The station is located under Boulevard Voltaire, northwest of the Rue Saint-Ambroise exit.

Saint-Ambroise station was opened on 10 December 1933 following the extension of Line 9 from Richelieu–Drouot to Porte de Montreuil.

Its namesake is the street it is located under (Rue Saint-Ambroise), where a church bearing the same name can also be found.

The church was rebuilt following a decree of 24 January 1863 during the modernisation of the newly created Saint-Ambroise district.

The lighting strips are white and rounded in the Gaudin style of the metro revival of the 2000s (although they have a second row of reflectors, a prototype variant that was not reused), and the white ceramic tiled tiles cover the walls, the vault, the tunnel exits, and the outlets of the corridors.