Entertainment in Turkey
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Leb-i Derya
On the top floor of a dishevelled building off İstiklal, Leb-i Derya has wonderful views across to the Old City and down the Bosphorus, meaning that seats on the small outdoor terrace or at the bar are highly prized. There's also food on offer.
reviewed
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Cafe Meşale
Located in a sunken courtyard behind the Blue Mosque, Meşale is a tourist trap par excellence, but still has loads of charm. Generations of backpackers have joined locals in claiming one of its cushioned benches and enjoying a tea and nargile. It has sporadic live Turkish music and a bustling vibe in the evening.
reviewed
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Love Dance Point
Going into its second decade, LDP is easily the most Europhile of the local gay venues, hosting gay musical icons and international circuit parties. Hard-cutting techno is thrown in with gay anthems and Turkish pop. This place attracts the well-travelled and the un-impressionable, as well as some straight hipsters from nearby Nişantaşı.
reviewed
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Araf
Grungy English teachers, Erasmus exchange students and Turkish language students have long claimed this as their favoured destination, listening to world music (including the live in-house gypsy band) and swilling some of the cheapest club beer in the city.
reviewed
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Türk Ocaği Kültür ve Sanat Merkezi İktisadi İşletmesi Çay Bahçesi
Tucked into the rear right-hand corner of a shady courtyard filled with Ottoman tombs, this enormously popular tea garden is a perfect place to escape the crowds and relax over a çay and nargile. You can even score a cheap and tasty gözleme (Turkish crêpe filled with cheese, spinach or potato) here.
reviewed
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Hideaway Bar & Cafe
Well named, this enchanting cafe and bar is secreted in a garden accessible from the street via a secret doorway. Turkish breakfast (TL20) and Sunday brunch is offered, as well as snacks and cakes.
reviewed
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Leb-i Derya Richmond
This sleek younger sister of perennial favourite Leb-i Derya is more restrained and decidedly more chic than her big sis. Fortunately there's no threat of sibling rivalry, as the crowd here is older and more cashed-up. The views from the huge windows are just as fab.
reviewed
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Bigudi Cafe
The first lesbian-exclusive venue in Turkey, Bigudi is frequented by lipstick lesbians on Saturday nights and is resolutely off-limits to non-females. Fridays are open to gay men and the transgendered. To find it, look for the Altin Plak cafe on the ground floor.
reviewed
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Hi-Jazz Bar
This mellow little bar round the corner from Chez Evy has canned (and sometimes live) jazz. It's very friendly and cosy but with no outside space – not one for the height of summer.
reviewed
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Pink Bistro Café
The oldest drinking establishment in Selçuk, it's called a café, looks like a pub, but functions as a bar-cum nightclub. Ask Mesut, the bar tender, to demonstrate some of his famous magic tricks.
reviewed
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Mavi Bar
Conveniently sited at the far end of the main square, the Mavi's permanently packed with people - it was Kaş' favourite when we visited. It plays a good mix of music and has tables outside.
reviewed
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Queen Bar
Popular with travellers and locals alike, this place has a lively dance floor on the 1st floor and a more sedentary bar on the second. The friendly DJ, Emin, encourages musical requests.
reviewed
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Şişman Efes Pub
Now this is a proper pub: wooden tables, doodling barman, music drowned out by the general hubbub and the eponymous Efes beer served in 2.5L towers (around €8) on request.
reviewed
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Atölye Kuledıbı
Great music (sometimes live jazz) and a welcoming atmosphere characterise this bohemian place near Galata Tower.
reviewed
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Mavra
Serdar-ı Ekrem Caddesi is one of the most interesting streets in Galata, full of ornate 19th-century apartment blocks, avant-garde boutiques and mellow cafes and bars. Mavra is the best of these, offering tasty cheap food and good tea and coffee amid decor that is thrift-shop chic. There's always good music on the turntable here, too.
reviewed
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Sıra Geceleri
Nightlife in Urfa? In the City of Prophets, this may sound a contradiction in terms, but the evenings in Urfa are the hottest in eastern Anatolia, with high-octane dancing almost every night. What makes the city tick is the sıra geceleri , 'traditional nights' that are held in upscale restaurants. The best venues to check out are Beyzade Konak, Gülizar Konukevi, Pınarbaşı Konağı and Cevahir Konuk Evi. Send us the pictures!
