Le Bar Long

Le Bar Long is the bar of Le Royal Monceau Raffles Paris, on avenue Hoche a short walk from the Arc de Triomphe in the 8th. Philippe Starck designed it, and the central idea is in the name: a single long, narrow, luminous high table runs down the middle of the room, breaking the usual face-off between guests and bartenders. It functions all day, from breakfast through late drinks, as the social engine of one of the city's grandest palace hotels.

This is a destination for a polished, expensive cocktail in serious surroundings, not a casual neighbourhood pour. Anyone after a relaxed canal apero should head to a Paris wine bar instead. Anyone who wants a design-led palace bar with a proper drinks list will find Le Bar Long near the top of that short list.

Starck's design treats the bar as a room to inhabit rather than a counter to perch at. Raffles' own description frames it as a fluid, lively space at the crossroads of theatre, salon, and café d'auteur, with that long illuminated table as the centrepiece. The result reads as a salon you can drink in rather than a hotel lobby bar tucked behind reception.

The mood shifts across the day. It opens for breakfast, carries through afternoons and aperitifs, and lands at night as the kind of place Paris Select Book has called one of the city's most elegant headquarters. Because it sits inside the Royal Monceau, the crowd is a mix of hotel guests, well-dressed locals, and people who have come specifically for the Starck room.

The crowd is a palace-hotel one, well-heeled guests, locals dressed for the occasion, and design and travel people drawn by the Starck name. Daytime runs quiet and salon-like. The energy builds through the aperitif hour and into the evening, when the long table fills and the room reads at its most theatrical. Dress smart; this is the Royal Monceau, and the setting carries an expectation.

Continue the grand-hotel circuit at the legendary Bar Hemingway at the Ritz in Paris, the garden-room Le Bar du Bristol in Paris, or the botanical Bar Botaniste in Paris. The full picture is in our guide to Paris cocktail bars and the wider Paris bar guide.