Le Bœuf sur le Toit, a brasserie on rue du Colisée since 1922

Le Bœuf sur le Toit, a brasserie and music hall in the 8th arrondissement, opened on 10 January 1922 on rue Boissy-d’Anglas. Louis Moysès, from the Ardennes, moved his bar La Gaya there and named it after Darius Milhaud and Jean Cocteau’s ballet, so that their circle would follow.

On opening night the pianist Jean Wiéner played Gershwin, with Cocteau and Milhaud on drums; Picasso, Diaghilev, René Clair and Maurice Chevalier were in the room. Beneath Picabia’s L’Œil cacodylate came jazz, Bach and Cole Porter. Musicians from other clubs came to play after hours, and the French phrase faire un bœuf, to jam, was born here.

Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, Satie, Stravinsky, Josephine Baker and Charles Trenet were among the regulars. The house moved several times, along rue Boissy-d’Anglas, to rue de Penthièvre and avenue Pierre-Ier-de-Serbie, before settling in 1941 at 34 rue du Colisée, where it remains.

Near the Champs-Élysées, its interior, redesigned by Alexis Mabille, pays tribute to the 1920s to the 1940s. The brasserie serves Parisian classics to piano music, the music hall stages its shows, and the bar mixes cocktails created with Hennessy.