The Grand Tarabya Managed by Accor

We recommend the Grand Tarabya to travellers seeking a palace set back, away from the crowds of Sultanahmet, with pool and spa to alternate visits and rest. It is an address for couples in their thirties and older, families with children (family rooms, supervised pools), executives on long stays (business centre, stable Wi-Fi). Urban nightlife enthusiasts will be disappointed: Tarabya is quiet after 22h, one must take the car or taxi again to reach Beyoğlu.

The building dates from the 2010s, revisited Turkish neoclassical architecture, white columned façade, bow-windows over the Bosphorus. Classic Accor interiors: beige and grey marble on the floor, crystal chandeliers in the lobby, cream lacquered woodwork, stylised Ottoman-pattern carpets. The rooms measure 38 to 65 m², ceiling height of 2,80 m, wrought-iron balconies, marble bathrooms with separate bath and shower. The scale remains human, 103 rooms in total, no vertical tower.

The main restaurant serves Turkish and Mediterranean cuisine, buffet at breakfast (menemen, local cheeses, pastries, fresh fruit), à la carte in the evening with grilled Bosphorus fish, mezze, revisited kebabs. The lobby bar offers classic cocktails and Turkish wines, open until midnight. Room service operates 24h/24, simplified menu after 23h. No signature chef, correct Accor palace cuisine without gastronomic ambition, we preferred to dine out in Bebek or Arnavutköy, ten minutes by taxi.

Tarabya lies on the European shore of the Bosphorus, twenty kilometres north of Taksim, a well-to-do residential district with embassies, Ottoman villas, waterside fish restaurants. The Grand Tarabya gives directly onto the strait, pedestrian promenade in front of the hotel, small cafés and ice-cream parlours five minutes on foot. No metro, one must rely on the car: thirty minutes to Taksim outside peak hours, forty-five to Istanbul Airport, one hour to Sultanahmet. The district is calm, family-oriented, popular with Istanbulites at weekends for fish lunches, very few foreign tourists.