Le Lapin Agile, Paris

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Cabaret and chanson singing! This is one cabaret in Paris where you'll feel comfortable bringing the kidlets. Unlike the Moulin Rouge, the Lido Club or the Crazy Horse this is no cabaret with nudity. Instead they specialize in chanson (old French songs) sing-a-longs incorporating a humorous cabaret style.

Incidentally, Picasso's painting of the place sold for close to $50 million USD in the '80s (you may now see this painting in NYC's Metropolitan Museum).

Au Lapin Agile marks its presence in the classic Paris Blues starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier and Diahann Carroll. In the film, you see one couple walking up rue des Saules while another is walking along rue St-Vincent and they meet up on the corner!

Another artist closely associated with the Lapin Agile is Maurice Utrillo, Montmartre's bad-boy alcoholic painter & son of artists' model Suzanne Valadon, buried across the way in the nearby Cimètiere St-Vincent, close enough to still enjoy the music!

24€/person - includes show & 1 drink
17€/person - student pricing except for Saturday/holidays
7€ - additional optional alcoholic drink
6€ - additional optional non-alcoholic drink
E-mail: infos@au-lapin-agile.com

Dress Code: No discernable dress code but I'd at least go with dressy casual.

Photos: November 2007 & April 2003

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The Cabaret Lapin Agile is in the Montmartre district of Paris, on the right bank of the Seine River, near the famous church of Sacre Couer.

A 'cabaret' is a drinking place that features music, dancing, and group singing.
A cafe, by contrast, is considered a meeting place for the exchange of social and intellectual information.

Since the Lapin Agile is located at the heart of the Montmartre part of Paris (the heart of artistic Paris at the turn of the 20th century), there was much discussion at the cabaret about "the meaning of art".

The Lapin Agile was also popular with shady Montmartre characters including pimps, eccentrics, simple down-and-outers, students from the Latin Quarter, a contingent of local anarchists, and a sprinkling of well-heeled bourgeois out on a lark.

Pablo Picasso's 1905 oil painting "At the Lapin Agile" helped to make this cabaret world famous.
The cabaret was often captured on canvas by another artist also, Maurice Utrillo.

Founded in 1860, Le Lapin Agile is housed in a small cottage behind a row of trees.
Many people still frequent this cabaret, sitting at wooden tables where decades' worth of initials have been carved into the surfaces.
Located in a stone building on the steep and cobbled Rue des Saules, the cabaret presents visitors with French songs dating back as far as the 15th century.

It was formerly known as the Cabaret des Assassins.
The current name is a pun, derived from a sign painted by the humorist Andre Gill.
His painting of a rabbit escaping form a pot was originally Lapin (rabbit) a Gill -- painted by Gill and as if in a sauce by Gill. Later the name was modified to become Lapin Agile (the nimble rabbit). Some sources even refer to the tavern as "Lapina Gill."

OPEN: 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Admission: (was) 90 francs

Closed on Mondays

METRO : Lamarck Caulaincourt

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Edith Piaf lives (sort of..)

I was lucky enough to be there around harvest time at the rue des Saules vineyard.
Thirza Vallois has more excellent info as usual.

French songs from 9PM to 2AM.
Price : 24 € (including the 1st drink)
Following drinks : +7 € & 6 €
Students : 17 €
Close on Monday

Dress Code: No dress code here.
Only the history of the cabaret.
It exists since 1860. Its first name was the "Cabaret des Assassins" because of a painting showing a murder of a serial killer : Troppman.
In 1880, it was named "Le lapin Agile" (The Agile Rabbit) as a joke because the painter, Gill, made a picture on the wall with a rabbit leaping from a saucepan and it was said : it is "le lapin à Gill" (Gill's rabbit). A copy of the painting is still in exibit.
Roland Dorgeles and his friends set up here a huge trick.
They tied a brush to the tail of a donkey which realized some modern paintings (especially, A Sunset on the Adriatic) and they sold them as made by a new painter : BORONALI (the anagram of Aliboron, the name of the donkey).
The specialized critics found the work "very interesting".
Here, Picasso paid a lunch with the "Arlequin". You would pay less.

LAPIN AGILE

Traditional french singers

Dress Code: No jeans

Reservation is preferable,
because it's always full.
Montmartre
Arts/Performance Venues