Cocktail Bars in Paris
Paris hides many of its cocktail bars behind other places. You reach Danico through Daroco, the Italian restaurant in front, and Candelaria through a white door at the back of a Marais taqueria. Experimental Cocktail Club opened on Rue Saint-Sauveur in 2007, inspired by the cocktail bars of New York and London. Bar Nouveau, opened in the Marais in 2023 by Rémy Savage and partners, serves a six-cocktail tasting menu downstairs on weekends. De Vie, opened by Little Red Door alumni in 2025, won Best New International Cocktail Bar at the 2026 Spirited Awards. At the Ritz, Anne-Sophie Prestail has led Bar Hemingway since 2023. Danico takes no reservations. These are the fifteen we would start with.
★ TOP 1050 BESTCocktail BarBar Nouveau
Co-founded by twins Sara and Hadrien Moudoulaud alongside Marc Puzzuoli and Rémy Savage, the 2022 World's Best Mixologist, Bar Nouveau distils its program to six cocktails and executes every one with the focus that a limited menu demands. The Art Nouveau setting on Rue des Haudriettes frames modern interpretations of classic and lesser-known French bistro drinks. At No. 15 on The 50 Best Bars 2026 (No. 17 in 2025), this Marais bar proves that constraint can be a creative accelerant. Savage's involvement bridges his work across three Paris venues into a coherent philosophy of quality through reduction. It was a Top 4 finalist for Best New International Cocktail Bar at the 2024 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards. The bar holds No. 5 on Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026.
5 Rue des Haudriettes, 75003 ParisMon-Fri 16:00-01:00, Sat 13:00-01:00, Sun closedFull profile
★ TOP 1050 BESTCocktail BarDe Vie
Alex Francis and Barney O'Kane, both Little Red Door alumni, opened this Montorgueil bar-and-counter-restaurant in March 2025 on strict seasonality and locality: everything from independent French growers and distillers, no commercial ice machines (drinks are pre-batched and held at precise temperatures), kitchen waste upcycled into fruit wines and aperitifs. The core offer is a five-step seasonal drinks tasting. No.34 in Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026 with the Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award, and winner of Best New International Cocktail Bar at the 2026 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards.
22-24 Rue Saint-Sauveur, 75002 ParisWed-Mon 18:00-01:00 (closed Tue)Full profile
★ TOP 1050 BESTCocktail BarDanico
Bar Director Nico de Soto has operated from the former Jean Paul Gaultier flagship on Rue Vivienne for long enough that Danico now functions as an institution of Paris's modern cocktail era. Ranked No. 26 on The 50 Best Bars 2026 (No. 30 in 2025), the program carries the confidence of a venue that helped establish the city's reputation and continues to shape it. Head Bartender Corentin Gaudin runs daily service with a team that balances de Soto's creative vision with the consistency that regulars demand. Danico is the bar that made the 2nd arrondissement a cocktail destination. It won Best International Restaurant Bar at the 2024 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards. It currently stands at No. 19 on Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026.
6 rue Vivienne, 75002 ParisDaily 17:00-02:00Full profile
★ TOP 1050 BESTCocktail BarLittle Red Door
The Rue Charlot pioneer that helped launch Paris's cocktail renaissance reopened in July 2024 under new ownership by Hugo Gallou and Hyacinthe Lescoët, with Oliver Eardley, formerly of The Savoy, London, installed as head bartender. The transition marked one of the year's most closely watched bar stories, and the early program signals ambition: technically precise, narratively driven, and built on the kind of hospitality intelligence that Eardley honed in London's most demanding rooms. Little Red Door's second act may surpass the first.
60 rue Charlot, 75003 ParisMon-Thu, Sun 18:00-02:00, Fri-Sat 18:00-03:00Full profile- Le Syndicat★ TOP 1050 BESTCocktail Bar
Le Syndicat
The Organization for the Defence of French Spirits works exclusively with French-produced alcohol, no exceptions, no compromises. Robin Davalo took over direction in November 2022, with Rémy Savage serving as associate director, and the Faubourg Saint-Denis bar continues to prove that France's distillation heritage provides sufficient depth for a complete cocktail program. Calvados, armagnac, cognac, pastis, and domestic gin replace the usual international suspects. Le Syndicat turns a nationalist constraint into creative liberation.
51 rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, 75010 ParisDaily 18:00-02:00Full profile 
★ TOP 10Cocktail BarLes Ambassadeurs
Head Bartender Arnaud Volte and Bar Director Kevin Rigault deliver the 2025 menu, titled A Sense of Memories, from a room overlooking Place de la Concorde that drips with Parisian grandeur. The program layers seasonal French ingredients with techniques that honor the Crillon's heritage while pushing into contemporary territory. Live music fills the space nightly, and the terrace beneath the arcades provides one of the city's most elegant outdoor drinking positions. Les Ambassadeurs earns its place through setting, service, and ambition in equal measure.
10 place de la Concorde, Paris, 75008Daily 17:00-01:00Full profile- Bar Hemingway★ TOP 1050 BESTCocktail Bar
Bar Hemingway
Twenty-five seats, unchanged decor, and a Dry Martini recipe that has survived every trend the cocktail industry has produced since Ernest Hemingway drank here with F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 1920s. The Ritz's jewel-box bar delivers tailor-made cocktails with a formality that reads as genuine rather than performative, ladies' drinks arrive with a rose, and the bartender remembers your order from your last visit. Bar Hemingway does not compete with modern cocktail bars. It occupies a category they cannot enter.
