Celebrating New Year in Istanbul (Yılbaşı / Yeni Yıl) is a great idea. Turkey’s metropolitan is bustling all year round, but definitely goes the extra mile to welcome the new year. Every venue wants to outdo the other to make the transition from old to new as unique and special as possible. Therefore, listing what every bar, restaurant or hotel has up their sleeve is simply impossible. The purpose of this article is to offer you some popular ideas for New Year’s Eve.
Outdoors
Typically, a lot of people will gather at Taksim Square. However, this is not where you want to be at New Year’s Eve. Over the years the gathering got a bad reputation and tends to attract the wrong crowd.
If you like crowds and want to gamble on fair weather, then maybe the Nişantası or Kadıköy street party is your cup of tea. By all means avoid the one held on Taksim Square.
The best way to experience this kind of New Year celebration is to have dinner in a restaurant in Nişantası or Kadıköy, and around 23:00 join the street party. From that point onwards you’ll celebrate on the street with thousands of others and buy your drinks from the shops around. You want to make dinner reservations in time.
The drawback with street parties is that, certainly in the latter stages, you may experience improper behavior. For that reason, I definitely don’t advise (single) female travelers to join street parties.
Indoors
In general, the largest well-known Istanbul hotels, restaurants, bars and clubs offer fixed price entertainment. The goes for several venues located at Galataport. Prices vary quite a lot depending on what’s included in the New Year’s Eve package.
Hotels and restaurants mostly have a dinner-party combination, where bars and clubs usually offer unlimited drinks. If live performances (of famous Turkish stars) are scheduled, then the prices rise even more. Most of these party tickets are sold through online services like Passo, Biletino, BuGece, or Biletix
Semi-Indoors
For those who don’t want to pay some of the steep prices or simply don’t like to stay put in one place on New Year’s Eve, I suggest to head down to Ortaköy or Bebek.
Ortaköy and Bebek have fewer bars to offer than the side streets of Istiklal Caddesi, but they tend to be cozier and are certainly better located to see the fireworks.
Fireworks
Yes, I already briefly mentioned it. At precisely midnight, the city will be illuminated by unofficial fireworks. If you can, try to celebrate New Year’s Eve at an establishment with a rooftop terrace or close to the Bosphorus shores. Some even play it safe, and make reservations for one of the many New Year Bosphorus Dinner Cruises.
Happy New Year – Mutlu Yıllar
Thank you for your short but very productive recommendations and explanations for new year in Istanbul.
Would you please tell me what do you think of these boats that offers events for new year? The hotel we are staying at, they adversely one small boat/ yacht that offers one with a shuttle from and to the hotel. Is that good?
Hi,
I have had very good and lesser experiences with these party boats. It all depends on the company, the effort, and of course also the crowd. It’s impossible for me to recommend (or tell you to stay away from) from a particular one since there are so many, and many companies come and go. If you like the hotel, all the advise they’ve given you so far and you trust them, why not.
Hi
can you please recomend a hotel or restaurant fancy that has live entertaiment but not turkish music, that we can see the fireworks and have unlimited drinks package
thanks a lot
Hi Maria,
You may want to read up what I just wrote in response to Yullieth, although I’m fully aware that the entertainment will mostly be Turkish. Finding a venue with only non-Turkish entertainment and firework views will be a challenge. Your best bet is to find a Bosphorus party boat for international customers or rent one on your own if you’re a party of 10-12.
Hope this helps.
Hello, thank you very much for all your advices and recommendations. Can you please suggest me any place (hotel or restaurant) where I can celebrate New Year’s Eve, with a rooftop terrace or close to the Bosphorus shores? I’ll be in Istanbul alone and i would love to enjoy the fireworks from any rooftop terrace and have a good dinner.
Thank You
Hi Yulieth,
As you can imagine it’s impossible to for me to keep up with the programs of every hotel, and certainly in combination with ever changing global COVID rules. There will be fireworks from the Bosphorus, but no exact location has been announced. History teaches us that it’s probably around the first bridge or between the first or second bridges.
