Historian, gastronome, and passionate mixologist Franck Audoux is anything but a conformist; five years after opening

CRAVAN

, the city’s smallest cocktail bar in the 16th arrondissement, he embarked on a daring expansion, transforming a five-floor, 17th-century building in Saint-Germain-des-Prés into a sprawling temple of mixology. Unveiled in 2023,

the second location takes a page from the historic literary salons and cafés that made the Saint-Germain neighborhood legendary, featuring three distinct cocktail bars, a library curated in partnership with Rizzoli NY, an atelier, and even a rooftop cinema.

Complementing Audoux’s bold proposition, Paris-based Belgian designer

Ramy Fischler

’s singular design ethos pays homage to the building’s storied past while channelling the avant-garde spirit of its namesake, Arthur Cravan—a 20th-century Swiss Surrealist poet, boxer, and provocateur.

The result is a multi-layered destination that straddles heritage and modernity reflecting the art of mixology.

As Audoux himself has noted, the history of the cocktail in France is one of dualities: an imported American invention that became entangled with debates over taste and tradition.

With CRAVAN, he seeks to resolve this tension with signature cocktails that are at once innovative and balanced, served up in a space that feels both nostalgic and contemporary.

The building, the last historic structure on its boulevard, has been lovingly preserved and reimagined, blending original 17th-century features with bold, modern interventions, with each floor telling a distinct story where Fischler’s eye for harmony shines—although the spaces have been designed as a Dadaist collage, they don’t feel disjointed or chaotic.

Connecting all four floors are two staircases that encapsulate the scheme’s past-meets-present duality; one is a period wooden construction, the other a bright red industrial design.

On the ground floor, the “grand” bar nods to the Art Nouveau aesthetic of the original Cravan in the 16th arrondissement, which occupies a café dating from 1911.

Thonet chairs, quilted banquettes, and painstakingly restored decorative ceramic tiles transport patrons back to the Belle Époque

, while the refurbished 17th-century woodwork hints at the building’s origins, creating a space that feels and timeless.

A radical change in ambience unfolds on the first floor, where the second bar channels the glamorous 1970s with its two-tone marble bar counter and mirrored chrome walls, the chevron pattern of the latter playfully echoing the design of the parquet flooring and forest green carpet.

The bar counter’s flamboyant design pays homage to “Le Drugstore Saint-Germain”—a one-stop venue for shopping, dining, drinking, and music inspired by American-style drugstores, which reached their heyday in the late 1960s and 1970s

—while the backdrop of wood panelling and integrated landscape paintings adds a more sophisticated warmth.

Marrying intellectual exploration with sensory delight, one floor up, the library curated by Rizzoli NY offers a treasure trove of antique books and design tomes. Here, a mobile metal arched bookshelf adds a contemporary twist, while velvet sofas invite guests to linger and leaf through the pages while enjoying a serene panoramic view of Place Saint-Germain.

Meanwhile, the third-floor bar offers an intimate, almost monastic experience. Faded frescoes on the walls, restored timber ceiling beams, and stone fireplaces imbue the space with a sense of age-old tranquillity, while sleek contemporary furnishings inject a modern edge.

A stark bar counter in stainless steel and terrazzo anchors the space, featuring a minimalist display backdrop that showcases CRAVAN’s exclusive collection of bottled cocktails

. Ethereally illuminated by candles dispersed among the bottles, the shelving unit creates a captivating interplay of light and shadow.

Just like Fischler’s interiors, each drink on the menu is a study in balance in line with Audoux’s philosophy of cocktail-making which he describes as both poetic and scientific. Underpinned by his deep understanding of the cocktail’s history in France—his own book “

French Moderne: Cocktails from the Twenties and Thirties with recipes” by Rizzoli

can be found in the second-floor library—CRAVAN’s offerings are deceptively simple in composition yet complex in taste. From classics to new creations to champagne cocktails (the bar was established in partnership with Moët Hennessy), every cocktail showcases the purity of carefully sourced ingredients. The

Mad Collins

, a refreshing combination of gin, ginger, and sparkling water, is a case in point, as is the opulent

French 75

, which pairs Agastache gin and absinthe with champagne, while

The Lady from Shanghai

, a mix of white peach gin, jasmine tea, and lime cordial, proves that even the most audacious combinations can achieve elegance and sophistication.

True to Audoux’s visionary, non-conformist ethos, CRAVAN also features “the worlds smallest cinema,” open to a small number of few guests every evening

. In fact, not only is it tiny, but it’s also perched on the roof. Accessed through an unmarked door and a secret staircase that crosses the roof, the “cinema” housed in a wrought-iron kiosk overlooking the boulevard is an experience that encapsulates and epitomizes the CRAVAN spirit: unexpected, intimate, and entirely unforgettable.