Lapin Agile
The salmon-pink walls and green shutters of 22 Rue des Saules look almost too picturesque to be real, but the cobblestones underfoot and the hand-painted sign — a rabbit leaping from a saucepan, wine bottle in paw — have been here in some form since 1875. This is one of the last functioning cabarets in Paris where the format has barely changed in a century.
Inside, around eighty people crowd onto heavy wooden benches while singers, comedians and musicians work through an evening of French chansons, poetry and wordplay. Yves Mathieu, who took over in 1972 and was still performing in his mid-nineties as of 2024, is often among them.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who come back tend to note the same thing: arrive close to 9 PM rather than late, because the room fills fast and the bench seating is communal. The included drink is a small bottle of cherries in brandy — worth knowing before you expect wine. Cash only at the door.
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Book directly at the providerHow Lapin Agile came to be
The building traces back to around 1860, when it operated under the name Au Rendez-vous des Voleurs. By the 1880s the walls were hung with portraits of notorious murderers and locals had taken to calling it the Cabaret des Assassins. The name changed again in 1875 when caricaturist André Gill painted the famous sign — residents shortened 'Le Lapin à Gill' until it became, by sound and by habit, 'Au Lapin Agile.'
In the early twentieth century, cabaret singer Aristide Bruant bought the place to prevent its demolition. When Frédéric Gérard — known as Frédé, a fish seller by day — became landlord in 1903, the cabaret drew Picasso, who painted 'Au Lapin Agile' at twenty-five in exchange for meals and drinks. Apollinaire, Utrillo, Max Jacob and Roland Dorgelès all came regularly. Édith Piaf performed here in the late 1930s before anyone outside Montmartre knew her name.
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Background & history adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) · specs from Wikidata (CC0) · weather from Open-Meteo · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · photos from Wikimedia Commons / Unsplash with per-image credit. No third-party reviews or social posts reproduced.