EBG Rating: 8.2/10

Choice/Quality of Drinks:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
A superior selection on draft of 8-10 beers, some of which are reliable names, but with some local and regional craft from small independent brewers. A competent back bar for alternatives.

Style/Décor:
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Very effective decoration with retro-garage style fittings. Metal plate signage, engines and motors, colourfully and tastefully lit giving it a clear and distinct identity. An open plan room with bar to the left, pillars and seating with games to the rear.

Atmosphere/Character:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Other than festival times where it can veer towards trashy, there’s a genuine tempo, atmosphere and verve, somewhere you can take a partner for a fun drink or two, or go to play beer pong with your friends without those activities impinging on one another.

Amenities/Events:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Food, snacks, games.

Value For Money:
❤️❤️❤️
Typical for the area.

Description:
Of Bayonne’s best bars, Chez Ramina gives Bayonne its sporting colours and sense of institution, Dirty Old Cave provides a personal touch and specialist products, Patxoki grounds Bayonne’s bar culture in regional activism and punk fury. This leaves La Pétrolette, a late bar which is enticingly poised between a stylish and flamboyant evening hangout and a scuzzy alternative one. This seems to oscillate hour by hour depending on the groups in here, but its purpose is to provide a base to have fun in.

Does it help that there’s funky, colourful retro decor that has definitely had a bit of thought applied to it? Of course.

Does it help that there’s a range of drinks you could actually call superior for the city? Absolutely.

With Happy Hour and a pizza oven, they’re set up for your evening needs.

Be careful not to overlook this bar, as many of the photos online are taken during festivals where temporary decoration is in place and the whole city becomes a big bar crawl. The normal day to day is different, and it offers a genuine tempo, atmosphere and verve, somewhere you can take a partner for a fun drink or two, or go to play beer pong with your friends without those activities impinging on one another.

Clearly superior and locally loved, there’s no excuse – go get some!

(Added January 2026)