Istanbul · 4 stops · every stop verified in live map data · ends near a bed
Rakı is a procedure rather than a drink. Water first, then ice, which turns it cloudy and is why it is called lion's milk, then cold meze, then hot meze, then several hours and no hurry whatsoever. Nobody drinks it standing and nobody drinks it alone. Four rooms in Pera and across the water, and a fifth in the bonus that we have just lost.
Two things to check before you walk this. The Orient Bar at the Pera Palace is shut until the end of the summer season, which the hotel says on its own site, so the stop below sends you to the Orient Teras instead. And the bar at the Büyük Londra publishes no hours at all, so ring the hotel before you count on the last stop.
Building started in 1892 and the hotel opened in 1895 with a ball. It was the first place in Istanbul outside the palaces to get electric light, and it had the city's first electric lift and first hot running water. Two corrections. The Orient Bar itself is closed until the end of summer, which the hotel states on its own site, so take a drink on the Orient Teras by the lobby instead. And the Agatha Christie room is a heritage product: her own autobiography never puts her here, and she wrote the first part of that book at the Baron in Aleppo.
hotel built 1892, opened 1895, and nobody dates the bar · Teras 9am till 11pm, drinks till 2am · verified Aug 2026
2 · The Detour Karaköy Lokantası
Founded in 2000, and not where you think. It moved along the street from number 37 to number 57 in 2021, so it stands a block behind the quay rather than on the water as we had it. The turquoise tiles everyone photographs are not antique either: they were designed for this room and fired by Gorbon Seramik in 2021, so that wall is about five years old. A dry lokanta by day and a meyhane after dark, rakı against eighty odd meze and a long Turkish wine list. No Sunday lunch, and dinner is by reservation only.
est. 2000, in this room since 2021 · lunch Mon-Sat, dinner nightly till midnight · verified Aug 2026
3 · The Anchor Viktor Levi Moda
Two things we had wrong. This Moda house did not open in 2022, it was trading by 2002, and the 1914 is on no document anywhere: the family's own history page gives 1967, 1985 and 1999 and no founding year at all. Viktor Levi died in 1967, his cousin Yasef ran it until 1985, then it went dark for fourteen years and a stranger bought the name in 1999. The wine is made under contract by Kavaklıdere and numbered rather than named. What is genuinely here is a köşk with a walled garden, and that is the reason to come.
the name is old, this business dates from 1999 · daily, lunch from noon, dinner till 1am · verified Aug 2026
4 · The Last Call Büyük Londra Oteli bar
Built as a house in 1891 and turned into a hotel the year after, directly across the road from the Pera Palace and at a fraction of the price. A second degree registered monument, with a hydraulic lift running on the same system as the Eiffel Tower and two caryatids over the door. Our unrenovated is wrong: it was done over in 1983 and has barely been touched since, which is a better claim anyway. Two bars, no published hours, and two parrots called Yakup and Yusuf who watch you drink in one of them.
a house in 1891, a hotel from 1892, restored 1983 · bar hours not published, ring the hotel · verified Aug 2026
🎁 The one this road just lost, and it is the one that mattered most. Krependeki İmroz opened in 1941 in the Krepen passage, named for the Aegean island its founders came from, and it was the last Rum meyhane on Nevizade. Yorgo Okumuş arrived from İmroz in 1935, joined in 1952 and ran it until he died in 2015, aged ninety five. A sign on the wall said singing in the meyhane is absolutely forbidden, because he wanted talk rather than performance. When the passage was demolished in 1982 the regulars themselves renamed it the İmroz that was in Krepen, so people would know it still existed. It closed in 2021 and its domain now serves search engine spam about home remodelling in Virginia. If you want the thread it belonged to, Pano Şaraphanesi is a hundred and thirty metres away, a wine house opened in 1898 by Panoyot Papadopoulos, still pouring young wine to people standing up. We have not re-checked it this year, so look before you commit an evening to it.
Fly in via IST. The live map shows every pub, bar and restaurant around the route, compiled from OpenStreetMap and Google with live ratings.