<p><text class="_3ziulaHePS" direction="ltr" height="16.1499938964844" lengthadjust="spacingAndGlyphs" textlength="94.9416122436523" x="94.128791809082" y="-437.25" data-test="textbox">The legacy of </text><text class="_3ziulaHePS" direction="ltr" height="16.1329956054688" lengthadjust="spacingAndGlyphs" textlength="41.6976013183594" x="188.832901000977" y="-437.25" data-test="textbox">French </text><text class="_3ziulaHePS" direction="ltr" height="16.1329956054688" lengthadjust="spacingAndGlyphs" textlength="281.29557800293" x="230.859512329102" y="-437.25" data-test="textbox">nightlife began with clandestine wartime </text><text class="_3ziulaHePS" direction="ltr" height="16.1159973144531" lengthadjust="spacingAndGlyphs" textlength="365.183746337891" x="77.4873962402344" y="-421.25" data-test="textbox">speakeasies, emerged into the mainstream, went back </text><text class="_3ziulaHePS" direction="ltr" height="16.1329956054688" lengthadjust="spacingAndGlyphs" textlength="80.75" x="442.824035644531" y="-421.25" data-test="textbox">underground</text><text class="_3ziulaHePS" direction="ltr" height="5.93301391601562" lengthadjust="spacingAndGlyphs" textlength="7.02099609375" x="522.557800292969" y="-421.25" data-test="textbox">, </text><text class="_3ziulaHePS" direction="ltr" height="16.1329956054688" lengthadjust="spacingAndGlyphs" textlength="74.2967834472656" x="126.184997558594" y="-405.25" data-test="textbox">and finally </text><text class="_3ziulaHePS" direction="ltr" height="16.1329956054688" lengthadjust="spacingAndGlyphs" textlength="61.6607055664062" x="200.669097900391" y="-405.25" data-test="textbox">blossomed </text><text class="_3ziulaHePS" direction="ltr" height="16.1159973144531" lengthadjust="spacingAndGlyphs" textlength="215.111236572266" x="260.619018554688" y="-405.25" data-test="textbox">into unabashed public revelries.</text></p>

<p dir="ltr">Paris has never kept its nightlife in one place for very long. In 1921, Le Bœuf sur le Toit opened and quickly became a meeting point for Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Coco Chanel, and Joséphine Baker. By 1947, Boris Vian was playing trumpet at Le Tabou in Saint-Germain-des-Prés; in 1978, Grace Jones opened Le Palace singing “La Vie en Rose” from a pink Harley-Davidson. A dance hall became a cellar, the cellar became a disco, and by the 2000s, one of the most coveted rooms in Paris was a former libertine club on Avenue Marceau called Le Baron.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Now, some of those rooms are coming back. Bus Palladium reopened in Pigalle in April 2026 after closing four years earlier, complete with a basement club beneath its new hotel, restaurant, and bar. La Main Jaune—the roller disco immortalised in <em>La Boum</em>—has been working toward a comeback after more than 20 years closed, while Le Palace’s own reopening has now been pushed into 2027. Newer clubs are playing with Paris history, too: Essaim caps its crowd at 400 and places DJs directly on the floor, while Maison 3 has former Palace physionomiste Jenny Bel’Air at the door.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Below, <em>L'OFFICIEL</em> traces how Paris went from the jazz and tango rooms of the 1920s to the cellars of Saint-Germain, Le Palace, Les Bains Douches, Le Baron, and the clubs shaping the city now.</p>

<p class="p1">According to writer and Parisian nightlife aficionado Maurice Sachs, the first dance halls opened in Paris one hundred years ago, in 1921. During the First World War, social evenings and dances were not considered proper for young women to attend, but it wasn’t long before the nightclub made its appearance. Up until that point, popular balls were held in Montmartre or Montparnasse for the bourgeois and aristocrats, but the dance hall ushered in a new era in which women could safely venture out alone and with no judgment. Sachs writes in the decade of Illusion: Paris 1918-1928: “A real dance hall has red lacquered walls, orange, and blue lanterns; chiaroscuro and hurried hands; on the left, tango orchestra, on the right, a jazz band: piano, trombone, saxophone, drums, and shell cymbals.” By 1925, there were more than one hundred of these establishments spread across the capital. Le Perroquet, Chez Florence, Florida, Gaya, Bricktop, and Delli’s are but a few names that are now all but forgotten. Only Maxim’s and Le Boeuf sur le Toit remain, the latter of which has recently been restored to its former glory by designer Alexis Mabille. Thanks to its popularity among Paris’ avant-garde, namely the poet Jean Cocteau, Le Boef remains a symbol of the Roaring ‘20s. The years between the wars marked the period of the great surrealist balls of Etienne de Beaumont or Charles de Noailles in their hotel near the Place des États-Unis.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">This dance-frenzied Paris was as debaucherous as the 18th-century post-revolutionary era when relatives of those who lost their lives to the guillotine during the Reign of Terror held bals de victimes (“victim’s balls”). This was an era of the most sumptuous brothels, where men—and also couples—came to finish the night with women and ever-flowing champagne. The names of such establishments have remained famous: Le Sphinx, Le Chabanais, and Le One-Two-Two, which is notorious for serving as a branch office for the Gestapo during the German occupation of World War II.</p>

