Paris

Au fût et à mesure

A beer-bar coming with a new concept: one beer-pump on every table. Each table have its own distinct beer in the pump, so you have to meet people to taste other beers.

17:00–02:00 daily

Bar Hemingway

Hemingway tried to drink here once per week even before he made it big. In August 1944 Hemingway made a booze-powered drive into Paris ahead of the advancing Free French 2nd Tank Division to "liberate the Ritz", and specifically the bar which was shortly thereafter renamed in his honour. Today the bar is considered by many to be one of the best bars in the world, in no small part due to the bar-tending skills of Colin Field, who creates elaborate cocktails as a fine art, and with the rest of the staff is skilled at bringing his guests together in conversation.

Expect to pay €30 or more per drink

Bataclan

Ba-ta-clan

Attend a concert or have a drink at this popular café-concert music hall inaugurated in 1865 featuring brightly painted Chinese architecture. Always attracting a young crowd, the Bataclan has regained the splendor it once enjoyed and now books many emerging hip and rock acts. The café on the ground floor is outstanding, perhaps even better than in the old days. A memorial honoring those 90 persons killed in a terrorist attack on 13 Nov 2015 is across the street in a small park.

Bateau Phare

Batofar

This little red lighthouse boat hosts dance and chill electronic music and other multimedia cultured events and has been one of the coolest spots around for some time. It was closed in or around 2018 but reopened in 2024 under a new name, "le Bateau Phare," that sounds just like the old one, "le Batofar." The dance floor is in the hold, a restaurant is above it, and the lounge on the upper deck. There is also a restaurant on the quai called "La Terrasse" that is open from May to October.

concert: 19:00–23:00, club: 23:30–06:00

Baxo

A lounge bar restaurant with a bobo environment and rich dishes. A new romantic lounge bar with a very nice patio.

Bluebird

A real gin bar but they serve many other drinks, specialty cocktails included. Bar food is available but do not come for the food. This place is about cocktails.

Open now · closes 2 am tomorrow·€3-13 bar food, €10-15 cocktails

Buddha Bar

Famous in electronic lounge music circles for having commissioned a series of lounge and down tempo records which you can get at most larger record shops in France, as well as abroad. Although you can also get them at the bar it's probably not the best way, since they charge €45 per CD. The drinks are not so over-priced, and definitely worth it for the hip, sophisticated, and chill atmosphere.

Café Oz

Café Oz Châtelet

You probably didn't think you were coming to Paris to sample Australian culture, but if after a long day of strolling from one end of the city to another you would just like to let go a bit and meet up with some fellow anglophones then you could do a lot worse than this almost legendarily hard-partying Aussie joint (ask the neighbours). Warning: as with other Aussie places in Paris for some reason, weekend nights here tend to bring out hoards of young single Frenchmen looking to chat up some (any) visiting sheilas. This has been known to lead to, um, confrontations. ~€7 pints.

Café de Flore

This café is famous as the favored coffee and smoking venue for the Surrealists during the 1920s and '30s, the Existentialists in the 1940s and '50s, and still attracts an artistic and literary crowd. Also does breakfasts and light meals.

Daily 07:30-01:30

Caféothèque de Paris

Coffee in Paris is usually found to be lacking, but not in this mini temple to coffee. A gem tucked into a backstreet by the river in le Marais roasts their own beans from around the world and has a small laid-back café area with armchairs. Staff are passionate about great coffee, not just a scaldingly hot coffee! They have some cakes and wine, and speak Spanish and English.

Daily 09:30-19:30

Chez Justine

Close to the centre of the Oberkampf nightlife zone, "Justine's place" functions as a restaurant & bar with mostly Italian food during the daytime early evening, but it's 22ː00-02ː00 which really makes the place. Most of the room is filled with big wooden plank tables which are just the thing for a lively conversation with friends, while the bar is comfy too, and attracts quite a crowd by the late evening. The decor is classic, understated, and classy.

Mon-Fri 08:00-02:00, Sat Sun 09:00-02:00·Draft beer at the bar is €5

Entre Potes

A good place to relax "among friends" as the name would suggest, thus making it a fairly representative Parisian bar, with notable cocktails.

Grenier

An excellent, but tiny dive bar with live bands upstairs in the hall some nights, but usually downstairs in the front window. This is a great place to hear Django Reinhardt-style jazz guitar playing (Jazz Manouche).

A basic beer will set you back €2

Harry's New York Bar

Legend has it that Harry's New York Bar was the birthplace of the Bloody Mary invented by Fernand "Pete" Petiot, an American bartender, and was another Hemingway hangout.

