Where to go out in Paris
Paris is hardly short of great nights out - you’ll find a bar or brasserie of one sort or another on virtually every street. All Parisians, both residents and visitors, have their favourite bars, and it’s not hard to come by recommendations. But far more useful than a name and an address is a sense of the best places to start finding favourites of your own.
On the whole, it’s in the western half of the city where you’ll find the classiest brasseries and clubs - and the eastern half where you’ll find the smallest, trendiest bars. Read on for a brief guide through Paris’ several nightlife hotspots - then ignore my recommendations and go looking for yourself…
4th Arrondissement
The ancient district known as the Marais, centred on the 4th arrondissement, is peppered with small atmospheric restaurants and some of the capital’s best bars. Jazz clubs are something of a speciality, and you can find just a few examples around Rue des Francs Bourgeois and Rue Des Rosiers. Rue Vieille du Temple and Rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie are both safe bets for those in search of decent small bars, and the wide square around the colourful Pompidou centre is always teeming with life - but don’t stay too close to the obvious locations; the Marais rewards a little exploration.
5th Arrondissement
The 5th arrondissement is a popular student quarter - and it’s filled with cheap, fun bars as a result. Much of the drinking gets done just behind the Pantheon, where a young, noisy crowd hangs out in the streets running south of the tiny square at Place de la Contrescarpe, and there’s a literary vibe - both George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway lived near here in their youngest (and poorest) years. Late night crepes on Rue Mouffetard are a particular treat.
More central, and more touristy, is the narrow warren of streets that lead south east off the unmissable Fontaine St Michel, just across the river from Notre Dame. Centred around Rue De la Harpe and Rue de la Huchette, street after street is packed with small, mediterranean and middle eastern restaurants. There’s little of any great quality, and it’s all a little seedy, but the many bars do make for an easy night out…
8th Arrondissement
While the road is utterly undeserving of it’s fame, you can still find a good night out around the Champs Elysees - you just have to know what you’re looking for. Drink on the main drag and you’ll pay a fortune for very little, but go searching for one of the clubs hidden in the northern side streets and you’ll have a better night all together…
10th Arrondissement
The banks of the Canal St Martin boast several vibrant, popular brasseries. Stretching north from Place de la Republique, a handful of local cafes and bars cater to a young, trendy, very urban crowd. Summer nights by the canal - the bars spilling out onto the waterside - are just one of Paris’ many small pleasures.
11th Arrondissement
The 11th arrondissement, a trendy district just east of the city centre, is something of a hotspot for clubs and bars. It’s nightlife centres around two locations: the Rue de Lappe area (a warren of streets just beyond Bastille)
- and further north Rue Oberkampf.
Rue De Lappe has been a popular nightspot as far back as the twenties, when it was a much seedier hang out. Along with the two streets it joins - Rue de Charrone and Rue de la Roquette, rue de lappe comes alive at night. Very popular, and increasingly touristy, but a lot of fun and easily accessed from all parts of the city.
The Rue Oberkampf area is slightly more obscure, and somewhat less touristy place to drink - and until a few years ago it was the epitome of Paris cool. While the trendy crowds have moved on elsewhere, the Oberkampf bars (running north east from Metro Parmentier) are still a lot more sophistocated than the bright lights of Rue de Lappe - here you’ll find a young and arty crowd drinking in artfully dishevelled cafes.
12th Arrondissement
Far off the tourist track, Cour St Emillion (at the metro station of the same name) is a series of old riverside wine warehouses now converted into a short pedestrian street lined with bars and brasseries. At its head stands one of the biggest cinema complexes in Europe - it’s certainly worth trekking out on metro line 14 for a drink and a film in this very pleasantly regenerated quarter.
13th Arrondissement
The Butte aux Cailles is a small hill rising up near Place d’Italie, offering a small town atmosphere in what can be a very sterile quarter. Amidst the thirteenth’s giant tower blocks, it’s on the Butte that you’ll find the widest variety of drinking opportunities - head to the junction between Rue des Cinq-Diamants and Rue de la Butte aux Cailles and take it from there…
14th Arrondissement
Some of Paris’ best restaurants line the Boulevard de Montparnasse. Many of the anglo-american expats who settled in Paris during the twenties made this district their home, and more than a few of the brasseries claim to have been favourites of Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald and their compatriates. Le Dome, La Rotonde and La Coupole are the most famous survivors of this age, but make sure you’ve money in your pocket - this is large and fine brasseries territory, not a place for smaller, more atmospheric bars.
18th Arrondissement
Plenty of watering holes around the celebrated Montmartre area, though it’s very easy to get ripped off in this tourist-rich district.
Most obvious to visit are the many bars at the top of Montmarte’s famous hill. The small, picturesque square at its summit - Place du Tertre - and the narrow streets around are lined with brasseries of wildly varying quality. During summer months the place heaves with tourists, and service can be short (and expensive) - but head up off-season, when the place is nearly deserted, and it becomes very easy to spot some of the charm that attracted so many writer’s and artists during the quarter’s heydays in the early twentieth century.
Just off the hill’s western slopes, set back from the main tourist thoroughfare of Pigalle, lies the Abbesses quarter. North of the metro of the same name, those curious enough to wander away from the most popular montmartre spots will discover a pleasant and very down to earth residential district, with more than a few local bars - a good antidote to the hustle and bustle up the slopes.
Rowdiest of all are the bars and clubs along Pigalle, the rather scruffy northern boulevard that boasts the Moulin Rouge and countless other, seedier imitators and sex shops. The Moulin itself is a tourist trap, offering expensive packages to foreign coach parties, but there are plenty of other, better clubs - and along the boulevard’s eastern end lie the Cigalle, the Elysees Montmartre and the tiny Boule Noir, just three of Paris’ very popular gig venues.
