An easy-going neighbourhood bar where smash burgers, cold beers and lively nights make it easy to strike up a conversation with the next table.

Inside a former fire station in Paris’s 10th, Brûlant moves from morning coffee to evening drinks. A large terrace, long tables and plates to share make staying a little longer part of the plan.

A small blue bar on the Villette basin that lends out pétanque boules against an ID. You can't play pétanque on your own, which is more or less the whole point.

A summer guinguette on a Seine barge: string lights, containers, focaccias and craft beer on tap. Open every day from 5pm, and nobody comes here to stay quiet.

A literary barge facing Notre-Dame. You come for the books, you stay for the conversation.

A cultural space open to everyone, built around the craft trades and creation, at Place Skanderbeg. Gallery, exhibitions, café, incredible pizzas and a culture garden: a standout between art, transmission and chill.

A hotel that turned into a bar without quite saying so. Under a large glass roof hidden in a small courtyard in the 5th, Bibie is one of those places you feel like you discovered all by yourself.