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The 100 Best Places to Drink and Do in France

The best places to drink and do in France, according to the experts: The 50, The Pinnacle Guide, and The Infatuation have all weighed in, and their honors are what rank this list. The Cambridge Public House comes out on top, and the good stuff runs deepest in Paris.

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Bar Nouveau and Danico hold the next two places. Le Fooding shows up on more of this list than any other guide, with The 50 next.

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  1. It's an English pub in the Marais that decided the pint wasn't enough, so the cocktails arrive in small etched glasses while meat pies and wood paneling keep everything honest. A stuffed animal head presides over the tables. The after-work crowd and casual gossip groups ordering half-sized drinks keep things cheerful, and it sits at #7 on Europe's 50 Best Bars, which no one seems to be discussing loudly.


  2. Rank 2. Bar Nouveau

    Art Nouveau Cocktail Bar

    Bar Nouveau is a two-level Art Nouveau cocktail bar in the Marais, tucked away from the shopping and the crowds. It's an unusually good place to be overstimulated by museums and have nobody ask you to decide anything, since the menu is short and the classics are the point. Upstairs is intimate, downstairs is a moody den, and it sits at #17 on the World's 50 Best Bars list. Go early or late if you'd like a table.


    Address
    5 Rue des Haudriettes, 75003 Paris, France · Paris
    Hours

    Closed now, opens 3 PM

    Thursday 3 PM–1 AM

    Reserve
    OpenTable
    Online
    WebsiteInstagram
  3. Rank 3. Danico

    French Cocktail Bar

    Danico is a cocktail bar tucked inside the Italian restaurant Daroco, reached through the covered Galerie Vivienne, a former Jean Paul Gaultier shop whose staff still wear the striped shirts. The menu rotates every few months and picks one country, so you might get Japan's sake and whisky. It's on the World's 50 Best Bars list, with couples, pre-opera drinkers, and out-of-towners at the bar.


    Address
    6 Rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris, France · Paris
    Hours

    Closed now, opens noon

    Thursday Noon–3 PM, 7 PM–11 PM

    Online
    WebsiteInstagram


  4. The grapes here are picked berry by berry, by hand, across multiple passes through the vines, because a whole cluster would be too imprecise for what Château d'Yquem is trying to do. A visit to this Sauternes estate means walking vineyards given over to noble rot, the peculiar fungus that concentrates the juice into something its devotees treat less like wine and more like evidence. It ranks ninth on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.


  5. Bollinger still farms two tiny plots in Aÿ that somehow escaped the phylloxera blight that wiped out most of Europe's vines, and the ultra-rare Vieilles Vignes Françaises made from them is what people make pilgrimages for. The house is pinot-dominant, aged in oak, and carries a particular richness you either find thrilling or a bit much. It placed fifteenth on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, which tracks.



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    Address
    61 Rue de la Combe, 84220 Gordes, France · Gordes
    Hours

    Closed now, opens 10 AM

    Thursday 10 AM–8 PM

    Online
    Website
  7. Rank 10. De Vie

    Cocktail Bar

    Comptoir De Vie is a cocktail bar in Montorgueil built around a twelve-seat blue-green enamel counter, where even the washable wool coasters are French and artisanal. The drinks come paired with small plates, so dinner and a nightcap quietly merge into one long, pleasantly expensive sitting. It landed at #34 on Europe's 50 Best Bars, and the people perched at the counter tend to be asking about the grass spirit.


    Address
    22-24 Rue Saint-Sauveur, 75002 Paris, France · Paris
    Hours

    Closed now, opens 6 PM

    Thursday 6 PM–1 AM

    Reserve
    SevenRooms
    Online
    WebsiteInstagram
  8. Harvesting grapes in the cool of the night gives these Provençal rosés their famously pale hue, and that kind of care runs through everything at Château de Berne. The estate spreads across nearly a thousand hectares of Var forest, with vineyards, olive groves, a vinotherapy spa, and two restaurants, one holding a Michelin star. It lands at number 43 on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, which feels about right once you've seen the place.