15 Place Vendôme, Paris 75001Daily 17:00-00:00Full profile 
★ TOP 10SpeakeasyExperimental Cocktail Club
The bar that ignited Paris's speakeasy movement in 2007 still operates without reservations from a Rue Saint-Sauveur basement that looks unchanged from opening night. Part of Experimental, the group that now spans hotels and restaurants across Europe, ECC retains the energy of a founder-led independent: gin-forward, tequila-curious, and resolutely nocturnal. The venue's influence on Paris drinking culture cannot be overstated, every craft cocktail bar in the city traces a line of descent back to this room.
37 rue Saint-Sauveur, 75002 ParisMon-Thu 19:00-02:00, Fri-Sat 19:00-04:00, Sun 20:00-02:00Full profile- Combat★ TOP 10Cocktail Bar
Combat
Margot Lecarpentier, a former lawyer who retrained as a bartender in New York, runs this Belleville venue with a sustainability focus and a cocktail program that now extends into her role as head mixologist for the Alain Ducasse Group. The Minto Martini, built with gin, sake, pear, dry vermouth, and peppermint, captures a style that balances botanical complexity with approachable construction. Exposed brick, bright yellow tiling, and foliage ceiling give the room an energy that Lecarpentier's expanding influence across Paris gastronomy only amplifies.
63 rue de Belleville, 75019 ParisSun-Wed 18:00-00:00, Thu 18:00-01:00, Fri-Sat 18:00-02:00Full profile 
EUROPE'S 50 BESTCocktail BarHarry's New York Bar
Born 26 November 1911, when a Manhattan bar's interior was dismantled and shipped to 'Sank Roo Doe Noo', the phonetic address that let Anglophones direct any taxi to 5 rue Daunou. Run by the MacElhone family for four generations (today Franz-Arthur, Harry's great-grandson), it claims the invention of the Bloody Mary, White Lady, Sidecar, French 75 and Blue Lagoon, keeps 400+ cocktails in the repertoire, and hosts nightly piano from 10pm in the room where Gershwin composed An American in Paris. It currently stands at No. 27 on Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026.
5 Rue Daunou, 75002 Paris, FranceMon-Sat 12:00-02:00, Sun 17:00-01:00Full profile
50 BESTCocktail BarCandelaria
The Marais classic that hides one of Paris's defining cocktail bars behind the back door of a bright, all-white taqueria. Push through and the room turns dark and agave-obsessed, mezcal, tequila and the signature La Guêpe Verte (jalapeño, cucumber, agave nectar), with shredded-pork tacos up front. Open daily.
52 Rue de Saintonge, 75003 ParisOpen dailyFull profile- Fréquence50 BESTCocktail Bar
Fréquence
A cocktail bar in the 11th arrondissement built around vinyl records, with the back bar given over to a record collection rather than bottles. It was founded by Matthieu Biron and Guillaume Quenza. Drinks are made with classical technique, hand-carved ice and house infusions, and floor-to-ceiling windows open onto the street in warm weather.
20 Rue Keller, 75011Mon-Sat eveningsFull profile 
PINNACLECocktail BarBar 1802
The rum sanctuary of the Alexandre Dumas-themed Hôtel Monte Cristo in the 5th, dozens of rums open for tasting, including 49 exclusive house cuvées selected yearly since 2018, with structured tasting flights, masterclasses and an on-site rum boutique. The new 'MATIERES' cocktail menu offers twelve original creations at a flat €17, six months in development.
Order thisOld FashionedFlor de Caña 12, Mhoba High Ester, cacao bitters, coconut sugar20-22 rue Pascal, 75005 ParisDaily 15:00-01:00 (cocktails from 16:00)Full profile
PINNACLECocktail BarLe Mary Celeste
The Marais 'bar à manger' with the circular bar at its center, oysters, natural wine and cocktails in a nautical room of white-washed wood and pastel blues, its bay windows thrown open in summer. Creative shareable cooking rounds out serves like the Invisible Gin (apricot eau de vie, pineapple, ginger). Open every day. It was a Top 4 finalist for Best International Restaurant Bar at the 2025 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards.
1 rue Commines, 75003 ParisOpen dailyFull profile
Cocktail BarMesures
Mesures is a cocktail and music bar in the Haut Marais modeled on the Japanese jazz kissa, the listening bars where the record collection and the sound system matter as much as the drinks. It was co-founded on Rue de Saintonge by bartender Guillaume Castaignet, formerly of Castor Club, Hôtel Particulier and Classique Café, and David Asseraf, in a room of dark wood, worn metal and a marble counter, with records played on an all-analogue hi-fi. Castaignet builds each drink on three complementary ingredients, with sake at the center of much of the list, alongside some twenty sakes by the glass, carafe or bottle. Le Fooding counts it among the best cocktail bars in Paris.
58 Rue de Saintonge, 75003 ParisMon-Wed 18:00-01:00; Thu-Fri 18:00-02:00; Sat 17:00-02:00; Sun 18:00-01:00Full profile
More of Paris
These are the cocktail bars specifically. The full Paris guide ranks the best bars of every style, and the directory lists all 33 with a map and filters.