<p class="p1">Postwar, Parisian nightlife went subterranean. Even after American soldiers stopped blowing their air raid sirens, the zazous of Le Tabou or Le Caveau des Lorientais were used to hiding in cellars, and the underground began to reverberate with the sound of American Bebop. There were no sound systems at the time. Even pick-ups—ancestors of the turntable—were rare. The violin was quickly replaced by a band—often featuring writer and musician Boris Vian or jazz clarinetist Claude Luter—on a small stage, and moving bodies, among them Marc Doelnitz, Anne Marie Casalis, Juliette Greco, and Michel de Ré.</p>
<p class="p1">This move underground began on April 11, 1947 at 33 rue Dauphine. The owners of Tabou invited the clientele of the Café de Flore after the famous cafe closed at midnight. The singer Juliette Greco, who had dropped her coat in the cellar, discovered the basement and arranged with the owners to rent it out as a rehearsal space. Thus the first Parisian nightclub was born</p>

<p class="p1">The 1950s came along with the reign of Jean Castel and Régine Zylberberg. It was at the Palais Royal that Régine opened her first club, Le Whisky à Gogo. She later moved to the Left Bank, opening Jimmy's in Saint Germain, then further to Montparnasse with New Jimmy's, which became emblematic of Parisian nightlife. With Jean Castel’s outpost on Rue Princesse, the pair lured an international clientele: American movie stars, English rockers, and glamorous models, as well as the Windsors (whom Régine taught to dance the twist), Jacqueline Onassis, and the Shah of Iran. But it was the regulars, perched on the large couch at the entrance of New Jimmy’s or the banquettes at Castel, who were the soul of these spots— Sagan and her gang, Annabelle Buffet, David de Rothschild, Philippe Junot, actor Jean Pierre Cassel, models from Catherine Harlé, and call girls from Chez Claude. At Castel, Alain Delon flirted with Nathalie Barthélémy, who would later become his wife, while a few feet away the future Bianca Jagger danced with her partner of the moment, the record producer Eddie Barclay. Not far away, David Niven, Andy Warhol, and Eddie Sedgwick mingled. At New Jimmy’s, the evenings ended at dawn in Régine’s apartment above the club, where the crowd dined on her famous meatballs to soak up all the alcohol.</p>

<p class="p1">In the 1970s, the jet-set took over from the high society crowd, which was no surprise since this was also the beginning of the sexual liberation movement. The city’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/search?query=gay%20clubs&amp;page=1#:~:text=Found%202%20results-,POLITICS%20%26%20CULTURE,06.11.2021,-L%27OFFICIEL%20ART"><span class="s1">gay clubs</span></a>, which were formerly confined to the Palais Royal neighborhood or&nbsp;the rougher parts of Pigalle, settled in Rue Sainte-Anne near the Avenue de l'Opéra. The most famous was Le Sept, run by Fabrice Emaer, a former hairdresser. Le Sept hosted everyone from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/yves-saint-laurent-designer-singature-looks-trapeze-suit-safari-jacket"><span class="s1">Yves Saint Laurent</span></a>&nbsp;to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/disney-tv-series-karl-lagerfeld-karl-kaiser"><span class="s1">Karl Lagerfeld</span></a>&nbsp;and their respective entourages. In 1978, Emaer opened the greatest Parisian folie, Le Palace, which would become the French version of New York’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/politics-culture/studio-54-matt-tyrnauer-interview-2018"><span class="s1">Studio 54</span></a>.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="p1">Inaugurated with an over-the-top concert by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/grace-jones-movies-conan-boomerang"><span class="s1">Grace Jones</span></a>, which included a performance of “La Vie en Rose” sung from atop a pink Harley Davidson, the Palace attracted a fashionable and eclectic crowd including the queen of punk Edwige Belmore, Louis Aragon, Madame Grès, and the likes of Loulou de la Falaise and Thadée Klossowski.&nbsp;The Palace ushered in a whole new level of glamour to the nightlife scene and would go on to see performances by&nbsp;Talking Heads, The B-52’s, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/prince-best-stage-style-performance"><span class="s1">Prince</span></a>.</p>

<p class="p1">At Le Palace, the last important Parisian balls were held before Haute Couture, and Christian Dior relaunched them for fashion week. At the same time, Fabrice Coat took over an old public bath located near Les Halles and created the first Bains Douches, which drew comparisons to New York’s Mudd Club. Les Bains Douches became known for its show business clientele and their appetite for cocaine by the early ’80s.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">The rockers and punks shuttled between the Gibus club in the Paris République area and La Main Bleue, a basement den at the town hall of Montreuil where patrons in black leather mingled, and people danced to the music of Serge Kruger.</p>

