The 5 Rooftop Bar You Can’t Miss in Toulouse
Toulouse is built low and built in brick, which is exactly why its rooftops matter more here than in a city
of glass towers: get one floor above the terracotta and the whole Ville Rose turns the colour its nickname
promises, particularly in the last hour before dark. We went through every venue in central Toulouse that
surfaces under a rooftop-bar search with a Google Business listing — 36 of them — and weighted each one’s
rating against how many people actually left it, because a 4.6 from two thousand reviews and a 4.1 from nearly
eight thousand are not making the same claim. Five came out ahead, and they are not all the same animal: two
are genuine rooftops in the strict sense, one is a hotel whose roof is the reason it is on this list at all,
and two are ground-level pubs with serious outdoor terraces that Toulouse’s own search habits keep filing
under the same heading. All five sit inside a 2 km circle, which makes this a walkable evening rather than a
cross-town expedition.
Ma Biche sur Le Toit, Galeries Lafayette
Start with the one that means the word literally: Ma Biche sur Le Toit — “my
darling on the roof” — sits on the sixth floor of the Galeries Lafayette on Rue du Lieutenant Colonel
Pélissier, and calls itself, without much modesty, the iconic rooftop of Toulouse. The claim is at least
defensible on numbers: 7,689 Google reviews is more than double any other name here, the largest audience on
this list by a distance. The rating that audience gives it is 4.1★, the lowest of the five, and the gap
between those two figures is the honest summary of the place — it is the rooftop everyone in Toulouse has
been to, which is not the same as the one everyone loved. What it genuinely has is the panoramic view over
the whole pink city, and a day that runs uninterrupted from breakfast through lunch and tea-time into
cocktails, at which point the restaurant turns over into Ma Biche Club for the night. Open 10:00 AM to
2:00 AM Monday to Friday, until 3:00 AM on Saturday, and closed all day Sunday — the one closure on this
list, and worth checking before a Sunday sunset plan.
MAMA RESTAURANT TOULOUSE, Boulevard Lazare Carnot
The highest-rated name on this list, tied with Bota Pub at 4.6★ from 2,147 reviews, and the one with
the most specific culinary identity: Mama Restaurant is Mama Shelter’s first
Argentine grill in the southwest, which in practice means the parrilla sitting alongside Toulouse sausage and
the region’s own southwest cooking rather than replacing it. The wine list leans organic and biodynamic, the
cocktails are house creations with names the group clearly enjoys writing down, and the roof above it runs as
a summer beach-club — parasols, a table-football, a seasonal pizzeria, no reservation needed, open daily
from 5:00 PM until mid-October. That seasonality is the thing to plan around: the restaurant runs year-round
on a split service, 12:00 to 3:00 PM and 7:00 PM to midnight every day (12:30 to 4:30 PM on Sunday), but the
rooftop above it is a summer proposition, not a winter one.
Mama Shelter Toulouse, Boulevard Lazare Carnot
The address above and this one are eleven metres apart, and that is not a duplicate listing — it is the
hotel that the restaurant lives inside, carrying its own Google profile, its own 4.3★ from 5,245
reviews, and a claim on this list that rests entirely on its roof. Mama Shelter
occupies a building that was a theatre and then a cinema, known as Les Nouveautés, and rather than paper over
that history it kept a working 45-seat cinema inside the hotel. Thierry Gaugain did the rooms; there are
karaoke rooms, meeting spaces, and the panoramic terrace on top, and the brand’s own line for arriving here
is “Mama s’est invitée dans la Ville rose” — Mama has invited herself to the Pink City, which tells
you the register before you walk in. If you are choosing between the two Lazare Carnot entries, the practical
difference is simple: book the restaurant to eat, walk up to the roof to drink.
The Black Lion, Palais de Justice
Not a rooftop, and honest about it — but 4,579 reviews at 4.4★ put The Black
Lion ahead of most things in Toulouse that are, and the covered, heated terrace on Allées Paul Feuga is
the reason it earns a place in an outdoor-drinking guide to a city where the shoulder seasons are long. It is
an English pub run as a French one: two rooms, darts and a proper bar counter on one side, a brasserie feel on
the other, dark wood and low light throughout, and a kitchen that puts fish and chips next to Occitanie
entrecôte and magret de canard without apologising for either. Sunday quizzes and blind tests, sports on the
screens, DJs and live music at weekends, and Happy Hour every day 6:30 to 8:00 PM. Its own summary of itself
is “on ne se prend pas la tête” — nobody here is overthinking it. Open 9:00 AM to 1:30 AM on
weekdays, 10:00 AM to 2:30 AM Saturday, and from 4:00 PM on Sunday, a few steps from the Palais de Justice
metro.
