Marlusse et Lapin

Time Out says

Mon Jul 2 2012

This is one of Time Out's 100 best bars in Paris. Click here to see the full list.

A stone’s throw from the sex shops of Pigalle and the tourist bars of Montmartre, Marlusse et Lapin seems like a delightful alien. It’s named for the surnames of the couple that run this tiny, completely bonkers bar on the Rue Germain Pilon – they’re always laughing with the elderly Montmartre types who come here to chew the fat with the area’s boho chic habitués. Here, after-hours drinking is a riot, drenched in absinthe and crazy shots that will bring you back again and again to chat with the locals – and not least because of the great prices. Still, avoid the busiest hours if you want to get a table, as they’re pretty hard to come by.

The bar is microscopic, but in the room behind there’s a surprising amount of space: this is ‘Grandma’s Chamber’. With its classic flowered wallpaper, its black-and-white photos of stern-looking great-great aunts and uncles, a bed pressed into service as a double banquette, a switchboard-era telephone, a sewing machine and a Normandy chest of drawers, you almost expect to fall over granny in her nightgown. The owners don’t, however, organise knitting classes or rounds of bridge – entertainment is more in the vein of classic cinema screenings on Sunday afternoons.

By CG/EH