There is no restaurant more synonymous with Paris than Maxim’s, the legendary gastronomic and piano jazz haunt on the Rue Royale, equidistant between the Madeleine and the Place de la Concorde. It’s where Brigitte Bardot danced barefoot late into the night, where Jane Birkin cheekily slipped Maxim’s embossed china under her skirt on the way out following a holiday feast, where top 1960s-era model Antonia attempted to enter the restaurant with a live panther in tow, and where society swans, wealthy tycoons, movie stars, and celebrities mingled over French cuisine. It’s an Art Nouveau fever dream of mahogany, scarlet, and gold; of sinewy mirrors and pattered glass ceilings and whiplash statement lamps. Nearly everyone of note has dined and danced there since its beginnings in the Belle Epoque, when a young water named Maxime Gaillard opened the bistro in 1893, just six years after the Eiffel Tower appeared across the Seine. In the century and some change since, Maxim’s has survived two world wars, two global pandemics, the Great Depression, the fall of fine dining, and eras of different ownership, making it the most famous restaurant in the world. Following some beauty sleep, it’s been dusted off and restored to its former Belle Epoque glory by French hospitality group Paris society, who have revitalized it for the 2020s and its 130th anniversary.

Given its closure to the public for the past 14 years, it’s fair to say that Maxim’s lost its luster. Maxim’s lost its three Michelin stars in 1978 and, by the 1980s, the devoted client-turned-owner French designer Pierre Cardin—who accepted the former proprietor’s request that he purchase it to keep it from falling into foreign hands—opened outposts in far-flung locations like Tokyo, Chicago, and Mexico City.

Nevertheless, the legend lived on, and Maxim’s had enough cachet to book private events and dinners, and to license its legendary name to some 200 products, including champagne, chocolates, ashtrays (obviously), perfume, silk scarves, and coffee mugs. Maxim’s fell out of fashion, more so a place to relive the past than to make a moment.