  9. A crescent of pale sand cupped by hills thick with maquis, Santa Giulia sits just outside Porto-Vecchio on Corsica's southern coast. The lagoon-like bay stays shallow and calm well out from shore, which makes it unusually good for swimming. Ranked among Europe's and the world's top beaches, it draws a crowd that wants both the scenery and the amenities, and the beach delivers both without apology.


  10. The cellars here run 18 metres underground through fourth-century chalk quarries beneath the ruins of a Benedictine abbey, which sets a certain tone before you've opened anything. Taittinger is one of the few grand Champagne houses still family-run and open to visitors, and the guided tour winds past WWI graffiti and riddlers hand-rotating bottles by the old method. Sommeliers lead the tasting at the end. It ranks on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.



  11. The Avenue de Champagne is essentially a two-mile flex, and Moët et Chandon's headquarters sits near the center of it. This is a cellar tour and tasting experience at one of Champagne's great old houses, where kilometers of chalk caves run beneath the estate and the bar pours cocktails, rare vintages, and snacks to go with them. A Discovery on The World's 50 Best Vineyards list.


  12. Seven generations of the same family have been tending these Côtes de Nuits vines, and the current siblings run the domaine with the quiet intensity of people who grew up hearing about soil composition at the dinner table. A visit here is a deep dive into Burgundian terroir, with grapes hand-sorted and aged in French oak the old way. The World's 50 Best Vineyards list has them at number 59.


  13. Rank 17. Apicius

    Modern French

    The bar inside this 18th-century townhouse in the 8th comes with a lawn, stone animals grazing silently outside the windows, and the ambient feeling that you've somehow left Paris entirely. That's before you've ordered anything. It's the kind of cocktail bar that arrives pre-loaded with atmosphere, tucked inside a Michelin-starred restaurant, so the drinks program has something to prove and generally acts like it knows that.


    Address
    20 rue d'Artois, Paris, Ile-de-France 75008, France · Paris
    Hours

    Closed now, opens noon

    Thursday Noon–1:30 PM

    Online
    WebsiteInstagram

  14. The spa at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc puts Dior skincare on a cliffside above the Mediterranean, which is frankly an unfair level of setting for a facial. Treatments follow the Dior Prestige line, the therapists work without hurry, and the whole operation is quieter than the famous pool just outside. Named among Vogue's 100 best spas in the world, it draws the kind of guests who've already seen everything and still seem genuinely calmed by the end.


  15. Dior's name is on the door, and the address is Avenue Montaigne, so the skincare here arrives with a certain theatrical confidence. This is a luxury hotel spa on one of Paris's most dressed-up streets, freshly renovated and built around Dior's own beauty line. Fashion Week regulars treat it as a necessary decompression chamber between shows, which tells you roughly who's on the next table and what they've been through.


  16. Tucked beneath the Place Vendôme side of the building, the Ritz's underground spa is the kind of place that makes you feel slightly guilty for sweating in it. The marble and gilded detailing carry straight through from the hotel above, which is either reassuring or surreal depending on your relationship with luxury. Vogue named it among the 100 best spas in the world, which tracks.



  17. The spa at Le Bristol runs on La Mer products, which sets the tone before anyone touches you. Tucked inside one of Paris's grande dame hotels on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, it is exactly as hushed and gilded as that address implies. The treatments lean into La Mer's signature marine formulas, and the estheticians are trained to deliver something slower and more immersive than your average hotel rubdown.




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    Address
    10 Pl. de la Concorde, 75008 Paris, France · Paris
    Hours

    Closed now, opens 9 AM

    Thursday 9 AM–9 PM

    Online
    WebsiteInstagram
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    Address
    145 Rue de la Poste, 73150 Val-d'Isère, France · Val-d'Isère
    Hours

    Closed now, opens 9 AM

    Thursday 9 AM–9 PM

    Online
    Website
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  27. Rank 35. Cravan

    Cocktail Bar

    The Art Nouveau bones of this cocktail bar in the 16th have been hosting drinkers since forever, and the room earns that history. Named for Arthur Cravan, poet, boxer, and Oscar Wilde's nephew, it pours coffee by day and precise, classically rooted cocktails by night. The Tunnel riffs on a Negroni with a splash of dry vermouth; oysters and grilled cheese are there if you need something to slow things down.


