In anticipation of next summer’s run on Saint-Tropez after it is featured in Season 4 of The White Lotus, I traveled to the French Riviera to learn how the legendary Hotel Byblos, set right in the village of Saint-Tropez, was preparing for its close-up. Even before news of the HBO series broke, Byblos had been humming with preparations for its own major event next July: the hotel’s 60th anniversary and 60 years of its incendiary nightclub, Les Caves du Roy.
Though Mike White’s HBO drama is set at the hilltop Château de la Messardière, Byblos will be booked solid, and its nightclub, Les Caves du Roy, will be raging until 5 am.
Before delving into the lore of Byblos—built as a Mediterranean palace in homage to Brigitte Bardot—I must share my personal connection. In my 20s, my romance with Baron de Borchgrave unfolded over two summers in Saint-Tropez. We danced many nights at Les Caves du Roy, and I was enraptured by the glamour, fashion, and exclusivity of it all.
Revisiting Byblos was a pilgrimage for me. “Everything starts with my great-grandfather, Sylvain Floirat, who bought the hotel on a whim,” says Antoine Chevanne, the fourth-generation family owner. He runs Groupe Floirat, which also includes La Réserve in Saint-Jean-de-Luz in the French Basque Country and Les Manoirs de Tourgéville in Normandy. Floirat, Chevanne explains, built a substantial industrial and media empire and brought the same curiosity and audacity to Byblos. In 1967, Jean-Prosper Gay-Para—the Lebanese businessman who had just built the hotel—approached him to buy Byblos. Floirat, who knew nothing about hospitality, instantly accepted.
Chevanne took over as GM of Byblos in 2001 at age 28. “Mick and Bianca Jagger’s 1971 wedding, the artists, the rock stars—all this is family mythology. I witnessed moments that feel equally defining,” he tells me. He describes the night Lionel Richie gave a private concert and another when he opened Les Caves du Roy for a private party of 20, with international stars arriving at 1:30 am (some of the most famous people on the planet), the night running until sunrise. He refused to divulge names.
“For years, people came just for the nightclub,” Chevanne tells me. He brought in chef Nicola Canuti and opened Il Giardino, an intimate Mediterranean restaurant, and, he adds, the hotel is now known for its gastronomy. Canuti makes an unforgettable Veal Scaloppine al Limone, and for dessert, chefs wearing toques push a lemon sorbet cart. Chevanne also created the more casual B Lounge by the pool and the Skybar, which overlooks Saint-Tropez Bay.
At Byblos Beach Club on Pampelonne Beach, chef Allan Gonthier presents an elaborate menu featuring spiny lobster, grilled turbot, and octopus. The restaurant offers a delightful rosé list from Côte d’Azur and Provence producers, including Sainte-Marguerite, Château Minuty, and Fondugues-Pradugues, a biodynamic estate based in Ramatuelle.
When I ask about the nightclub, which was refurbished ten years ago, Chevanne defers to DJ Jack-E and says suggestively, “Les Caves du Roy has always been a place where the rules of ordinary life are temporarily suspended.”On this balmy May evening, DJ Jack-E arrives after a round of golf at the Saint-Tropez Golf Club. We drink Billecart-Salmon Le Rosé Champagne at the Skybar as we watch the sunset, and we talk about his astonishing 47 years at Les Caves du Roy and the wild nights with celebrities who engage in the extreme sport of Champagne one-upmanship.
“The secret of the night is that it’s ephemeral. Suddenly it’s October. All vanishes, like a legend,” Jack-E philosophizes. In high season, he works 65 nights, from midnight to 5 am, and lords over the VIP tables, which are reserved only by calling him directly. Every night, a queue of 400 people waits to enter. Les Caves admits a thousand people a night.
Les Caves du Roy, Jack-E tells me, is likely the world’s longest-running nightclub, so he sees multigenerational tables—grandfathers, sons, and grandsons—all in the VIP area, celebrating life. “Imagine—twentysomethings getting the tables of their grandfathers,” he says.
Saint-Tropez village and harbor.
Jack-E has 16 VIP tables to fill, and he always reserves two for unexpected regulars like Leonardo DiCaprio, who, he tells me, can stop in for half an hour or stay all night. “Bono and I have been friends since 1984, before he was famous. He comes with superstar friends and says, ‘Give me the mic,’ and boom, he sings. Those nights get crazy like fireworks,” he adds, noting that Bono lives between Antibes and Monaco. As for Quincy Jones, Jack-E had partied with him since the ‘60s—Jones used to stay until 5 am, with a nightcap at the club after closing.
Jack-E has gone through nine musical styles on his playlist: disco, funk, new wave like Depeche Mode, rock and roll like AC/DC and the Rolling Stones, reggae, Italian disco, house music, and techno (which he plays only at the start of the night because it isn’t really for his audience). “I play mostly house music for all the chic ladies,” he says.
Jack-E’s most outrageous stories center on Champagne indulgence and pageantry. Bottles are paraded from the far end of the club in a sparkler-lit procession. He launched the big-bottle program in 1988 after a Swedish footballer ordered 10 bottles of Louis Roederer Cristal. “So I had two guys carry out the first Methuselah, which cost 20,000 euros,” he recalls. Roederer produced 2,000 Methuselahs for the Millennium New Year, and in July 1999, Jack-E acquired 40% of them for the club.
The fierce competition between Roederer Cristal and Dom Pérignon intensified, with bottles featuring an illuminated logo in green or pink (for rosés). “Dom Pérignon killed it! Everyone wanted to show off the lit logo. They’d order 20, 30, 50, even 100 bottles at one table. And the next table would do the same,” Jack-E exclaims.
One night, Jack-E tells me, a guest hoping to impress Paris Hilton commissioned a custom gift to surprise her: a Goyard trunk containing a Salmanazar of Perrier-Jouët Belle Époque Champagne, along with a Van Cleef & Arpels necklace and earrings.
One of Jack-E’s biggest nights was in 1998 after the French team won their first World Cup and three days later, they came to celebrate at Les Caves. Another was when Joe Cocker performed for the 40th anniversary. “Next July 22, we’ll have a big name for our blowout 60th,” Jack-E teases. Given his multigenerational appeal and his status as a Lady Gaga fan since her album Cheek to Cheek with Tony Bennett, I guessed Gaga. Or could it be Bono or maybe Mick Jagger? He was tight-lipped but urged me to come next year for one of the wildest nights of my life, when, in Chevanne’s prophetic words, the rules are suspended.
