Favourite of Ernest Hemingway, birthplace of the Bloody Mary, haunt of generations of expat Americans in Paris – there are few watering holes that can boast the legacy of Harry’s New York Bar.

The venerable establishment marked its 100th birthday yesterday, but remains what it has always been – a small corner of Manhattan in the heart of Paris.

Tucked away on a side street in central Paris under a red-and-gold neon sign, Harry’s Bar could not be more different from the traditional French brasseries and bistros that surround it.

Behind an aged wooden bar, white-aproned barmen expertly mix the driest of Martinis or pour out tumblers of single-malt Scotch. No coffee or wine is served in the evening and there is no music or television to distract from conversation.

“It’s not a trendy place,” owner Isabelle MacElhone said in a quiet corner of the bar, “but this is why it will never be out of fashion”.

The MacElhones have been at the heart of Harry’s Bar since its opening on Thanksgiving Day 1911 – an event that was marked yesterday with a party for 300 guests and the publication of a book on the bar’s history. Harry MacElhone, a Scot from Dundee, was hired as bartender by original owner Tod Sloane, an American jockey living in Paris who opened The New York Bar after complaining he could not find a proper cocktail in the French capital. Sloane ended up selling the bar to MacElhone in 1923.

The bar became a favourite of American expats in Paris, especially the “Lost Generation” of writers of the 1920s that included F. Scott Fitzgerald and the hard-drinking Hemingway, a regular for many years and a close friend of the MacElhone family.

It has hosted film stars from Humphrey Bogart to Clint Eastwood and featured in works of fiction.

Ian Fleming’s fictional spy James Bond called Harry’s the best place to get a “solid drink” in Paris – and it was said to be where George Gershwin composed the music for An American in Paris.