SIRIO The Story of My Life and Le Cirque
Sirio Maccioni and Peter Elliott John Wiley and Sons, 2004
Six decades of stuffing food into me, leads me to conclude there are really two types of eating places. The first, accessible to 95% of the public are places you go to eat, the other are places you go to be seen. These 5% are famous for their food, their chef, or their owner-host. Getting into the joint is the main challenge to dining in these places. After one is admitted then you are studied briefly and if you are important to the host for any number of criteria, given a table and expected to order and act as the wait staff expects. From what I gather the Maccioni family's Le Cirque is such a place. If you are the type of patron Sig. Maccioni finds acceptable then you get a good table and attentive service, if not you are probably moved along quite quickly so your table can be filled more appropriately. This is not to say that the food is very good at Le Cirque as Sig. Maccioni takes great effort to hire great chefs and feature innovative cuisine.
This autobiographical book has a lot of recipes which attest to the Maccioni mastery of ingredients and presentation and take up a good part of the 386 pages of text. I think Peter Elliott has tried to distill the essence of the volatile Tuscan personality of Sirio and forgives him his excesses. Between the lines you can appreciate Maccioni's commitment to his trade, his honesty and candor. He is the epitome of what a host should be, which is part of the Italian tradition of service and respect. So among the celebrities who have patronized Le Cirque, Frank Sinatra, differed on food preparation and semi boycotted the place. While at the first Reagan inaugural, Maccioni, when asked admitted to less then ardent support in the recent election. I'm sure Sirio never volunteered that bit of information but when asked he was honest.
From my time peddling wine, I know how competitive restaurants can be, how factors beyond an owner's control can affect a business and how burned out an owner can be. Most owner's have to deal with staff, unions, providers, landlords and partners silent and otherwise. The Maccioni's have succumbed to the latest trend of multiple locations, with the typical problems of loss of quality control. Still not being the chef has made it easy to keep up the quality level for Sirio's family.
I must confess, having dined at some of the best places in Italy, I have no desire to eat at Le Cirque for the food. If I'm in New York, it's a good Jewish deli, or steak house like the Palm or Peter Lugar's for me, but I've always wondered how it would be at "21" or Le Cirque. I've daydreamed about selling them some wine or going there with my publisher. Anyone else who'd like the Le Cirque treatment would appreciate reading this book. Enjoy.