You don’t go there to dance on tables that’s for sure. This place is heavy with History and cocktail history. People on whose shoulders we stand to see further have gotten drunk there. Classic cocktails were created within those walls.

Let me back-up just a bit.

Why am I talking about a bar in Paris?

Well, as a worldly, cosmopolitan, even sophisticated (some of  us anyways) group of people, the Divers & Chillers are bound to occasionally set foot in Paris. Maybe it’s because we’re on the way to Corsica or Malta, maybe it’s a week in Cap d’Antibes, or perhaps the Louvre has been tugging at our thoughts  for a while, no matter, when in Paris even for a short while, we have to enjoy what we can of the city. Paris is after all, without a single shadow of a doubt, one of the greatest cities on the planet. Easily top 3, I’m not calling it THE GREATEST though I want to, because I’m allowing for your personal idiosyncrasies of taste. However, should it not be in your top five, please leave this blog and don’t come back. Ever. That’s right. Thank you.

There are two specific things I want to address in this short post: why you have to go to this particular bar, and how to address French people in general and waiters at said bar in particular.

There are a lot of bars in Paris, of course there are, the city has been standing for over two thousand years. There is still a place you can go to where Benjamin Franklin used to hang out, and you can’t walk into a corner café that hasn’t been the haunt of someone famous. One place, that holds a special place in my heart, brings that to another level, it’s  Harry’s New York Bar, incongruous name for a Parisian bar yeah?

An Amercian opened the place in 1911. He had the whole bar  shipped in from New York, he named it appropriately, if not creatively, the New York Bar. He then sold it (it seems he was somewhat profligate),  to his Scottish bartender Harry MacElhone, in 1923. Hence the Harry in the name after that point. Today the bar is still owned by Mister MacElhone’s direct descendants. Respect.

Bogart drank there, Coco Chanel drank there, Hemingway drank there (granted a lot of bars can say that), Rita Hayworth drank there, Jean-Paul Sartre drank there, and Ian Fleming had James Bond drop by. My favourite story, which is probably false but I like to repeat it, is that the Bloody Mary was invented there for Hemingway, who had asked for a drink that “that Bloody Mary” (his consort at the time) couldn’t smell on his breath.

There are several classic drinks that we know for sure  were invented there among which the sidecar, the french 75 and the monkey gland, yeah, that last one isn’t always easy to order in a bar.

Harry’s is situated just a touch south of the opera Garnier (go check that out too and get cultured, it’s a beautiful building) at 5 rue Daunou, between the rue de la Paix and the avenue de l’Opéra. Ask your driver (you all have drivers right?) to take you to “SANK ROO DOE NOO” if in doubt, that’s how the  expats of the 20’s used to do it, after a crafty piece of marketing by Harry.

I’ve always had stellar service and fantastic cocktails there. Classic drinks, where flavours come from a few key, quality ingredients. Of course the lime juice is fresh and real and there’s mint if needed. Keep in mind that the people behind the bar come from a rare breed, that of professional bartenders. There’s no barman/actor or mixologist/model or waiter/writer here. For these guys bartending is a profession, not a job, they are all about drinkskultur.

The place is a landmark, but it’s not for everybody, not for every kind of tourist.

There’s something that throws some of us North Americans for a loop; for a lot of businesses in France, getting our money is not their ultimate meaning of life. Sure they want our patronage, but not at any cost. The customer isn’t always right, and they don’t cater to the lowest common denominator. This makes for integrity of service and product and not the boot licking of Mammon. So if you walk in there demanding two for one happy hour pitchers that don’t exist for you and your rowdy buddies, you’ll be told no, firmly, and may the gods of drink help you if you’re rude about it.

And that brings me to my second point.

French people are not snooty. They are punctilious about politeness. If there is one golden rule that will save you from Parisian condescension, it  is to start every  interaction, and I mean every interaction with anybody, with Bonjour Madame/Monsieur. Yes it’s that simple. This is the Old World and manners still matter a great deal. So don’t hesitate to be extra polite, and if you speak a bit of French, under no circumstances at all are you to use the familiar tu form. That’s the equivalent of adding “yo mama” at the end of a sentence when talking to the TSA at the airport. It won’t end well.

Will this guarantee an asshole free sojourn? Unfortunately not, bags of dicks are everywhere around us masquerading as normal people, sadly it’s universal. The odds are however excellent that you’ll discover how pleasant the French can be. I’ve experienced it many times, don’t be shy, give it a go.