18 May 2006

Le Cirque Will Be Unbroken

Well, here's a happy reversal. Le Cirque, one of those classic restaurants whose very name says "New York," will return on May 30 after having disappeared, seemingly for good, in 2004.

It's new location—it's third—will be in the Bloomberg Building (ensuring it will smiled upon by our Richie Rich mayor) at 151 East 58th Street. The original opened at 65th Street and Park Avenue in 1974. The crassly named successor, Le Cirque 2000, which nobody really liked much, was at the equally crass New York Palace hotel from 1997 to 2004.

Famed host Sirio Maccioni will still be in charge. He is 74, but told the Times "I'm too old to retire," which is one of the most nonsensical statements I've ever heard. Sirio spend a $18 million of the new joint.

According to the Times, the centerpiece of the cafe will be a tower of wine, where the sommelier will keep "the better bottles of red wine." The finer whites will have to make do with the subterranean gulley of wine, one would assume. Fine way to treat a Montrachet.

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