Moretenders' Cocktail Crib trades breadth for depth. This Asmalımescit speakeasy keeps the cocktail list short and the ingredients expensive, then pairs the drinks with sushi and loud live music in a room that feels like a friend's very well-stocked basement.
The address is Müeyyet Sokak No:5 in Asmalımescit, the dense bar quarter just off İstiklal Caddesi in Beyoğlu, a few minutes from the Tünel end of the avenue. The bar is the reincarnation of a Beyoğlu fixture once known as 5 Cocktails & More, relaunched as Moretenders with a promise to be cosier and cooler than before. Elite Traveler frames the appeal plainly: the cocktail list is not the biggest, but what it lacks in variety it makes up for in quality, with mixologists using high-end ingredients as standard.
The room leans into the speakeasy idea without overplaying it. It is snug and low-lit, built for a seat at the bar rather than a big table, and the live music can run loud enough to turn a quiet drink into a late one. That intimacy is the point and the limitation in equal measure.
Order off the short list and trust the bartender's read. With a small, high-end menu the move is to name a spirit or a flavour and let them build to it, then add a few pieces of sushi rather than treating the kitchen as an afterthought. Prices sit at the upper $$$ end for Beyoğlu, which tracks with the ingredient quality and the small-batch approach. This is a bar to savour two well-made drinks, not to rack up a long, cheap round.
The crowd is a Beyoğlu mix of regulars and night owls, and the bar keeps genuinely late hours, opening at 5pm and running to around 4am. Early evening is calm and conversational; after midnight the music takes over and the room fills, which is when the speakeasy energy is at its best.
Moretenders is for a cocktail-led night that does not want to compromise on quality, for a small group happy to perch at the bar, and for anyone who likes sushi with their Negroni. It is the wrong call for a large party or a quiet seated nightcap once the music starts. To round out the area, warm up with house-made drinks at Flekk in Tomtom, or drop down to the late floor at Gizli Bahçe on Nevizade. 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 makes the Crib worth a detour is its refusal to pad the menu. In a quarter where many bars compete on volume and a hundred-line drinks list, Moretenders bets that a tight selection made with serious ingredients reads as confidence, and on the glass it usually does. The sushi-and-cocktails pairing is unusual for Asmalımescit and gives the place a reason to exist beyond the strip's wall-to-wall meyhanes. The honest caveats are size and sound: the room is small, the music can be loud, and on a busy weekend a walk-in may wait, so a message ahead through the bar's Instagram is the safer move.
Best time to go is a weeknight from around 9pm, when you can take a bar seat, talk to the mixologist and order before the music peaks. Save the weekend for when you want the room loud and full, and go early if you want a guaranteed perch.
