The Süreyya Opera House is the cultural anchor of Kadıköy, an elegant theatre opened in 1927 on the Bahariye (General Asım Gündüz) shopping street. Commissioned by the politician Süreyya İlmen and modelled on the grand European opera houses he admired in Paris and Germany, its façade and foyer are richly decorated, a surprising flourish of high culture on the Asian side.
For decades it served mainly as a cinema; after a careful restoration it reopened in 2007 as the Asian side's first opera and ballet house, home to performances by the state opera and ballet. Even if you are not catching a show, it is worth walking down pedestrianised Bahariye to admire the building, which marks the lively, café-and-shop-lined heart of central Kadıköy.