The Best Cocktail Bars in Toulouse
France is undoubtedly famous for its wine, but you may be surprised to know that the chic cocktail you’ll be sipping on Friday night also originated in France. The Kir Royale, mimosa, sidecar, and even the vibrant Blue Lagoon (worryingly) were all invented here!
With such a rich history in both the spirits (absinthe, anyone?) and the mixology itself, it’s no surprise that there are outstanding cocktail bars all over the country. Toulouse is no exception, as it even has its own cocktail, the Kir Toulousain – champagne and violet liqueur – and has seen the rise of numerous cocktail bars flooding the city, each outdoing the other with experimental menus and flavor combinations.
Our favorite cocktail bars in Toulouse are so varied in atmosphere and concoctions, it’s hard to believe they all make the same thing. Here is our list of the cocktail bars that the Taste of Toulouse team love – from classy joints to sophisticated dining spots, to even secret speakeasies. What they all have in common though is a dedication to locality – at each of these bars, you will find experimental takes on local flavor and produce, all shaken or stirred with regional artisanal spirits. What better way is there to introduce yourself to the region! So, curate your perfect night in Toulouse with our team’s shortlist of the best cocktail bars.
Swanky: Fat Cat
This tiny cocktail bar confidently plays right into its theme – Fat Cat is Toulouse’s swanky 1920s-style speakeasy. With the art-deco décor, a piano for a somewhat tipsy serenade, plush velvet armchairs, and dim mood lighting, you half expect the bar staff to refer to you as “old sport” and guests to drag on cigarette holders.
Fat Cat is one of Toulouse’s most popular cocktail haunts, as it is tucked down a side street just off Place du Capitole in the city center. Guests come for the atmosphere and, of course, the drinks – here, the bar staff know how to experiment with flavor and regularly change the menu, meaning you’re in for a treat every time you cross the threshold. Fat Cat treats their menu like a dining experience – drinks are written on a chalk board and recommended as appetizers, main courses or desserts. And, in keeping with this idea, many of their reliable ingredients are food.
Some cocktails can include goat cheese, roasted eggplant, or cherry tomatoes and cumin. Your drink is in the maestros’ hands, so the best thing to do is simply trust! Of course, if you’re not ready to have a liquid salad in a glass, they have a fantastic selection of classic cocktails including martinis and daiquiris.
Address: 4 Rue Charles de Rémusat, 31000 Toulouse
Opening times: Tuesday to Sunday, 19:00/18:00 – 02:00/00:00
Playful: Le Loup Blanc
Le Loup Blanc is a mixologist’s dream. Here the drinks are designed for the performance – even if you’re in the depths of a conversation, you will always notice drifting dry ice or a flicker of flame out of the corner of your eye. The cocktail bar is spacious with scattered tables, making it the perfect destination to bring fellow spectators for work gatherings and private parties.
The cocktail selection is imaginative and playful – the menu itself is divided into contrasting quadrants determined by flavor – Vegetal, Woody, Fruity, Aromatic – so you can focus your attention on the flavours you love or experiment with something new. Then the party is brought to your table: be your own mixologist by completing the drink yourself. Pour a flask of smoking chemical reaction over your drink, or add smoke trapped in a bottle. Drinks will melt, fizz or change color before your eyes.
Best of all, they offer weekly masterclasses, so you can learn these weird and wonderful mixology techniques yourself to impress everyone back home!
Address: 18 Rue Nicolas Bachelier, 31000 Toulouse
Opening times: Tuesday to Saturday, 18:00 – 00:00/02:00
Gastronomic: Billy Brandy
Should your night take you across the river to the Saint-Cyprien quarter, amidst the craft beer and wine bars is the discrete Billy Brandy. For such an unassuming exterior, practically blending into the city’s red brick, it is easy to underestimate the flavor concoctions with which this bar’s mixologist is experimenting. Here alcohol and gastronomy come together in beautiful harmony. Clarified mascarpone, butter liqueur, peach curry and rice – no flavor combination is off the table!
Having recently expanded, the bar’s vaulted red-brick cellar now serves food, so put those gastronomic drinks to the test and pair them with the restaurant’s small plates – which are, of course, as equally inventive as the drinks (duck hearts with strawberry ketchup immediately catches the eye).