Hotels by the Bosphorus are generally expensive because of their excellent location, and of course even more so on New year’s Eve. A nice combo could be a stay at CVK Park Bosphorus Hotel and New Year’s Eve at the rooftop restaurant Izaka Terrace (located right on top of it). But keep in mind this will be a Turkish party. You can alway book another hotel and ask the concierge for some great NYE ideas or promotions he may suggest.
As an alternative, you may want to consider a dinner cruises on the Bosphorus, you can’t get closer to the action.
Have a good time!
Hi there,
do you have any recommendations on which NYE cruise to take? And is it better to take the cruise or party in the street?
Hi Maria,
I’m not even sure they’ll allow street parties this year, so ì would definitely go for a dinner / party cruise. Unfortunately, I don’t have any recommendations, but keep an eye out on the ones I support via GetYourGuide. Look at the reviews, that should help.
Hi,
I would like to know whether there will be official NYE 2020 fireworks on the Bosporus bridge.
I searched but couldn’t find any official news about that.
Mainly this will determine whether I would go for a cruise or book in a restaurant. and which one would you recommend?
Thanks,
Hi Miryam,
There indeed isn’t any official news yet, but most hotels seem to think that there will be. I just wrote the municipality an email to ask for confirmation. I will let you know the moment I hear from them.
Hope this helps.
Hi,
I am visiting istanbul for new year with my boyfirend.
Are there any restaurants (non-veggie and non vegan) that you can recommend, where we can maybe go and see the fireworks too.
Thank you!
Tesh
Hi Tesh,
I can recommend Sardunya Karaköy.
Also, I can recommend our article about fish restaurants as most of them are located by the Bosphorus.
Keep in mind though, it might be difficult to find a place. Alternatively, you can first have dinner in the city center and then go watch the fireworks by the Bosphorus.
Hope you have a good time and a happy new year.
Hi again Erlend,
I just read the article on night clubs you linked and they are indeed full blown night clubs. That’s not really what I am looking for, as it’s just my boyfriend and I, and we are looking for something more chilled.
On my previous comment I was referring to the small bars and pubs you mentioned in the article, that can be found in Ortaköy and Bebek… Do I need a reservation for those or there is always space to stand?
If I need a reservation, do you recommend any in particular for me to make a booking? I’m not looking for anything too fancy, just a casual bar we can watch the fireworks from and perhaps celebrate with a glass of wine or champagne afterwords 🙂
Thank you again!
Hi Larissa,
I of course don’t know every pub in Ortaköy and Bebek, let alone their New year’s eve program. I suggest you go check out some pubs a few evenings ahead, check the atmosphere, and if you like a venue ask if they have a program for New Year.
Have a nice time.
Happy New year
Thanks, same to you!
Thanks for sharing this, these ideas are very helpful! I like the suggestion of going to the bars street and watching the fireworks from there.
Do I need to book a table at these bars in Ortaköy and Bebek or is it a drinking standing kind of scene?
If I need to book it, could you give me a couple bar names so I can get in touch and reserve, please?
Also, do you recommend somewhere to eat in the area? Preferably vegetarian, please 🙂
Thank you so much!
Hi,
The two vegetarian friendly with vegan options in the are by the sea are Gabfoods and Lokanta Feriye.
In case you want an only vegetarian restaurant, Bi Nevi Deli is ‘a plant based kitchen’ and located in Etiler (with the usual traffic it should take around 15 min by taxi to get to Ortaköy square).
For the night clubs you can check our article for the night clubs. However, they may have special new year eve program and the pricing may be different than usual.
For all these places you need a reservation on a new year’s eve. Also note that the streets will be crowded.
Be safe and hope you have fun.
Happy new year…
Thank you so much for replying! I I’ll check the article and all these restaurants as well! Really appreciate the recommendations :)))
Happy new year! 😀