Hi Folks, Nisantasi is one of the best shopping districts of. It contains designer label stores, very nice restaurants and cafes, a beautiful mall, and a few outstanding hotels. Otherwise it is mainly a posh residential district. Now we will discover this area. There are basically 5 main streets that we will discover there and they are Rumeli, Vali Konagi, Abdi İpekçi, Atiye and Tesvikiye streets. I sometimes visit Nisantasi for shopping and for its restaurants. First take the metro from Taksim and the first stop is Osmanbey. When you come out of the metro station simply make a left turn into Rumeli Street and walk towards Nisantasi. On your left at the corner you will see a great neighborhood spice store called Zencefil Aktar. This store has great spices. On your right you will see one of the very few Chinese fast food restaurants in Istanbul, called Cin Lee. It is run by a great Chinese lady and has very inexpensive prices. On your right you will see the well known Bagzibagli clothing materials store where men can have custom made shirts and suits made rather fast. On your left again there is a very good bookstore called Remzi, which is one of my favorites. It has a lot of books in English, art boks, tourist guidebooks, and a lot of books on Istanbul. On your left again there is Faik Sonmez Outlet store for excellent ladies clothing. They have great prices. Following Faik Sonmez, there is the excellent ladieswear wholesale boutique called Adil Isık. All our visitors interested in wholesale purchases can go in there. On the right there is HSBC bank, Turkcell stores that some visitors may use, followed by ladies large size clothing store called Maxim. They have excellent selections. Finally we have the ubiquitous McDonalds on the right and Burger King on the left, facing each other. The last store on Rumeli street is Stefanel, a well known chain. Now we are at Nisantasi intersection. We will cross street here and make a right into Vali Konagi Street for a short walk. First on our left is the excellent Yargici brand name clothing store, which is one of my favorites. I always make a point of entering this store and look for exciting items of the season. Across from Yargici there is nice cafe called Zamane Kahvesi, but just after Yargici there are also two well known cafes, Starbucks and Cafe Nero. I like them both. After Cafe Nero there is the brand name jeans store called Mavi. Now is the time to make a left turn into the famous Abdi Ipekçi street. Abdi Ipekçi street is the equivalent of famous Rodeo Drive at Beverly Hills, California. It is lined with some of the worlds famous designer and brand name stores. First on your left there is an excellent Burberry store that we all know, followed by the excellent Turkish leather store leatherwear and bags called DESA. Following Altinbas you will see the Godiva Chocolatier, a well known Turkish chain. Turkish food giant Ulker bought this chain recently, lock, stock, and barrel. They indeed have the most heavenly chocolates in Istanbul. On your left again there is the Lacoste sportswear chain followed by Mama Bar. It is a small basement bar and pizzeria but on the sidewalk it also has open air seating. It also has excellent pizzas. Following Mama bar and pizzeria, we have the well known Roberto Cavalli and Ermenegildo Zegna designer label stores, full of beautiful merchandise for women and men. After Zegna there is another nice restaurant followed by Alexander McQueen store. After that there is the wonderful Grissini Italian Restaurant: Following Grissini, there is the largest store on Abdi Ipekçi, called Beymen. It also has a very nice brasserie in front of it called Beymen Brasserie. It is an excellent place to relax after walking and shopping and to have a couple of drinks. However the most interesting store here is the Urart jewelery store, which makes excellent jewelery after original Urartian designs. Urart is followed by Cengiz Abazoglu, a well known Turkish designer. Cartier jewellers are right here also. Here is a 360 degree view of Abdi Ipekci street click on full screen : Returning to the left bank of Abdi Ipekci street, we have the ever popular Louis Vuitton and Bang Olufsen stores: No need to talk about these famous brand name ladies bag and brand name musical equipment stores. They are followed by a well known local designer store Vakko and its youth branch, Vakkorama. You should always try to see the beautiful merchandise at Vakko if you are in Istanbul. Across from these stores on the right side, you will see Guiseppe Zanetti ladies shoes and the well known Kırıntı restaurant on two floors, where you can get excellent country steaks and New steaks. Kırıntı branch at is one of my favorites. Prada shoes are right here also, followed by the best hotel on this street, The House Hotel, And finally on the right side again you will find the new Italian restaurant, Cento Percento. This restaurant came in place of the old Mezzaluna, my favorite here. Right next to Mid Point restaurant, there is an entrance to Milli Reasurans Passage, where thare are two great cafes, Assk Cafe and Cafe Wien. Cafe Wien has great mouth watering Austrian cakes and deserts and is always worth a visit. Atiye is a short street that used to house Cafe Wien and dolmushes for Taksim, but now it has become a concentration area of nice cafes and restaurants. On the left of Atiye street you will first find Kav Wine Boutique, where you can have a good selection wines. The Kav Wine Boutique is followed by the well known House Cafe: The cafe here is where it all started. Now the company owns the House Hotels also and it is a local brand. I often visit the one at Caddebostan, my home neighborhood. After House Cafe you will see Salon Salomanje, another meeting place for the beautiful people of Nisantasi. On your right at Atiye street, there is the boutique of Arzu Kaprol, a well known Turkish designer. Once we arrive at Tesvikiye street, you should be turning left, unless you want to visit Emporio Armani or Gucci stores and the great hotel Park Hyatt Istanbul on Tesvikiye street. Park Hyatt, The House Hotel Nisantasi and are the three wonderful hotels at Nisantasi area. Across the street you will see