Asmalımescit takes its name from a small mosque once wrapped in grapevines, and the name still fits: rakı, the drink these lanes run on, is distilled from grapes. These two alley clusters off İstiklal, a short stroll apart, form the surviving core of Istanbul's meyhane tradition, the tavern culture that grew out of the mixed Greek, Armenian, and Levantine quarters of old Pera. Nevizade runs behind the Galatasaray fish market and borrows its name from an Ottoman poet; Asmalımescit, down by Tünel, spent much of the twentieth century as a haunt of writers and painters before nightlife took over.
Come at dusk and the lanes tighten with tables, cats threading between chairs while waiters balance trays of meze. Rakı arrives clear, then clouds to milky white as water is poured in — locals call it aslan sütü, lion's milk — and is sipped slowly, never gulped, across a whole evening. Roaming musicians pause to play fasıl, the old classical repertoire, and glasses rise to cries of şerefe. Fashions have come and gone, and the city has shuffled the tables more than once, but the pull of a long table and an unhurried drink endures.