At Billy Brandy, every drink and dish has been designed for optimal flavor – even the material of the drinking vessel has been considered. These geniuses of flavor know what they are doing and offer creative mixology classes and bar hire for that perfect party for food and drink lovers.
Address: 35 Gd Rue Saint-Nicolas, 31300 Toulouse
Opening times: Wednesday to Saturday, 19:00 – 00:00/02:00
Grungy: Nasdrovia
Welcome to Toulouse’s very own dive-bar. Blink and you’ll miss it – Nasdrovia is a box of a bar that hides down a side street in the bustling Carmes district, and yet it is one of the most popular watering holes for cocktail-loving locals.
France is not famous for dive bars, where your shoes stick to the floors and neon signs glow in the windows. However, Nasdrovia enthusiastically leans into this style, even including a grungy gloomy basement with extra seating, making it approachable to all. Unanimously popular amongst locals and visitors alike, Nasdrovia is unpretentious and relaxed with its graffitied walls and friendly staff.
And we haven’t even scratched the surface of their cocktails. The menu is extensive, including mocktails or other alcoholic beverages, but we’re here for the cocktail creations – which is where all of its dive bar associations are pushed aside. The menu changes every couple of months, evolving with the seasons. This autumn, try their cocktail with clarified milk and Earl Grey, or whisky fatwashed with olive oil and infused with figs. Accompany your rounds of cocktails with their house-made small plates of spiced hummus and tapenade, enabling you to line your stomach and go back for more drinks…
Address: 18 Rue Nicolas Bachelier, 31000 Toulouse
Opening times: Tuesday to Saturday, 18:00 – 00:00/02:00
Classy: Le Soulier
As a restaurant with a daily-changing lunch menu, Le Soulier is no stranger to good flavor and local produce. (It is the self-proclaimed “little brother” of a beloved Toulouse establishment, Aux Pieds Sous La Table, a restaurant the Taste of Toulouse team cannot recommend highly enough.) This elegant bistro sits on the corner of possibly the most tranquil square in the Carmes neighborhood, so if escaping the bustle of Toulouse’s nightlife is on your bingo card, Le Soulier is the perfect destination.
And, best of all, come 7pm, the restaurant has a costume change and transforms into a bar serving experimental cocktails, as well as wine, liqueurs, beers and non-alcoholic options. All the cocktails reflect the restaurant’s passion for seasonal flavor – this autumn, there is a rum, pumpkin and chai milk punch on offer that appears to be a boozy interpretation of a pumpkin spiced latte.
Alongside the all-encompassing drink choices, there is a menu of hors d’oeuvres and appetizers – canapes as classy as the art-deco décor. So, if you’re after a more relaxed evening with refined beverages and light-bites, look no further than Le Soulier.
Address: 3 Pl. Montoulieu, 31000 Toulouse
Opening times: Lunch – Monday to Friday, 12:00 – 14:00
Cocktails – Monday to Saturday, 17:00/18:00 – 00:00/03:00
Peaceful: Le Bar de Gaspard à Maison Soclo
Maison Soclo is no stranger to Taste of Toulouse’s lists of recommendations in Toulouse – as a 4-star boutique hotel with a generous weekend brunch buffet and a vintage cocktail bar, it clearly ticks all our boxes. This 18th-century townhouse hides all of the above – and more! – in plain sight. Not only is there a romantic old-fashioned cocktail bar, but hidden inside is a beautiful courtyard where guests can sip drinks, lounge on stylish settées, and wine and dine the night away in warm weather. Come winter, the cocktail bar is cozy and intimate, with a crackling wood fire in the grate. If you’re after ambience, then Maison Soclo has it in spades.
The cocktail menu is limited to a few perfected choices, including mocktails. They even have their own signature cocktail – Soclo Spritz with elderflower, grapefruit and black pepper. However, the service at Soclo is renowned for its care and attention to detail, so they offer to make any cocktail you do not see on the menu!
Drinks can be served alongside the hotel’s menu starting with light snacks for apéro, then more elaborate dishes from 7pm, including octopus and ceviche. No other cocktail bar in Toulouse can offer you such a peaceful evening.
