Moda is the tree-shaded residential quarter south of Kadıköy's market district, its streets lined with late Ottoman apartment buildings and its parks filled on weekends with Istanbullus escaping the density of the city. The neighbourhood has a distinctly bohemian character — bookshops, independent cafes, vintage clothing shops, and a population of students and academics from the nearby Marmara University.
The Moda headland juts into the Bosphorus at the southern end of the neighbourhood, with a small promenade and the Moda Çay Bahçesi, a tea garden with views across the water to the Princes' Islands. It is one of the more pleasant places in Istanbul to spend an afternoon doing very little.