While the 18th arrondissement has no shortage of decent bars – there’s a whole clutch of them around La Place de Clichy – what’s been sorely missing from this neighbourhood is a late-night whisky-and-beer joint like Octopussy. Opened at sleepy Guy Moquet in the summer of 2014, the bar has already attracted a cadre of regulars who come for the ambiance and the DJs, but mostly for the beer and liquor: Bellerose, Brooklyn Lager and Punk IPA (around €4 per half-pint), as well as a nice range of drinking man’s whiskys, including Lagavulin, Ardbeg, Jura and Caol Ila (starting at €10 per shot). Sadly, the short and pricy cocktail menu doesn’t match up.
Nevertheless, Octopussy is a neighbourhood bar par excellence, featuring clothing swaps, blind taste-tests, basement exhibitions and oyster apéro events. The art-rock décor is a touch sober, although the recycled furniture, band posters, octopus light fixtures and genial local crowd go a long way to warming the place up – plus there’s a spacious, comfy upstairs lounge.