Address: 34B Rue Valade, 31000 Toulouse
Opening times: Monday to Saturday, 07:30 – 23:00 / Sunday, 07:30 – 19:00
Foodie: L’Heure du Singe
What was once another small cocktail bar has recently expanded! After relocating and its subsequent renovations lasting a year, L’Heure du Singe (Monkey Time) has recently opened its doors and grown to include more outdoor space and a kitchen to serve both lunch and dinner. L’Heure du Singe is only open during the week, making it a work-day treat, so help the week go faster by enjoying that post-work monkey time.
Not only is the lunchtime deal a bargain at 21€ for three courses, but the kitchen is pushing the boat out with intriguing flavours and ingredients – try braised squash with pumpkin seed praline and sheep’s cheese and a dessert of apple compote with pickled apples. But this is nothing on the cocktails – all garnished with foams or sweet-salty sugar shards, the drinks include ingredients such as roquefort fatwashed calvados and white wine syrup, experimenting with both food and wine pairings.
The bar is available for private hire for events and celebrations, the kitchen churning out platters of canapes, and the business also runs a bartending school – L’Ecole du Singe – teaching the craft of cocktail making.
Address: 4 Rue du Languedoc, 31000 Toulouse
Opening times: Lunch – Monday to Friday, 12:00 – 14:00
Dinner – 18:00 – 02:00
Secret: L*Agence
Every city needs a secret cocktail bar, and in Toulouse, it’s L*Agence. Its name is a wink to its alias as a travel agent. The window display advertises far-off destinations, but look a bit closer, and you will see that their Beijing looks suspiciously like San Francisco. Inside, there is just a bookcase and a lone chair, but slide that bookcase to the side and what awaits you is nothing other than a Narnia of mixology.
Dark and mysterious, L*Agence is a speakeasy, with booths and little tables cast in pools of light. Such a spot could not be found in any city other than Toulouse thanks to its rich history in aviation. The menu is served in a passport; the day’s specials – both food and beverage – on a boarding pass. You are then sent on a voyage of discovery, each drink and dish recreating the iconic flavors of a destination.
The mixologists are clearly there to have fun – the drinks play with your senses, some including texture such as tapioca pearls, others presented as a smorgasbord of edibles: cosmopolitan jelly, pina-colada style boozy pineapple and margarita foam.
Mocktails are also available as is a globetrotting menu of small plates should you plan to while away your night traveling the world from the safety of your secret velvet booth.
Address: 26 Rue du Languedoc, 31000 Toulouse
Opening times: Wednesday to Saturday, 19:00 – 00:00/03:00
All-in-One: Carthel
If you’re staying a little outside the center in the vibrant Cartoucherie quarter, then you have a couple of great options for cocktail bars that are right on your doorstep. Not only do you have the exciting new food hall, Halles de la Cartoucherie, and the Sangha Hotel’s rooftop cocktail bar, but you also have Carthel, an Asian-fusion small-plates restaurant that knows how to make a whimsical cocktail!
At Carthel, the spotlight is shared between cuisine and cocktails. Open for lunch and dinner, here you can tuck into bao burgers, five-spice duck prosciutto and trout and lemongrass rillettes, but make sure you have room for their wild cocktail creations. Try the Smokiki’ Negroni with smoked ham (yes, you read that right), martini and gin, or their interpretation of a mule with wasabi and saké.
That’s also not to mention happy hour – and “happy night” too for that matter – as the party is only just getting started at Carthel. Balance those cocktails with shooters and bombs, some of which are made with the homemade cinnamon vodka or CBD rum. Cartel is a restaurant, cocktail bar and night club all rolled into one, so stay out until the early hours sampling their menu!
Address: 230 Av. de Grande Bretagne, 31300 Toulouse
Opening times: Lunch – Wednesday to Friday, 12:00 – 14:00
Dinner – Wednesday to Saturday, 18:00 – 00:00/02:00
The variety of nightlife here leaves you spoiled for choice and the creative cocktail scene is only growing. We at Taste of Toulouse are more than willing to be your guinea pigs, so that when you are in town, you know which cocktail bars in Toulouse have your name on it!