  28. Pagodas and elephant statues rise over the Saint-Estèphe vines, which tells you this is not a typical Médoc château visit. The estate's founder came back from trading in Oman with a taste for the East, and the architecture never let anyone forget it. Tours move through the gravity-fed cellar built into the château walls, where some of the most talked-about wines in Bordeaux are made. Book ahead; they mean it.



  29. Chez Eugène is a Montmartre bistro on Place du Tertre, where caricature artists are sketching tourists a few feet from your table. The covered terrace is the seat to take, since the dining room runs a little gloomy. The wine list leans natural, favors the northern Rhône, and turns over weekly. The kitchen does best with the classics: onion soup, egg mayo, a steak frites roughly the size of a hubcap.


  30. Rank 39. Bar 1802

    Cocktail Bar

    The bar inside Hotel Monte Cristo is named for the year Alexandre Dumas was born, and the obsession runs deep: Dumas descended from Haitian rum producers, so the cocktail bar stocks somewhere around 1,600 rums, from molasses-based blends to rhums agricoles to house-spiced bottles. The Latin Quarter setting, the literary conceit, the frankly absurd rum cellar: it all holds together better than it has any right to.


    Address
    22 Rue Pascal, 75005 Paris, France · Paris
    Hours

    Closed now, opens 3 PM

    Thursday 3 PM–1 AM

    Online
    WebsiteInstagram
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  33. Rank 42. Harry's Bar

    Cocktail Bar

    The bar itself was shipped plank by plank from Manhattan in 1911, which is either romantic or completely deranged depending on your mood. Hemingway, Bogart, and Coco Chanel all drank here, and the cocktail menu has been refined across rather a lot of decades since. It holds a spot on Europe's 50 Best Bars, though the crowd seems unbothered by the credentials and mostly just wants a Sidecar.


    Address
    5 Rue Daunou, 75002 Paris, France · Paris
    Hours

    Closed now, opens noon

    Thursday Noon–2 AM

    Online
    WebsiteInstagram

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  35. Rank 44. Dame Jeanne

    Natural Wine Bar

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  38. Rank 44. La Cave des Affranchis

    Natural Wine Bar

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  40. Rank 44. O Vins D'Anges

    Natural Wine Bar

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  41. The bar is behind a door at the back of a taqueria on Rue de Saintonge, which is the kind of entrance that never gets old. Once through, it's a candle-lit, intentionally scuffed cocktail bar where the soundtrack runs loud enough that you're not whispering like you're supposed to. Perch at the bar to watch the bartenders work, or sink into a couch if someone hasn't beaten you to it. The Pinnacle Guide awarded it one Pin.


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  58. Rank 52. Brindezingue

    Natural Wine Bar

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  60. Rank 52. Canons

    Wine Bar

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  62. Rank 52. Cave Au Vin Vivant

    Natural Wine Bar

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  68. Rank 52. Chaussette

    Wine Bar

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  70. Rank 52. Chez Armand

    Natural Wine Bar

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  82. Rank 52. Element Terre

    Kebab Shop

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Eat Score

The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

    How we score →

    Drink Score

    The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

      How we score →

      Stay Score

      Four fifths of the score is the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin Key outweighs a listicle. The last fifth is where it is: the ranked places to eat and things to do around it, and how safe the country is. When you sort by what's nearby, distance from you changes the order, never the score.

        How we score →

        Do Score

        The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

          How we score →

          Best Place Score

          The Best Place Score rates the area around a point, not any one place. The places are 60% of it: the best of what's within reach, weighed by distance. The setting is the other 40%: how life goes in that country (how people rate their own lives, how long and how well they live, how safe they are) and what it's like right there (the air, and the weather). If the score looks low, we probably haven't found enough critics out here yet.

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