Picture şark odası (lounges) where guests sit, eat, sing and dance. After the meal, a live band plays old favourites that keep revellers rocking and dancing to their hearts' content.
reviewed
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Necco
Recently, a new phenomenon has come to Kuşadası: the beach club. Functioning as a beach club during the day, they transform themselves by night into a restaurant, followed by a lavish nightclub-on-sea. Two such places can be found on the way to Pigeon Island. Considered the hippest (and the first on the scene) is Necco. It's very popular with the well heeled and well-dolled up.
To get here, take a dolmuş towards Kadınlar Denizi (Ladies Beach). It can drop you at the roundabout from where it's a short walk. On foot, ask the locals for the handy shortcut (about 1km from town).
reviewed
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Xlarge
This straight-friendly gay venue melds glitz with size. Occupying a converted art deco–era cinema that Atatürk was said to have habituated, it draws in both gay and straight partyphiles, who come to be dazzled by a humungous ballroom chandelier, preserved old architectural details and possibly the longest bar (under the stage) in any local venue. On the mezzanine, two supersized beds for group cavorting flank a full-service bar; one overlooks the hunky dancers or drag artists on stage. Vodka-shot (TL5) counters have been conveniently placed near people for easy refuelling.
reviewed
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Ghetto
Decor-wise, this three-storey club behind the Flower Passage (Çiçek Pasaji) combines Renaissance-style painted high ceilings with modernist touches including a long, back-illuminated bar with bottles that seem to glow in the dark. The musical program is equally interesting, comprising creative foreign or local live acts. In summer, it hosts Peymane @ Ghetto Teras (reached via a back staircase), an open-air restaurant-cum-music lounge that ‘doesn’t close until the sun is up’. Check the website for schedules and cover charges.
reviewed
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Vefa Bozacısı
This famous boza bar was established in 1875 and locals still flock here to drink the viscous tonic, which is made from water, sugar and fermented barley. The mucous-coloured beverage has a reputation for building up strength and virility – it won't be to everyone's taste, but the bar's pretty interior is worth a visit in its own right.
If the boza is too confrontational for you, the bar also serves şıra, a fermented grape juice.
reviewed
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Darüşşifa
The Darüşşifa or Bimarhane was built as a mental hospital by Ilduş Hatun, wife of the İlkhanid Sultan Olcaytu, in 1309 and may have been the first place to try to treat mental disorders with music.
The İlkhans were the successors to Ghengis Khan's Mongols, who had defeated the Anatolian Seljuks. Their architecture reflects motifs borrowed from many conquered peoples and the building is based on the plan of a Seljuk medrese. Today the building is often used for exhibitions, concerts and events.
reviewed
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Set Üstü Çay Bahçesi
Come to this terraced tea garden to watch the ferries plying the route from Europe to Asia while at the same time enjoying an excellent pot of tea accompanied by hot water (such a relief after the usual fiendishly strong Turkish brew). Add a cheap tost (toasted cheese sandwich) and you'll be able to make a lunch of it.
reviewed
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Barış Türkü Cafe & Disco
The Barış was the flavour of the month when we visited, and it's easy to see why. Housed in a historic mansion, this atmosphere-laden café-bar-disco-restaurant has a happening buzz and is a magnet for students of both sexes who come here to flirt, gossip, puff a nargileh, dance and listen to live bands (three times a week). If hunger beckons after swigging more than a few glasses of Efes in the basement, you can order an excellent yayla kebap (kebap with yoghurt) to restore balance to the brain.
reviewed
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Şark Kahvesi
The Şark's arched ceiling betrays its former existence as part of a bazaar street; years ago some enterprising kahveci (coffeehouse owner) walled up several sides and turned it into a cafe. Located on one of the bazaar's major thoroughfares, it's popular with both stallholders and tourists.
reviewed
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Sokak Café & Bar
Like its next-door neighbour, Hasanaga Restaurant (a low stone wall separates the two), every square inch of this café's back garden is covered in a delightful canopy of light-strung trees. Literally. But since Sokak is still the new kid on the block, crowds are generally light. (Might have something to do with the music being way too loud.) Otherwise, an acceptable place to kill an evening over cups of çay or, more realistically, glasses of Efes (local beer).
reviewed