Jean Cocteau once remarked, “Paris will be foutu the day that Maxim’s disappears.” But somehow, everyone survived the Rue Royale stalwart’s recent years-long shutdown.
Maxim’s returned just in time to celebrate its 130th birthday, and there are more eyes on its alarmingly opulent Art Nouveau décor—a listed French historical monument—than ever.
It had been a long time since anyone came to Maxim’s expecting an exalted culinary experience. Its most notorious regulars—Edward VII and Alphonso XIII, Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Elizabeth Taylor and husbands—have been dead for decades.
Now this grande dame has been relaunched by Paris Society, a rapidly growing restaurant and events group owned by entrepreneurial restaurateur Laurent de Gourcuff. The French press has heralded him as the new king of Parisian nightlife, and he specializes in a hybrid restaurant-nightclub with lots of atmosphere, over-the-top décor, and good food. Still, I wondered if de Gourcuff would be able to renew Maxim’s slightly moth-eaten allure now that social media has gutted the type of discreet glamour that was once its raison d’être.
One of the most well-known restaurants in the French capital, it was founded in 1893 as a simple little bistro by waiter Maxime Gaillard. Then Irma de Montigny, a well-born socialite and, later, courtesan, ducked in on the arm of Marquis Arnold de Contades on her way home from the Prix de Diane horse races. She succumbed to its charms and launched it as a Belle Époque watering hole by introducing it to her many friends and admirers. The glamour generated by its clientele and louche atmosphere was always the best reason to come here, and the kitchen had drifted off into a polite senescence even before the 2020 death of its previous owner, designer Pierre Cardin.
Walking to what would be my fourth meal here during the nearly 40 years I’ve lived in Paris, I couldn’t help but wonder if my impending lunch would be more taxidermic than gastronomic. I’d first heard of Maxim’s as an 11-year-old boy while reading one of the polite porn novels my grandmother would buy in airports and train stations. “The Baron had come for her,” one of the authors might have written. “After he’d popped a champagne cork and unlaced her corset, they’d have supper at a dimly lit corner table at Maxim’s.”
It was the memories of that steamy supper that prompted me to book a table at Maxim’s on a Saturday night three days after I’d moved to Paris, in 1986. I dined alone, because I knew no one, and the waiter rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue every time I tried to speak French. But the mahogany-and-red-velvet interior designed by Louis Marnez, dominated by paintings and glassworks from Hector Guimard, Émile Gallé, and Jacques Majorelle, intrigued me. The waxy foie gras, stringy roast duck, and cloying crêpes Suzette didn’t really matter. Ultimately, the nasty waiter made it such an excruciating experience I vowed I’d never set foot there again.
As I was leaving, a long-haired lady gave me her card with just a single name—Dalida—and invited me to her friend’s club in Montmartre that night. “Ne soyez pas triste! Venez me voir ce soir!” she implored with a husky accent I couldn’t place. Too strung out by Maxim’s, I went back to my hotel and had a scotch in the bar instead. It was a year before I realized I’d missed out on a performance by France’s most celebrated torch singer.
The second time I ate at Maxim’s, I was an editor at Fairchild Publications and had been invited by designer Pierre Cardin. The décor intrigued me all over again, but the most indelible memory of this meal was when Cardin presented me with an ankle-length primary-color-blocked wool overcoat and insisted I wear it as we walked down the Rue Saint-Honoré to our respective offices after lunch. It provoked outbursts of laughter from every other person we passed.
Take three was to review Maxim’s for a British guidebook to Paris. The same nasty waiter I’d had 10 years earlier ruined a pretty mediocre dinner made memorable only by spotting Audrey Hepburn picking at a salad at a corner table, accompanied by a brawny man with a boxer’s often-broken nose.
This fourth time round, and now under the ownership of de Gourcuff, my friend Véronique joined me for dinner there in November. The table next to us was occupied by the design team of Hermès—a good sign. We ate frog’s legs and a nicely made cheese soufflé, and then shared a sea bass for two with sauce Choron. It was competent cooking, using good produce, at fair prices. Pâtissier Yann Couvreur’s tarte Tatin and chocolate mousse with Calvados sabayon and tonka-bean ice cream was the high point of our meal.
I doubted I’d ever return to Maxim’s again, since a quadruple dose of its décor seemed more than enough for one lifetime. But a thunderstorm a week later proved me wrong. Standing under an awning on the Rue Royale waiting for the deluge to stop, I ran into Françoise, a talented painter who’d lived catty-corner to me on the Rue du Bac years ago. She insisted we go for a drink, but I couldn’t think of a good bar.
“I can,” she replied. “Come!” At seven p.m., the bar at Maxim’s was heaving with a great-looking young crowd. At her insistence, we ordered two campy cocktails, an Onassis (rye with cashew syrup, bitters, and Noix de la Saint Jean) and a Callas (rosé champagne with honey water, Lillet rosé, and lemon juice).
“There are no good bars in the heart of Paris anymore except Maxim’s,” Françoise said. “My brother told me about it, and even though it’s silly-expensive, I’ve been here three times this week.”
There’s a little bit of la vie en rose on the Rue Royale again after all.
Alexander Lobrano is a Writer at Large at AIR MAIL. His latest book is the gastronomic coming-of-age story My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris