In its 1990s heyday, Cafe Gitane was an impossibly hip place where it wasn't uncommon to run into David Bowie or Helena Christensen during brunch. Opened by Luc Lévy, a former cabdriver from Paris by way of Casablanca, the Nolita cafeteria remained a regular stop for celebrities - sightings of Michelle Williams and Spike Jonze were reported into the 2010s - as well as, as this magazine once put it, "other people with lots of free time to steal glances at each other."