Paris has moved well beyond being simply a city of grand hotels and impeccably executed classics. Its contemporary bar scene is thriving, with ambitious new openings and established spots continuing to raise the bar, shaping a vision of mixology that stands comfortably alongside the world’s great capitals.
Technique, culinary culture, sustainability and design now converge in cocktail lists of real substance, where drinks become a liquid language capable of capturing the city’s elegant, cerebral character, often with a sly sense of humour. From pubs inspired by British drinking culture to Left Bank palaces, hidden speakeasies and Italian restaurants that double as gateways to carefully constructed drinking worlds, Paris continues to redefine its relationship with contemporary cocktail culture.
The Cambridge Public House, a British Pub in Paris
The Cambridge Public House captures that shift well. In the Marais, Hugo Gallou and Hyacinthe Lescoët have taken the idea of the British pub and filtered it through Parisian sensibility and the precision of a modern cocktail bar. By day, the atmosphere remains relaxed, almost domestic; by night, the energy shifts while preserving a distinct sense of spontaneity. The drinks list evolves constantly, alternating between reworked British classics and more experimental creations, some built around the recovery of unused ingredients. Sustainability here is structural rather than decorative, from the bar’s B Corp status to Shaken Leaf, the platform dedicated to hospitality education and sustainable practices.
Little Red Door and Liquid Agriculture
If Cambridge is built around informal hospitality, Little Red Door remains the city’s conceptual laboratory. The longstanding Marais address, now in the hands of the same ownership duo, has created Agri/Culture, a menu that uses the cocktail as a storytelling device to explore contemporary agricultural methods and the people behind them. Production techniques are translated into aromatic structures: aquaponics, agroforestry and regenerative agriculture become drinks developed through collaborations with French producers.
CopperBay Lancaster in Paris Celebrates the Hotel’s 100 Years
CopperBay Lancaster, by contrast, uses memory as narrative material. Inside Hôtel Lancaster, just steps from the Champs-Élysées, the latest menu marks the hotel’s centenary through ten cocktails dedicated to the figures who shaped its history. Marlene Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, artists, directors and members of staff become the starting point for liquid reinterpretations that move between the Old Fashioned, Bellini, Martini and New York Sour. Any risk of nostalgia is kept firmly in check by a contemporary approach, resulting in elegant storytelling entirely consistent with a hotel that has long cultivated its cinematic aura.
Bar Joséphine, Between Comics and Cocktails
At Bar Joséphine, inside Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, mixology meets the language of comic art in a refined setting where frescoed walls frame a bar of unmistakable sophistication. The menu, created by Angelo Forte, takes the form of an original graphic novel illustrated by Serge Clerc, built around the fictional theft of the bar’s secret recipe book. Forte brings his Italian sensibility into combinations featuring vermouth, basil, capers and peschiole, maintaining a careful balance between technique and narrative.
Danico and the French Story in Paris
Hidden behind Daroco, beyond a velvet curtain, Danico remains one of the city’s most sophisticated drinking destinations. Nico de Soto closes his Xplorer menu cycle with a tribute to France, transforming the country into a liquid map of regions, flavours and cultural references. From nods to Tarte Tatin to echoes of Réunion, with cocktails inspired by Café de Flore, Paris-Brest and even Ratatouille, the menu moves through gastronomy and pop culture with remarkable technical precision. Clarifications, distillations and more intricate constructions are integral to the project, yet never interfere with the simple pleasure of drinking.
Daroco and the Sociable Spirit of Contemporary Paris
Finally, Daroco demonstrates how increasingly fluid the boundary between restaurant and cocktail destination has become in Paris. Housed in Jean-Paul Gaultier’s former flagship near the Bourse, this expansive Italian address pairs theatrical design with pizza, urban conviviality and a beverage programme with real substance. If Danico represents the more technical and intimate side of the same ecosystem, Daroco offers its more social counterpart. It is the kind of place that captures contemporary Paris well: less rigid, more international, and entirely comfortable treating the cocktail as part of the city’s natural rhythm.
The article first appeared on Coqtail – for fine drinkers. Order your copy here