Bota Pub, Compans-Caffarelli
The newest and the greenest, in both senses. Bota Pub opened in 2020 on
Boulevard Maréchal Leclerc with eco-responsibility written into the build and a botanical interior that is
the whole point of the name — plants over every level, which regulars describe as a wooded, fairytale room
rather than a pub with a few pots in it. It pours locally brewed Bibiche beers (blonde, IPA and white)
alongside its own cocktails and mocktails, and the kitchen runs seasonal and homemade: tapas, charcuterie
boards, Korean-style chicken, nachos, vegetarian options. Rugby and football on the screens, DJ nights, themed
evenings, and a floor you can privatise for a group. It shares the top rating on this list — 4.6★ from
3,034 reviews — and it is the one real outlier geographically, a bit over a kilometre northwest of the
Galeries Lafayette in Compans-Caffarelli. Google lists it as open 8:30 AM to 1:30 AM on weekdays, from noon
at weekends, closing 2:30 AM on Saturday.
All five, on the map
The interactive map has all 36 qualifying venues we found across central
Toulouse, these five marked and numbered, and a button that hands the walking route between them straight to
Google Maps on your phone. It is worth looking at the map before planning the order: the two Lazare Carnot
entries are the same front door, Ma Biche is a 300 m walk from them, and only Bota Pub asks for a real
detour.
Getting the most out of a rooftop evening in Toulouse
The whole set fits in a 2 km circle, so this is a walking evening rather than a transit one — but the
timing matters more than the distance, because the brick only does its trick in the last hour of light and
the rooftops are the first thing to fill up when it does. If you are visiting rather than living here, a local
eSIM from Airalo means maps and last-minute table bookings work from the
moment you land, and a booked transfer from Welcome Pickups takes the
guesswork out of Toulouse-Blagnac into the centre. Rounds add up across a night in euros, and a
Wise card removes the foreign-transaction fee from every one of them — a
N26 account is the alternative worth comparing if you are staying long enough
to want a French IBAN rather than just a travel card. If the evening is one stop on a longer Toulouse
itinerary, Tiqets covers skip-the-line entry for the Cité de l’Espace and
the city’s museums in the daytime around it. And a handful of lessons on
Preply goes further here than in most French cities: outside the hotel bars,
service in Toulouse runs in French first, and knowing how to hold a bar conversation changes the evening more
than any reservation does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is the best rooftop bar in Toulouse?
For an actual rooftop with a panoramic view, Ma Biche sur Le Toit on the sixth floor of the Galeries
Lafayette is the one the city itself treats as the reference point — 7,689 reviews, far more than anything
else here, though at 4.1★ it is also the lowest-rated of the five. Mama Shelter’s roof is the quieter
alternative at 4.3★ from 5,245 reviews, and its restaurant downstairs scores highest of all at
4.6★.
Are all five of these actually on a roof?
No, and it is worth knowing before you go. Ma Biche sur Le Toit and Mama Shelter have genuine rooftop
terraces. Mama Restaurant sits beneath the Mama Shelter roof in the same building. The Black Lion and Bota Pub
are ground-level venues with substantial outdoor and terrace space that Toulouse searches file under the same
heading — both are excellent, neither has a view.
Do the rooftops stay open in winter?
The venues do; the roofs largely do not. Mama Shelter’s rooftop beach-club and seasonal pizzeria run daily
from 5:00 PM only until around mid-October, while the restaurant beneath it stays open year-round. The Black
Lion’s terrace is covered and heated, which makes it the most reliable outdoor option here once the weather
turns.
Do I need to book?
For the rooftops themselves, generally not — Mama Shelter states plainly that its roof takes no
reservations. For dinner at Mama Restaurant or Ma Biche, and for any group of ten or more at Bota Pub, book
ahead. Ma Biche is closed all day Sunday, which is the single most common way to arrive at a locked door here.
How far apart are they?
Very close, by the standards of this kind of list. The two Mama listings are the same building, Ma Biche is
about 300 m from them, The Black Lion is roughly 1.3 km south near the Palais de Justice, and Bota Pub is a
little over a kilometre northwest in Compans-Caffarelli — 2.1 km between the two furthest apart, and all of
it flat.
- 1. Ma Biche sur Le Toit — Galeries Lafayette, 4-8 Rue du Lieutenant Colonel Pélissier, 6e étage, 31000 Toulouse
- 2. MAMA RESTAURANT TOULOUSE — 54 Bd Lazare Carnot, 31000 Toulouse
- 3. Mama Shelter Toulouse — 54-56 Bd Lazare Carnot, 31000 Toulouse
- 4. The Black Lion — 4 All. Paul Feuga, 31000 Toulouse
- 5. Bota Pub — 33 Bd Maréchal Leclerc, 31000 Toulouse