The 5 Cocktail Bar You Can’t Miss in Paris
Paris has a cocktail scene with an unusually long memory. The city was drinking American mixed drinks
before most American cities were, kept the habit through Prohibition when the bartenders themselves moved
across the Atlantic, and never really let it go — which is why a bar founded in 1911 and a bar built around
karaoke and 5:00 AM closing times can both call themselves cocktail bars here without either one straining
the word. We went through every cocktail bar with a Google Business listing across the central
arrondissements — 60 of them, from the Opéra district down through Châtelet, Saint-Germain and the Latin
Quarter — and weighted each one’s rating against how many people actually left it, because a 4.9 from
fourteen hundred reviews and a 4.5 from nearly three thousand are two very different claims. Five came out
clearly ahead, and between them they cover most of what a cocktail bar in this city can be: a
hundred-and-fourteen-year-old institution with its own whisky cellar, a Saint-Germain club that will hand
you the aux cord, a Châtelet bar that turns into a dance floor at ten, a Latin Quarter room that puts
“emotions” on the sign, and a small Rive Gauche cocktail bar that says almost nothing about itself and lets
the reviews do the talking.
Harry’s New York Bar, 2nd arrondissement
Start with the oldest and the most reviewed: Harry’s New York Bar, 4.5★
from 2,979 Google reviews, at 5 Rue Daunou since 26 November 1911. The origin story is literal rather than
figurative — the mahogany bar itself was dismantled from a saloon on 7th Avenue in Manhattan, shipped over
and reassembled here, with the American jockey Tod Sloan bringing in the barman Harry MacElhone to run it.
The MacElhone family is still running it, four generations later. The bar claims the invention of the Bloody
Mary, the Sidecar and the Blue Lagoon, mixed a James Bond cocktail for the 1962 film premiere, and now lists
more than 400 drinks under the motto “traditionally inventive.” Underneath it all sits what the bar calls
France’s finest whisky cellar, 350-plus references including its own bottling made with Scottish distilleries,
and downstairs a piano bar with live jazz nightly from 10:00 PM — the same piano George Gershwin is said to
have worked on while writing An American in Paris. It has also run a mock US presidential straw vote
every four years since 1924. Open daily from noon to 2:00 AM, except Sunday, when it runs 5:00 PM to 1:00 AM.
Phone 01 42 61 71 14.
Occo Club Paris, Saint-Germain-des-Prés
The highest-rated bar on this list, and by some distance: Occo Club holds
4.9★ from 1,415 reviews on Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie, a minute from Odéon. It is the one venue here that
describes itself less as a bar than as a space you take over — “your music, your atmosphere, your space,” in
its own words — with several privatisable rooms, karaoke, resident DJs and free privatisation under
conditions. Cocktails come with tapas and charcuterie boards rather than a dinner menu, which suits the
format: this is a room built for a group that arrived together and intends to stay. That intention is visible
in the hours. Tuesday through Thursday it runs 5:00 PM to 2:00 AM; on Friday and Saturday it stays open until
5:00 AM, the latest closing time on this list by three hours. Closed Sunday and Monday. Phone 09 74 64 13 03.
L’Amphi Quai de Seine, Châtelet
The busiest listing here by review count — 4.8★ from 3,217 reviews — and the one that changes
shape as the evening goes on. L’Amphi bills itself as the festive bar of Châtelet,
built for groups: a seated room with Italian food, artisanal gnocchi and pizza, that turns into a dance floor
around 10:00 PM, with a Sonos system running through the building and giant screens for football. There is a
heated terrace holding 80 to 100 people, an upstairs room for 35 to 70, an upper-floor bar for 70 to 100, and
a total capacity around 200 — which explains both the review volume and the fact that the drinks list runs to
house cocktails and organic wines alongside a daily happy hour from 3:00 to 7:00 PM. Entry is free. It sits at
23 Avenue Victoria beside the Théâtre du Châtelet, on top of the Châtelet-Les Halles interchange, so metro
lines 1, 4, 7, 11 and 14 all put you at the door. Open from 4:00 or 4:30 PM daily, to 2:00 AM Tuesday through
Saturday and 12:30 AM on Sunday and Monday. Phone 06 18 32 84 82.
Aux Émotions, Latin Quarter
Aux Émotions sits at 1 Rue Dante, a corner of the 5th arrondissement between
Maubert and the river, and leads with a tagline rather than a technique: donnez du sens à vos émotions
— give your emotions meaning — shortened on the drinks list to “cocktails, music and fucking emotions.” Past
the slogan it is a straightforward proposition done well: handcrafted classic and signature cocktails, spirits,
tapas and charcuterie, a room that describes itself as relaxed but chic, and an explicit ambition to be the
kind of neighbourhood bar where different generations end up at the same counter. Happy hour runs Tuesday to
Thursday, 5:00 to 11:00 PM, on classics, signatures and the house beer; groups of ten or more book through the
private-events page. 4.8★ from 2,439 reviews. Google currently lists it as open Tuesday and Wednesday
5:00 PM to 1:00 AM, Thursday and Friday to 2:00 AM, Saturday from 4:00 PM to 2:00 AM, and closed Sunday and
Monday — the bar’s own site advertises a Sunday afternoon session as well, so if you are planning a Sunday
around it, call 09 86 37 60 67 first.
