The bar that arguably started Paris's cocktail revolution back in 2007, when three friends turned an empty storefront on rue Saint-Sauveur into a speakeasy-style hideaway — at a time when cocktail bars basically didn't exist in the city. You walk through a discreet unmarked door into a tiny, dimly lit room with exposed stone walls and a low-ceiling cellar vibe, and the bartenders take their craft seriously without the attitude you might expect. It's small, it gets packed, and that's part of the charm.
The original 2007 speakeasy that sparked Paris's cocktail revolution — tiny stone-walled hideaway on rue Saint-Sauveur with creative drinks and zero attitude.
Go before 9 PM on a weeknight if you want a seat — the space is tiny and fills up fast, especially on weekends when it's standing room only.
The bar that taught Paris to love cocktails
When Experimental Cocktail Club opened on rue Saint-Sauveur in 2007, Paris barely had a cocktail culture to speak of. This is the bar that changed that — three friends who saw an empty storefront and turned it into the kind of underground hideaway you'd expect to find in New York or London, not the 2nd arrondissement. The entrance is deliberately discreet, a plain door you could walk past a hundred times without noticing, and inside it's a tight, low-ceiled space with exposed stone walls that feels like a prohibition-era cellar. That intimacy is the whole point — it's small, it gets crowded, and somehow that's exactly the atmosphere people come for.
The cocktails are the real draw. The menu leans creative without being pretentious, and the bartenders know what they're doing — quality ingredients, balanced combinations, and prices that remain surprisingly accessible for what you're getting. Try the Experience 1, their signature creation, or let the bartender guide you. They also run regular DJ nights, which adds to the energy when the room fills up.
Here's the thing though: it's genuinely tiny, and by 10 or 11 PM on a weekend you'll be shoulder to shoulder with everyone else who had the same idea. Go early on a weeknight if you actually want to sit and savor your drink, or embrace the crowd and treat it as a standing-room party. Either way, it's a piece of Paris cocktail history that still holds up.