Karga Bar sits on Kadife Sokak in Kadıköy, on the Asian side of Istanbul. It has been one of the longest-running bohemian cocktail bars in the city since the late 1990s. The room is a three-floor townhouse - graffiti on the walls, paintings stacked against doorways, a different generation of art student at each table, mismatched furniture - and the bar has been the unofficial headquarters of Kadıköy's creative-class drinking culture for thirty years. The visit is partly about the bar and partly about which side of the city you are drinking on. Two continents, viewed from one barstool.
The bar operates as a slow evening venue rather than a destination cocktail-bar visit. Plan a four-hour evening that includes the ferry, dinner at a Kadıköy meyhane or balık restaurant, drinks at Karga, and the ferry back. Closed Sundays.