<p class="p1">In the ’80s, Le Palace upgraded and became Le Privilège,and Les Bains Douches became Les Bains. The city’s trendy set found themselves at Tango, Rose Bonbon, Opéra Night, and The Royal, a place not far from The Olympia. La Main Jaune was the place for fans of roller skates and Mezcal. This was the moment of reggae-salsa music which would soon be followed by rap at the Globo and rave parties in abandoned spots across the city.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">DJs were soon becoming superstars with residencies at specific clubs. David Guetta spun the wheels of steel at Chance, which would later become Moloko. Meanwhile, Marthe Lagacheand Franck Chevalier (husband of Nina Hagen) opened the most amusing and eclectic club of the late ’80s: the Zoopsie in Bobino. On the Champs-Élysées, several swanky spots for the rich and famous opened, where actor Anthony Delon paraded around with his girlfriends, including Princess Stéphanie of Monaco.</p>

<p class="p1">The ’90s were ruled by the Queen club, which was charming if not a little vulgar. There was also the unforgettable La Scala. Meanwhile, Cathy Guetta recovered the indestructible Le Bains Douches, while Régine found herself at the deserted Le Palace.</p>
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<p>By then, the city’s nightlife was splitting between glamour and electronic music. Queen became one of the Champs-Élysées’ best-known gay clubs, while Les Bains Douches kept fashion, music, and celebrity culture in the same room. Elsewhere, techno and house were beginning to take over, with raves and warehouse parties offering a rougher alternative to the velvet ropes and bottle service of central Paris.</p>
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Björk at the 73rd Academy Awards in 2001. Photography: Getty Images.

<p class="p1">The new millennium opened with a welcome surprise: LeBaron, a former brothel on Avenue Marceau, was reinvented by the graphic designer turned nightlife impresario André Saraiva. Saraiva, Olivier Zahm of Purple Magazine, and businessman Jean Yves Le Fur, would go on to open Montana on Rue Saint Benoit, energizing the Saint Germain neighborhood.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The 2000s brought fashion even closer to the dance floor. When André Saraiva and Lionel Bensemoun opened Le Baron on Avenue Marceau in 2004, the tiny former hostess club quickly drew names like Sofia Coppola, Björk, and Mick Jagger alongside Paris’s editors, artists, and models. Five years later, Saraiva and <em>Purple</em> founder Olivier Zahm opened Le Montana during Paris Fashion Week on Rue Saint-Benoît. The space was even smaller: a bar upstairs and a dance floor tucked into a vaulted cellar decorated with botanical drawings by Vincent Darré. Getting inside was famously difficult, but that was part of its appeal. By the end of the decade, shows, dinners, and nights at Le Baron or Montana had started to occupy the same fashion-week orbit.&nbsp;</p>

Balu Brigada performing at the Chanel Party on September 10, 2026. Getty Images.

<p dir="ltr">The 2020s did not exactly begin on a dance floor. The pandemic closed clubs across Paris, and when the city came back, some of its most interesting new rooms were deliberately smaller. Essaim opened in the 10th arrondissement in October 2024 with a capacity of just 400 people and DJs positioned on the floor rather than above the crowd. Maison 3 followed in 2025 inside a former cabaret once frequented by Édith Piaf, Barbara, and Juliette Gréco. Jenny Bel’Air, a former physionomiste at Le Palace, now works the door. Paris had spent decades making the nightclub bigger. These rooms made intimacy the point.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Then came the old names. Bus Palladium, the Pigalle rock club that first opened in 1965, returned on April 10, 2026, after closing in 2022. Studio KO reworked the building into a six-story hotel with 35 rooms, a restaurant, bar, and—most importantly—a club back in the basement. Caroline de Maigret curated its playlists, while parts of the original club, including its famous mirror ball, remain. La Main Jaune has also been preparing its return with recording studios, concerts, DJ sets, and the roller disco that made the club famous in the first place. Le Palace was expected to follow in 2026, but its renovation is taking longer than planned: owner Mickael Chétrit said in June that the reopening is now expected sometime between March and September 2027.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Not every comeback requires reopening an old club. Younger crowds are also filling Paris jazz rooms including Caveau de la Huchette, 38Riv, and La Gare-Le Gore, where live jazz can give way to techno later in the night. Caveau de la Huchette has been operating since 1946. So, for all the Y2K nostalgia surrounding nightlife right now, Paris is reaching even further back. Nearly 80 years after Vian and Gréco disappeared into the cellars of Saint-Germain, another generation is going underground.</p>

<p><span>L'OFFICIEL's Centennial Issue&nbsp;</span><em>is now available on newsstands and to order online<span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://store.emags.com/lofficiel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.</em></p>

A History of Parisian Nightlife, from '20s Speakeasies to Y2K Clubs

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