Vuitton has reopened its summer restaurant in Saint-Tropez, underlining the luxury label’s increasing investment in culinary experiences.

Located at the plush White 1921 Hotel near the House’s historical store, the restaurant reopens today with an updated menu served on the latest colorful Louis Vuitton tableware collection.

Last year, Vuitton’s Saint-Tropez restaurant was awarded a Michelin star, thanks to its updated Mediterranean fare—from marbled tomatoes and ravioli filled with girolles to roasted fowl with a fine velouté or brill meunière prepared with seaweed and citrus.

The reopening also marks this summer’s return of hyper-mediatic chefs Arnaud Donckele and Maxime Frédéric to Vuitton in Saint-Tropez. Donckele and Frédéric first connected with Vuitton’s parent company, LVMH, at the conglomerate’s five-star hotel in the French capital, Cheval Blanc Paris—most notably at Plénitude, the hotel’s three-star restaurant.

In Saint-Tropez, Vuitton’s restaurant is situated on the famed Place des Lices, site of the resort port’s renowned Provençal market each Tuesday and Saturday.

Beyond Saint-Tropez, Donckele and Frédéric play leading roles in developing the Louis Vuitton Culinary Community, mentoring emerging local talents around the world who, as Members, contribute to the Louis Vuitton luxury snacking vision.

Vuitton now boasts eateries in Milan, Tokyo, Osaka and Bangkok, each overseen by chefs within the Culinary Community. Vuitton cafés have also sprung up in Paris, New York, Bangkok, Japan, Chengdu and soon in Shanghai and Seoul. In effect, the Saint-Tropez restaurant is designed to trumpet Vuitton’s longer-term vision of extending the House’s concept of excellence and savoir-faire to hospitality around the world.

“We are dedicated to bringing customers a relaxed Louis Vuitton culinary experience—whether in Saint-Tropez or any other destination around the world,” said Donckele.

Added Frédéric, “The Culinary Community allows us to align the Louis Vuitton hospitality offering while still encouraging the chefs to flourish according to their own skills and creativity.”

The Saint-Tropez space blends a bright floral pattern similar to a motif seen in LV’s 2025 Women’s Resort collection, designed in a geometric pattern that reinterprets the Monogram Flowers and made in extra-white Limoges porcelain. The ambiance is enhanced with reinterpreted Objets Nomades pieces such as the Mini Bell Lamps designed by Barber & Osgerby and Zanellato/Bortotto’s lamps enclosed within interwoven leather.

Mixing seasonal and regionally sourced ingredients, the menu merges Mediterranean, French and global cuisines—from Wagyu beef in an aromatic bouillon to grilled bluetail lobster with a shiso-infused sauce to sole amidst locally grown herbs and flowers.

May the dining begin.

The Saks Global and Authentic Brands Group partnership has been a big talking point of late so it was good timing that Authentic’s CEO Jamie salter and Saks’ executive chairman Richard Baker were on stage together on day two of the World Retail Congress in London this week.

They said they believe the Authentic Luxury Group JV could boost margins, take control of luxury away from vendors and towards retail and make the most of the brand strength of Saks to drive global partnerships.

Authentic is well known as the acquisitive buyer of brands such as Nautica, Volcom, Aéropostale, Lucky Brand, Nine West, Ted Baker, Juicy Couture and many more. But while it had a presence at the higher-end, its 50/50 joint venture link-up with Saks Global last autumn was key.

“We wanted to get into the luxury space but it’s all about distribution,” said Salter. “When we look at brands, what is really important with us is that they can make the right margin. If you look at the business model today, margin is everything. Getting together with Saks was critical for us. If you are not making low-to-high-60s in the maintained margin it’s very difficult.”

Baker also commented on the rationale for the partnership, saying that in premium and luxury, there were too many vendors, too much discounting, and not enough margin. “We had to do it, or there would be no industry left in the United States.” With more than $9 billion in GMV, control of over 60% of the US luxury market, and the backing of Amazon, Salter and Baker believe they’re creating a next-gen model where retail, data, licensing and media converge.

The JV has bold ambitions and Salter said “the model truly works. But we’re not just in retail, we’re also in hospitality business, we’ll see Saks branded residences going out, which also means people will buy home products for those. We already have projects on the go, and have people in the Middle East and Asia Pacific looking at doing a Saks store, a condo and a hotel”.

For now, a key part of the deal is the newly launched Saks store within Amazon — a digital “walled garden” that preserves brand integrity while giving access to Amazon’s mega-sized global audience. Salter said that with Amazon building similar luxury platforms in the UK, Japan, India and the Middle East, within five years “luxury on Amazon is going to be the most natural thing you ever imagined because they have the most elegant execution and most reach of anyone in the world online”.

The link-up between the two also sees them overhauling the Saks business, cutting underperforming brands and prioritising premium partnerships.

And they’re helped in this process by customer data as they share over 250 million customer profiles across their businesses, offering them up-to-the-minute insight into who’s buying what, where, and why.

With that weapon to wield, Saks is likely to edit out 500-600 brands out and shift towards “controlled brands”, with a larger margin, aiming at around 20% of sales from these product ranges.