Bab Ilo

It's clearly a local place, the street level is a bar with an open floorplan manned by a friendly bartender. There is a nice cocktail list plus of course wine - Paris seems to be big on umbrella drinks and every cocktail bar seems to have a pina colada on the menu along with a couple fruity drinks plus a mojito and a mule drink, plus maybe a caipirinha or margarita or gin & tonic. The list here is along these lines, but they do a pretty good job other than the fact that you get your one drink, watch the show downstairs, and then pretty much every patron had an empty glass shortly into the first music set. Missed revenue, but I guess that's not my concern. Downstairs is a tiny room for music (and apparently comedy shows) that seats no more than about 30 in a cramped space with 5 tiny rows of 4 chairs plus a couple tables & benches on the side. On the night we attended the music was fine, a 3 piece jazz band playing some unique but fairly sleepy stuff. It was the first time a couple of the musicians had played together but they did a good job and it was worth the 10 Euro charge in order to catch some music. Paris is big on Jazz, but admittedly I'm a little spoiled in New Orleans yet it was well worth a visit to Bab Ilo. If I'm in the neighborhood I would go back, but wouldn't venture too far across Paris to come here.