One day in June, a tall, clean-cut 30-year-old, wearing shorts and Loro Piana loafers, ambled into La Guérite, one of the most exclusive restaurants in one of the most exclusive towns in France. Tables here are so coveted that even the wealthiest of its clientele book weeks in advance and have to wait in line under the sweltering sun to make the short crossing to the tiny Mediterranean island off the coast of Cannes where it is located. But the young man strolled straight to the front of the queue, on to the first available boat and onwards to his usual table at the restaurant.

Christopher Eppinger has been a regular since soon after he bought a €7mn villa in the hills on the mainland. On one of the whitewashed walls near where he was sitting, a solitary bronze plaque read: “Christopher Eppinger. The Legend of La Guérite. 300 bottles of Cristal, June 13, 2024.” It commemorated Eppinger’s 30th birthday, which was held on the terrace here a year earlier. It really was legendary, Eppinger told me as he ordered us his usual lunch: burrata, truffle pasta, lobster, c?te de boeuf. The party started the night before at Eppinger’s mansion, where some of the guests arrived by helicopter, and continued the following day at La Guérite, where 300 golden bottles of Louis Roederer champagne, adorned with flaming sparklers, were carried into the restaurant on waiters’ shoulders.

Eppinger speaks with unfiltered confidence. His texts come in torrents, sometimes laced with abrasive and offensive language. At one point during our lunch, he pointed towards the ridge line of a hill in the distance, to the house he’d bought in 2024. He had named it Villa Mirta after his grandmother.