie and jazz, with both Turkish and visiting […]

Nardis has been running below the Galata Tower since 2002 and is the closest thing Istanbul has to a classic jazz basement: low ceiling, tables tight against the stage, and an audience that stops talking when the set begins. The programme is live six nights a week, mixing Turkish musicians with visiting international players. Capacity […]

Salon IKSV is the concert hall of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, and at around three hundred seats it is small enough that the back row is still close to the stage. The programme runs from contemporary classical and jazz to electronic sets and new Turkish music. Because the foundation also organises the […]

Balo Street runs off Istiklal and is the shortest route from the hotel to a table with music. It is a narrow lane of bars and small venues, and after dark the sound coming out of the doorways is the reason people turn into it. The mix ranges from rock bars to places with live […]

Zorlu Performing Arts Center is the venue that finally let large international productions play Istanbul without cutting their staging. It opened in 2013 with a main hall of around 2,200 seats and a stage built deep enough for touring musicals. A season runs across musicals, ballet, opera, orchestral concerts and international touring acts, with a […]

Tower Pub is a rooftop bar close enough to walk to in ten minutes, with the Galata Tower on one side and the whole old-city skyline across the water on the other. It is a pub, not a cocktail bar — draught beer, uncomplicated food, football on when there is a match. What people come […]

Escape Club runs themed escape rooms: a team is locked in, and sixty minutes to work through a chain of puzzles before the clock runs out. It is one of the longer-established operators in the city. Several rooms run in parallel at different difficulties, and the staff calibrate hints to how the group is doing. […]