This is not the time to be seen sipping rare vintage champagne in public, remarked the head of one of France’s most prestigious champagne groups the other night. If you do feel the urge to crack open a bottle, it is far better to do so quietly at home behind closed doors, he suggests. For someone who should presumably be jumping on any opportunity to sell a few extra cases of expensive bubbly in this recessionary climate, such restraint is pretty impressive.

But not everybody seems to share such tact. Last week, two of Europe’s biggest casualties of the financial crisis felt there was no good reason to cancel extravagant bashes in one of the Mediterranean’s flashiest belle époque watering holes.