Barbès

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This Park Slope bar and performance space is named after a neighborhood in Paris, and the scruffy creatifs who frequent it are straight out of a Renoir film. Wooden tables and chairs line the perimeter in true French café style and wall light fixtures with bare bulbs and forty-five records for bases bathe the compact space in a dreamlike glow. Barbès attracts a unique array of local jazz, experimental and world musicians—from a solo violinist to the weekly Slavic Soul Party featuring a nine-piece Balkan Brass Band. When the music rebounds off the punched tin ceilings and black-and-blue tile floors, the back room crammed with folding chairs can get loud and raucous. After shows, Slopers under the influence of the turn-of-the-century-inspired cocktails on offer (featuring chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, amaro, etc.) spill out onto the front sidewalk and smoke the night away. — Tim O’Keefe

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