Reading list | Moda

Moda is a European quarter of 1920s/1930s vintage, the Asian side's answer to Nişantaşı. With so much new building going on, it takes a practised eye to identify the differences, but Moda's distinct, slightly Levantine charm is there. For the visitor's purposes, this is a place to come to eat and drink in old fashioned restaurants or to sip tea under the mastic trees, with a lovely view across the mouth of the Bosphorus. Rather surprisingly, round the corner from Koço, the old meyhane and opposite the Anglican church, one of the old Levantine houses became the home of the late Barış Manço, a famous and highly articulate rock star. It is now a shrine to his memory, with some 80,000 visitors a year.