Tesvikiye Mosque, a mosque that has a unique architecture in baroque style designed by Balyan brothers who designed. Teşvikiye cafe is right next to Tesvikiye Mosque. On your left you will see Max Mara designer boutique and Bahar patisserie for nice cakes. Sutte Deli and Mothercare stores will follow. This place is one of my favorites for its excellent Turkish sweets and deserts. Walking towards Rumeli street, Sofa Hotel is on your left, followed by Massimo Dutti and Zara stores. You will also see Pasabahce boutique glassware store here. I suggest you have a look at its magnificent glassware. They make great gifts. The Spanish Zara chain store comes next. Good clothing and prices for all tastes. Right across on Tesvikiye street on the right is Istanbul Fashion Academy, Right next door we have the American chains Banana Republic and Gap Stores. Banana Republic used to be one of my favorites from US. It is not a big mall but lots of interesting stores, restaurants and movie theatres here. The final noteworthy store on your left is a Mudo chain store, again one of my favorites. I suggest that you spend a little time in this store. They have very reasonable prices. Now we are back at the beginning of Rumeli street. You can cross the street and walk back this street for about 500 meters back to Osmanbey metro station where you can take the metro back to Taksim. If you are a wholesale shopper buyer for your stores , then take the next street called Sair Nigar parallel to Rumeli street, where all the wholesale and manufacturer showrooms for ladies and mens clothing and accessories are located. This completes our Nisantasi walks. I have spent so many hours researching, comparing, planning, exploring and pinpointing on inferior maps, this area called Nisantasi. No where, no one, no book, no website comes even close to the information you provide. I can appreciate the work you put into this and for providing your personal evaluations and sharing some of your favorites. This report has also proven invaluable to me who is always struggling with decisions on where to go, when to go and what to see. This has flipped my already spontaneous plans into something more solid. Including Nisantasi now convinces me that my trip to one of the other malls can be more for architectural appreciation than shopping which is more to my nature. Including websites is genius and only whets one's appetite. You've provided history, intrigue, and anticipation in a very comfortable and reassuring manner. Now, once again, I have probably not allowed enough days in to satisfy my curiosity. You are very convincing and have many followers who trust your observations and recommendations, making the choices for dining the most challenging from fine dining to street munching! As you can see, I am speechless. Thank you for this incredible insite into your world. Please limit conversations to subject matter directly related to the host forum. For example: when in the London forum, please stick to topics that relate to travel within the London Metropolitan Area. Off-Topic Chatter is a forum for discussions gone afield from the topic of travel. Please note that the Off-Topic Chatter forum is un-moderated -- the Forum Posting Guidelines are not enforced, with the exception of pornographic images or text, hate speech, unauthorized re-prints of copyrighted text, and messages that promote or encourage illegal activities. Each user is expected to take responsibility for his or her own conduct. To review the TripAdvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason. Unfortunately guide books, blogs, etc. But what you get about Nisantasi shopping and dining in this thread is very current. I highly recommend Nisantasi district visits to all our visitors if they are staying at least 4 days in Istanbul. A three hours spent in these walks will show a totally different face of Istanbul than that of Sultanahmet and Grand Bazaar. For you, it may be safer to shop there since there will be fixed prices, no tourist rates, no negotiation and the real thing always beware of the saffron no matter where you buy it There are a quite a few things which I do not agree with in the long and quite exhaustive narrative by Enigma, but I will only mention one very old very traditional iskender kebap location on the main street diagonally across from the police station where we frequently eat and have done so for maybe the last 40 years or so, Haci Bey, which has managed to survive and offer the same quality for all those years and possibly longer. Hacibey with its small door and narrow entrance is very easy to miss. I will not call it a favorite, but then I am not as generous as Enigma with my favours. LOL 9 of 92 · -:- Message from TripAdvisor staff -:- TripAdvisor staff has removed this post because it did not meet TripAdvisor's forum guidelines with regards to off-topic chat. Please limit conversations to subject matter directly related to the host forum. For example: when in the London forum, please stick to topics that relate to travel within the London Metropolitan Area. Off-Topic Chatter is a forum for discussions gone afield from the topic of travel. Please note that the Off-Topic Chatter forum is un-moderated -- the Forum Posting Guidelines are not enforced, with the exception of pornographic images or text, hate speech, unauthorized re-prints of copyrighted text, and messages that promote or encourage illegal activities. Each user is expected to take responsibility for his or her own conduct. To review the TripAdvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason. It was definitely an oversight on my part. Although its greasy kebabs are definitely not my favorites, I agree that I have to include Haci Bey as one of the notable establishments on Tesvikiye street. Speaking of kebabs, Kosebasi restaurant at Bronz street, the next street parallel to Atiye street, is a much better kebab restaurant. It is popular these days and when I was at Nisantasi a couple days ago, it was full to the brim. Kosebasi nowadays has many branches all throughout the city and other cities. This is not a very touristic area and you will not get touristic prices. There is no bargaining here though.
