Frankie sits eight floors up, on the roof of the Sofa Hotel in Nişantaşı, and it has been Istanbul's answer to a New York supper club since long before the city's rooftop race began.
The address is Teşvikiye Caddesi 41-41/A, a five-minute walk from Osmanbey station on the M2 metro, in the heart of the fashion district on the European side. The name is a tribute to Frank Sinatra, and Cornucopia's Istanbul guide reads the room exactly right when it describes "an almost old-fashioned air of a crooned rendition of New York." This is a restaurant, a bar and a terrace stitched into one rooftop, and the bar half is the reason to climb the stairs.
The terrace is the move. Wide sofas, low tables and a view across the rooftops of Şişli give the cocktail list room to breathe, and the smoking lounge keeps the crowd circulating late. Live music runs Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10pm, a programme the venue has long tied to the Turkish singer Sezen Aksu, which lifts the midweek energy well above the usual hotel-bar hum.
Order a cocktail and treat the kitchen as the supporting act, though it is a strong one. Head chef Symeon Triantafyllou fuses Turkish flavours with Mediterranean technique, and the braised veal cheek is the signature plate if you stay for dinner. Prices sit at the premium end for Istanbul, a clear $$$ where the address, the view and the service are folded into the bill. This is not the room for a quick cheap round.
The crowd is pure Nişantaşı: dressed, moneyed and there to be seen, thinning earlier on weeknights and filling the terrace on Friday and Saturday. Frankie opens daily at noon and runs to 2am, so an early evening drink before the dinner rush is the quiet window, while the post-10pm music nights are when the place is at full tilt.
Frankie is for a date that needs altitude and a soundtrack, for a dressed-up dinner-then-drinks evening, and for anyone who wants the Sinatra fantasy played straight rather than ironically. It is the wrong call for a budget night or a casual drop-in. To build a fuller Nişantaşı evening around it, pair it with a sharper cocktail list at Alexandra Cocktail Bar along the Bosphorus, or cross town later to the music room at Arkaoda. For the wider map, see our guide to the best cocktail bars in Istanbul, the city's full bar guide, and our editorial round-up of the best bars in Istanbul.
What keeps Frankie relevant after more than a decade is its refusal to chase trends. While newer rooftops trade on neon and a single hero view, Frankie leans on a coherent idea, the crooner-era bar, and executes it with a kitchen and a music booking that most hotel terraces cannot match. The cocktails are classic-leaning rather than experimental, which suits the room; this is a place to order a well-built Negroni or a Martini and let the terrace do the rest. The trade-off is price and a certain polish that can tip toward formal on a quiet night, but on a warm evening with the music up, few Istanbul rooftops feel this assured.
Best time to go is a midweek evening from around 9pm, when the terrace is full but not crushed and the live set is about to start. Save Sunday for a slower drink at sunset, and book ahead on weekends because the good terrace seats go first.
