Kadıköy occupies the most accessible point on Istanbul's Asian shore — a 20-minute ferry ride from Eminönü or a 15-minute ride from Karaköy. The neighbourhood has been a market and commercial centre since Byzantine times, but its current character was shaped more by its role as a centre for Istanbul's secular, educated, left-leaning middle class in the 20th century. The neighbourhood voted consistently for secular parties in elections when the rest of the city was shifting, and this political character has created a neighbourhood culture that is distinctive within Istanbul.
The Moda sub-district, the neighbourhood's most desirable residential area on the eastern side, has a genuine European café culture — independent coffee shops, wine bars, and restaurants with outdoor terraces on the small streets around the tramway. The view back across the Bosphorus to the Sultanahmet skyline from Moda's waterfront promenade is one of Istanbul's finest — and largely unexperienced by tourists who never cross the water.
Kadıköy's food market (the Kadıköy Pazar) is the city's finest — a covered market of cheese stalls, spice vendors, olive merchants, fish sellers, and bakers that operates daily and provides an extraordinary culinary survey of Turkish ingredients. The surrounding streets have excellent restaurants that capitalise on the market's produce.
The hotel infrastructure in Kadıköy is limited — the neighbourhood has relatively few purpose-built tourist hotels, and most visitors who want to experience it do so on a day trip from a European-shore base. But a handful of boutique properties and small hotels provide a genuine base for travellers who want the Asian shore experience, and the Marmaray tunnel connection (direct metro link under the Bosphorus) makes crossing to the European side genuinely quick.
