The 6e sibling of Experimental Cocktail Club, with a calmer upstairs and a stirred-classics programme worth crossing the river for.
Prescription Cocktail Club sits at 23 Rue Mazarine in the 6e, a five-minute walk from Odeon metro, and is the Left Bank outpost of the Experimental Group — Romee de Goriainoff and Olivier Bon's cocktail-bar operation that defined the Paris speakeasy revival of the late 2000s. The bar opened in 2009 as a calmer-tempo answer to the original Experimental Cocktail Club in the 2e.
Time Out Paris and Le Fooding have both kept Prescription on their long-running Paris cocktail-bar lists, and The Infatuation Paris placed it on its 2024 Saint-Germain neighbourhood guide as the cocktail destination. The room is split across two floors — a moodier ground-floor bar and a brighter upstairs that r/paris consistently flag as the room to ask for on a quieter weeknight.
A two-floor townhouse layout. The ground floor is a long bar room with low lighting and Chesterfield-style banquettes; the upstairs has the better sight lines, lower noise level, and is the seat for a conversation rather than a date. Google Maps reviewers (n=1,400) consistently note that the upstairs runs a few degrees warmer and lighter than the basement-feel ground floor.
Order the Old Cuban (€14), the Experimental Group house Champagne-cocktail variant. The Negroni (€13) and the Penicillin (€14) are the second and third orders. Le Fooding noted in its 2023 reappraisal that the bar's classics programme “has held up better than the Experimental Group's slow expansion across three continents would suggest”. Skip the off-menu requests; the Experimental Group programme is the reason the bar is worth visiting.
Saint-Germain locals and ECC alumni until 10pm; a younger international crowd from midnight onward. The Infatuation Paris noted the bar “runs a calmer Friday and Saturday than its 2e sibling, which is a feature, not a bug”. Best first-visit window is 8pm to 10pm on a Tuesday or Wednesday for the upstairs at conversation tempo.
Reservations are taken via the Experimental Group's central site for groups of four or more and recommended on weekends. Walk-ins are usually accommodated upstairs almost any night; the ground floor fills first and clears slower. Card and contactless both work; tipping is appreciated but not expected. The bar is open seven nights a week, which is unusual in the 6e and makes it a useful Sunday or Monday option. The kitchen runs a short bar-snacks menu until 1am with sliders, oysters, and cheese plates priced €7 to €16. The bar accepts foreign cards and the English-language service is fluent — the Experimental Group runs an international staff training programme and the staff English level is consistently high. Smoking is not permitted on either floor; the bar runs a small standing-room front porch area for a smoke break that is monitored by staff. r/paris regulars warn that the bar fills with tourists on the Friday and Saturday weekend nights; the upstairs is the only reliable seat past midnight. Tipping is appreciated but not expected.
Prescription Cocktail Club's official site (verified May 2026); Le Fooding; Time Out Paris; The Infatuation Paris; r/paris; Google Maps reviews (n=1,400).