Mon-Sun, 10:30-04:00

Juvénile's

The bistro serves many different wines from around the world and tapas. You can buy a bottle to take home if you like it.

La Dame de Canton

La Guinguette Pirate

Known for years as the Guinguette Pirate, this Chinese junk has been rechristened with her maiden name. The restaurant and bookings are still the same, with equal parts world music, chanson français and concerts for kids.

daily 19:00–00:00

La Fée Verte

La Fée Verte is an absinthe bar (and café) as it was known more than 100 years ago. Although no longer produced to be hallucinogenic, absinthe is an enjoyable alcoholic drink you prepare at your table. In the traditional French way, place a sugar cube on top of a specially designed slotted spoon over a small glass of absinthe. Next a large absinthe fountain with a crystal bowl of ice water and several small spouts is shared. Each person opens a valve to their spout and slowly drips the ice water onto the sugar cube until the cube is dissolved and the drink is diluted to their liking.

Open now · closes 2 am tomorrow·€7-25

Le Perchoir

Rooftop bar on the 6th and 7th floors of an old industrial building with a view of Paris from the four corners of the terrace. Expect a wait to enter on Friday or Saturday evenings. Once on the roof, there are unfinished wood, plants and colored cushions. Winter-mode, inside are bar and informal restaurant. See and be seen. The Snack Shack serves typical bar food. A wide selection of cocktails are available. DJ Sets.

Daily 16:00-02:00·Drinks €10-15

Le Verre Volé

A part wine bar-part wine shop, an excellent address for nice, simple food & wines. You can take home a bottle you've sampled during meal if you wish!

Les Deux Magots

Another famous literary café, right next door to its great rival Café de Flore. Sartre and Hemingway were regular patrons here and the café confirms its literary connections with an annual, somewhat prestigious book prize.

Daily 07:30-01:00

Les Marcheurs de Planete

French wine bar with good prices and atmosphere and a friendly staff.

Moonshiner

Cool speakeasy bar with a secret entrance. Cross the small dining room of the pizzeria Da Vito and open the walk-in refrigerator door. You will enter into the bowels of an ancient American-style boiler room and bar. The interior welcomes brave visitors to a dim, classy and jazzy world. There you will find friendly steampunk bartenders making innovative cocktails. Try a cigar in the large Art Deco smokehouse... but shhhhh, don't tell anyone.

Open now · closes 1 am tomorrow·Cocktails €10-14

Nouveau Casino et Café Charbon

The New Casino keeps rocking until dawn both in the bar downstairs and the medium-size dance hall upstairs, making it the favourite among young Parisians, especially after the other places in the neighbourhood have closed. The dance/concert hall features cutting-edge indie rock groups and cutting-edge electronica. The prices do reflect the hipness however.

Beer €5

Queen Ann

The "salon de thé" serves soufflés and cakes. The small place has 12 tables. The hot chocolate makes the place highly addictable.

Tue-Sun 12:00-19:00·€22-25 for a brunch

The Frog & Rosbif

As you probably know the English use the word "frog" as an ethnic slur for the French. You may not know that the word "rosbif" is a French ethnic slur for the English. Well, it seems that there are mostly no hard feelings over a pint, or so the presence of this chain of 6 English pubs in the French capital would tend to suggest.

The Frog at Bercy Village

Popular English brew-pub with a French twist. Open terrace at each end. Check the beer menu for current selection of beers brewed on the premises. Interesting range of snacks and more filling dishes.

Sun–Thu 10:00–00:00; Fri Sat 10:00–02:00

Willi's Wine Bar

It's actually a restaurant and is more upscale than Juvéniles, serving good food and good-to-great bottles of wine with a focus on the Rhône Valley, but including many from Burgundy, the Loire, as well as Italians, and "Atlantic crossing" Californians. The dinner menu by chef François Yon Great won the "Bib Gourmet 2009" award, and there are cheeses & desserts (yummy crumble) for after. Reservations recommended.

€20.50-35

10 Bar International

If you're looking to be lured into a classic Parisian hole-in-the-wall by the sound of accordion music, you should spend a few hours of your evening here. An artsy den with requisite nudie collage, their sangria is just right.

A glass of wine will cost you about €3

Andy Wahloo

Andy Wahloo apparently means "I don't have anything" in Arabic. The Moroccan artist who owns this place certainly means it as a play on words having done the decor as a Moorish take on Andy Warhol.

Café Lutèce

This little bistro would be totally unremarkable if it weren't for the location, on the north bank of Ile Saint-Louis, where you can watch the colours of the sunset light play over the towers of the Hôtel de Ville as you enjoy a glass or three of beer or house wine, or maybe a cognac.