Paris gay travel guide: What to see and where to go for LGBTQ+

Gay bars, gay clubs and gay shops in Paris | Theatre, comedy, art and culture | The best Paris LGBTQ+ Hotels

Le Marais is and sort of always was the epicentre of gay travel to Paris. Slap bang in the middle of town, it actually means The Swamp and is an ancient area of narrow Medieval streets cut through with bigger boulevards and loaded with atmosphere and the biggest share of Paris gay bars. And restaurants and patisseries and terraces. Oh and gay Parisians, whether they’re having a coffee and a cigarette (everyone still seems to smoke in France!) on a terrace or crowding outside bars like Cox, where rumour had it designer Alexander McQueen used to hang out or taking a quiet wine in La Perle, where designer John Galliano had so many quiet wines that he almost ended his career with an on-camera rant.

Gay bar-wise, you can take your pick. You could do Raidd at the sexy end of the spectrum, where the barmen go shirtless and every so often a stripper goes full-on naked in one of the showers (some body parts get a whole lot cleaner than others, let’s just say that), or you could check out Bear’s Den, the Parisian gay bar where the men are men, hairy and big ones at that. FreeDJ is neon-y and cocktail-y and attracts a younger set, Cud, a fairly generic but fun gay music bar while everyone is waiting for the legendary Paris gay club Le Dépôt to re-open (imminent, apparently): that’s just outside Le Marais and is dance-y upstairs and gets decidedly naughty downstairs. For something a little more alternative, try Les Souffleurs, a queer bar still in Le Marais.

As for big-night-out gay Paris club action, ask anyone and they’ll tell you that things have fallen off rather in recent years. Blame it on the apps, blame it on the pandemic but you can’t blame it on the boogie. Yes, there are glorified gay dance bars like Quatzal, where fun can be had and intermittent circuit-type parties from BigWolf usually at YOYO at Palais de Tokyo with After Scandal the after-party that accompanies those events but this is not London or New York or Berlin. If you’re around on a Sunday, please don’t miss out on Rosa Bonheur a strange-sounding early evening legend of a Paris gay club night that takes place in one of the city’s stranger parks, Buttes Chaumont, built to look like a romantic wilderness. The party itself takes place in the restaurant and if you get there early you might hear the LGBTQ choir rehearsing. Indoor and outdoor and maybe the most fun you’ll have in Paris. Check their site for other events aussi.

You could always coincide with Paris Gay Pride – known as La Marche des Fiertés around these parts – which tends to take place in June, so leave a space in your diary and check the website for latest dates.

Meanwhile, back in the beautiful streets of Le Marais looking for something nice to treat yourself to, you may no longer have the brilliant Paris gay bookshop Les Mots à la Bouche, which has relocated to the 11th arrondissement (worth a trip as apart from an amazing stock of books and magazines, there’s a programme of events) but there is no shortage of gay-interest shops like IEM Le Marais, for toys and fetishwear, and Fleux for home décor – both on rue Sainte Croix de la Bretonnerie.

When it comes to places to stay, you are well and truly spoilt for choice as was Oscar Wilde back in the day. His famous last words from that Paris hotel bed, by the way: ‘This wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes, or I do.’ The wallpaper won and you can see Wilde’s beautiful tomb in the well-worth-a-visit cemetery of Père Lachaise in the north of Paris. These days, everything is on offer, from bargain-basement (and amazingly cool offerings) like Generator Paris, a funky hostel on the edgy Canal St. Martin not far from the Gare du Nord, making it pretty handy if you’re coming from the UK on Eurostar, to Hidden Hotel, a four-star beauty in the very upscale Arc de Triomphe neighbourhood. Color Design Hotel, in the Gare de Lyon area, is a cool minimalist dream where white-on-white meets splashes of bold colour with interiors that merge traditional Parisian features with cool modern slick.

Then there’s Le Bellechasse Saint-Germain, an eye-poppingly maximalist offering right by the river in one of the smarter parts of town and with easy access to both the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay. And if you wanted to be walkable to the delights of Le Marais, you could do a lot worse than the charming little Hotel Saint Honoré in the first arrondissement. Or live out your fantasies of living like an artist in Paris at the Hotel Basss – with three ‘s’s, so you know they’re funky – up near the Sacré Coeur, where the bohemians have traditionally hung out.