Insider Trading: Gate Tattoo

I have two tattoos. One on my back of a weird heart-shaped, bat-thing that I got in Thailand when I was 21 and one on my chest which I had done here in Istanbul last year. I spent nearly five years trying to find something to get tattooed onto my body until, with my wife’s guidance and approval (and permission), I found a design I liked and set out onto the mean streets of Istanbul to find a tattoo parlor.

A spot of mild googling led me to a few places in Kadıköy and, along with some friends who wanted tattoos, one rainy Saturday we crossed the water and went exploring. The funny thing with tattoo parlors is that even though tattoos are a socially accepted practice or at least a more prevalent one, there is still something very intimidating about a tattoo parlor. Usually, they have blacked out windows, or you need to climb up five floors to get to them, or you have to ring a buzzer and be allowed to enter. No matter how many I went into I always expecting the place to be full of bikers and thugs, getting inked and wondering what a pipsqueak like myself was doing interrupting them.

Unfortunately, Kadıköy was a bust. A few places were closed, a few others looked too scary (don’t judge) and one place we went into was great but full of cats and, as much as I wanted some kind of blood-based cat disease, we decided to give it a miss.

A couple of weeks later, I found myself going down my favorite street in Istanbul, Yeni Çarşı in Taksim, and passed by Gate Tattoo. The thing which gripped me with Gate Tattoo is that the front of the place is made of big, clear windows, allowing passers-by to look inside and see the clean, non-threatening interior. The next weekend I went in with my design and got a reasonable quote (400 TL for a tattoo that I had been quoted 650 for in Bebek). While they turned my printout into a stencil, I ventured down the street to Kronotrop for a nerve-settling flat white, before returning to have the stencil transferred to my skin and for the work to begin.

The tattoo artists speak English and are super talented and very friendly. There is a great atmosphere in the parlor with lots of people coming in and out. Great for people watching while you’re waiting for someone to be tattooed or you need a distraction for when the needle gets too close to your nipple. I’ve sent quite a few people to Gate for tattoos and each one has come away with fantastic, reasonably priced work. There are a lot of tattoo parlors in the city but, for my money, Gate is the top of the pack.

This post was originally published in February of 2014. It was updated for relevance on December of 2018. Gate Tattoo is now located at Tomtom Mahallesi, Tosbağa Sk. 14/A, 34433 Beyoğlu/İstanbul.