Best-of list · City Comparison
London vs Paris bars compared by our editors. Cocktails, wine bars, hidden gems, and late night culture — we settle the European bar scene debate,.
The short answer
8 ranked rooms follow. How we picked is at the end of this guide.
The london vs paris bars comparison is the one European drinking debate worth having, and I have been having it for years. I have spent extended periods in both cities for the sole purpose of building a defensible argument. The honest answer is that they are different enough that picking an outright winner requires you to specify what you are looking for. For cocktails, London wins. For wine, Paris wins. For the overall experience of an evening out, the answer depends on which version of an ideal evening you have in mind.
London has one of the three or four best cocktail scenes in the world. Paris has caught up considerably in the past five years, particularly in the Marais and Pigalle areas, but London still leads on depth, volume, and the overall standard of the programs being run. Paris cocktail bars are good. London cocktail bars are great and there are many more of them.
How we picked
London wins on cocktails, hidden bars, late night, and the breadth of the overall bar scene. Paris wins on wine, brasserie culture, the overall sensory experience of drinking in a room that has been doing this since the nineteenth century, and the ease with which an afternoon drink becomes a three-hour experience without anyone suggesting you order more food.
Both cities are non-negotiable for anyone who takes drinking seriously. London is the more complete bar city. Paris is the more pleasurable one. If forced to choose a single evening, I would choose Paris every time. But I would not choose to live in a city without both of them within two hours of each other.
Sofia covers European bar culture and has a particular focus on the relationship between wine culture and cocktail culture in Paris, London, and the Mediterranean. She visits Paris at least four times a year and still argues with herself about whether it beats London.
Last reviewed 2025-09-27 · The editors recheck hours and closures against current local coverage.