Le Baron Rouge

At weekends a young man shucks oysters on the pavement outside Le Baron Rouge and serves them by the half dozen on a tangle of seaweed, and inside the barrels are stacked to the ceiling.2 1 The bar sits at the corner of the Marché d'Aligre and works to the market's rhythm.1

Why go

The barrels are not decoration. Regulars bring an empty bottle, pay fifty centimes for it and have it filled from the casks by the door, and David Lebovitz, who has done this weekly, is honest about the result: the wines "vary in quality from 'pretty-good' to 'what do we do with the rest of the bottle?'"2 The bottles on the blackboard are a different proposition, and Time Out's line for the room is that it is a blue-collar bar with "no time for pretentious oenophiles."1 You eat standing. Lebovitz's own order is a platter of cheese or charcuterie piled on a crust of baguette.2

Order this / avoid

Oysters at the weekend, by the half or the full dozen, shucked outside.2
Sancerre with them, or a robust red with a plate of charcuterie.1
Lebovitz's own order: a cheese platter, large or small, treated as a meal.2
Ask before you choose. Lebovitz: "if you ask for advice, whatever they point you toward, it's usually worth sampling."2
Avoid arriving for dinner. They shut before the evening gets going, which is Lebovitz's own complaint about the place.2

What locals & experts say

Time Out Paris scored it four out of five and named what it is for: Le Baron Rouge is a lifeline for food lovers who turn up at the Aligre market just as the stallholders are putting away their wares, and who feel like they might be about to die of hunger.1
And on the crowd, which is the reason to arrive early: If you arrive a little late for after-work drinks, there's no hope of getting even half an elbow on the bar, you'll be out on the pavement along with pretty much everybody else.1
David Lebovitz, who lives here and goes weekly, on the refill habit: I'll sometimes bring my own green-glass bottle and buy wine, which is stockpiled in the enormous wooden barrels lined up by the door. (You leave 50 centimes for the bottle, which I do, and it's refillable or replaceable on subsequent visits.)2
And on the room itself: There's lots of regulars hanging out here, which makes you feel like you've crashed an insider's-only place.2
The room is on Time Out's list of the hundred best bars in the city.1

Good to know

No bookings. It is a bar with barrels for tables and you take your chance.
Mid-morning works, because the market is going and the bar is already open.2
I have found nothing published about this room since 2012, so the judgments above are all more than a decade old.
Hygiene: I have not read a French inspection record for this room, so I have nothing to report either way.

Jeff's take (his words)

Note: "Casual for wine and oysters. -- It's a little bit messy; you stand on the street by a wine barrel, and you eat oysters with your hands. People bring their own bottles to fill up with wine and take home. try their rabbit pâté;"

Verdict

should-visit — Go at the weekend, when they shuck oysters on the pavement, and bring an empty bottle if you want wine to take home. Time Out put it among the hundred best bars in the city and David Lebovitz calls it one of his own favourites. Both of those judgments are more than a decade old.

Le Baron Rouge.