Solera Paris, Rue Saint-Jacques
The quiet one, in every sense. Solera is a long way up Rue Saint-Jacques at
number 283, well south of the tourist stretch of the Latin Quarter, and its website is a landing page: hours,
a phone number, links to a menu and a privatisation form, and no manifesto at all. It does not explain its own
name either — a solera is the Spanish fractional-blending system used to age sherry, where a little
of the oldest barrel is drawn off and topped up from the next youngest — so whether that is a statement of
intent or simply a good word for a bar is left for you to work out at the counter. What is not ambiguous is
the reception: 4.7★ from 1,877 reviews, which is a lot of goodwill for a small bar this far off the main
axis, and the highest review count per square metre on this list. Open Tuesday and Wednesday 5:00 PM to 1:00
AM, Thursday 5:00 PM to midnight, Friday and Saturday 5:00 PM to 2:00 AM, closed Sunday and Monday. Phone
06 95 54 12 00.
All five, on the map
The interactive map has all 60 qualifying cocktail bars we found across central
Paris, these five marked and numbered, and a button that hands the walking-and-metro route between them straight
to Google Maps on your phone.
Getting the most out of a cocktail crawl in Paris
Four of these five sit inside a tight triangle — Occo to L’Amphi is 730 metres, L’Amphi to Aux Émotions
750, Aux Émotions to Solera about 1.3 kilometres uphill — so the Rive Gauche half of this list is genuinely
walkable in an evening. Harry’s is the outlier, 1.6 kilometres north across the river, and is better treated
as the first stop or a separate night than as a link in the chain. A few practicalities make the difference
between a good crawl and an expensive one. Most of these bars want a reservation for anything larger than a
pair, and several take bookings only through their own site or by phone, so a local eSIM from
Airalo earns its cost the first time you need to call ahead at 9:00 PM
rather than walk twenty minutes on spec. Two of the five run past 2:00 AM and one until 5:00, when the metro
has long stopped — book the airport leg with Welcome Pickups so at
least the arrival is settled, and budget for a taxi home rather than assuming Châtelet will still be running.
Rounds add up fast at Paris cocktail prices, and a card that does not charge a foreign transaction fee on every
one of them is the single cheapest fix available: Wise for the mid-market rate
on conversions, or Revolut if you want the spending split by night rather
than by month. And if the crawl is one evening inside a longer Paris trip,
Tiqets covers skip-the-line entry for the museums between bars — the
Louvre is a ten-minute walk from L’Amphi — so the daylight hours are not spent queueing. One last thing worth
the small effort: ordering a cocktail in French, and reading a handwritten carte that has not been
translated, changes the evening more than any app does. A few weeks of lessons on
Preply or italki before the trip is
enough to stop the bartender switching to English on the first word.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the best cocktail bar in Paris?
By rating alone, Occo Club in Saint-Germain-des-Prés leads at 4.9★ from 1,415 reviews. Weighted
against volume, L’Amphi Quai de Seine at 4.8★ from 3,217 reviews and Aux Émotions at 4.8★ from
2,439 make an equally strong case. They are not competing for the same evening, though: Occo is a
privatisable club room with karaoke and DJs, L’Amphi is a large festive bar that becomes a dance floor, and
Aux Émotions is a neighbourhood cocktail counter in the Latin Quarter.
Which of these bars is open latest?
Occo Club, by a wide margin — 5:00 AM on Friday and Saturday. Harry’s New York Bar, L’Amphi and Aux
Émotions all run to 2:00 AM on their late nights, and Solera to 2:00 AM on Friday and Saturday. Note that
Occo, Aux Émotions and Solera are all closed on Sunday and Monday in Google’s current data, so a Monday-night
plan realistically means Harry’s or L’Amphi.
Do I need to book a table?
For a couple, usually not; for a group, yes. Occo, L’Amphi and Aux Émotions all run structured group and
privatisation offers — Aux Émotions takes private bookings from ten people, L’Amphi has four separate
bookable areas up to 200 people, and Occo advertises free privatisation under conditions — which is a fair
sign that groups turning up unannounced on a Friday will struggle. Solera lists a privatisation option too.
Is Harry’s New York Bar really where the Bloody Mary was invented?
That is the bar’s own claim, alongside the Sidecar and the Blue Lagoon, and like most cocktail-origin
claims it is disputed elsewhere. What is documented rather than contested is the rest of it: the bar opened on
26 November 1911, the counter itself was shipped over from a Manhattan saloon, the MacElhone family that has
run it since the beginning is now in its fourth generation, and the straw poll on the US presidential election
has been held here every four years since 1924.
Which neighbourhood should I base a cocktail night in?
The 5th and 6th arrondissements. Three of these five — Occo, Aux Émotions and Solera — sit on the Left
Bank within about a kilometre and a half of each other, with L’Amphi just across the river at Châtelet. Only
Harry’s, up by the Opéra in the 2nd, asks you to cross town.
- 1. Harry’s New York Bar — 5 Rue Daunou, 75002 Paris
- 2. Occo Club Paris — 3 Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie, 75006 Paris
- 3. L’Amphi Quai de Seine — 23 Av. Victoria, 75001 Paris
- 4. Aux Émotions — 1 Rue Dante, 75005 Paris
- 5. Solera Paris — 283 Rue St Jacques, 75005 Paris