Maxim's decline leaves Cardin with food for thought

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It is a long time since Maxim's was at the cutting edge of French cuisine. The restaurant is no longer even mentioned in the Michelin guide. But it has always maintained a certain cachet, partly because of its splendid location, just off the Place de la Concorde, partly because of the political and show-business celebrities who enjoyed being seen there.

An unseemly food-fight has now broken out. On the one side, there is the owner of Maxim's, the couturier Pierre Cardin, who claims that he is starved of the credit he deserves for rescuing a Parisian landmark. On the opposite side, there are the restaurant critics, and many former clients of Maxim's, who protest that Cardin has permitted the old place to sink into astronomically priced mediocrity. Cardin, they allege, is chiefly interested in Maxim's as a trademark, which he can franchise around the world. (He is just about to open a 1,000-seat Maxim's in Shanghai).

The final blow, it would seem, to Maxim's reputation is the decision of the Club des Cent (the club of 100), an exclusive Parisian lunching and dining club, to move its general assembly to another restaurant. Since as long as anyone can remember, the meeting has been held at Maxim's.

The members of the Club des Cent include the former Prime Minister, Pierre Messmer, the former foreign minister, Jean Francois-Poncet, the celebrated chef, Paul Bocuse, and, embarrassingly, Pierre Cardin himself. To join, you have to be a) famous, b) highly recommended by other members and c) pass a complicated gastronomic quiz. You might, for instance, according to the newspaper Le Figaro, be asked the following: "You leave Paris at 9am to drive to Bordeaux. At which starred restaurant do you stop for lunch?"

A new question might be: "What is wrong with Maxim's?" The Gault Millau guide says: "The prices are as chilling as its ambience." Other critics complain that the food is poor and unadventurous and - final insult - the flowers on the tables are artificial.

To all this, Mr Cardin responded in an interview in Le Figaro yesterday that he was in the midst of a multi-million pound refit of Maxim's. The Club des Cent, he said, were "marvellous people" but "old people". "Maxim's is tomorrow not yesterday. I don't just want fat bellies in my restaurant. People come here for one of the most beautiful settings in the world, not just to stuff themselves."

Asked what he had done for Maxim's, he went on to confirm his critics' worst suspicions. "The former owners, so-called professionals, did nothing with this name," he said. "I have created [Maxim's] cigars, spectacles, saucepans, mineral- waters, chocolates, watches, truffles, champagne ... "