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Lessons From a Larger-Than-Life Restaurateur
Le Cirque’s Sirio Maccioni was one of a kind
Le Cirque is French for “the circus,” and Sirio Maccioni, who died this week in Tuscany, was every bit the ringleader of the once-legendary New York restaurant. It’s hard to understand a person’s magnetism without being in front of them. It wasn’t just his bravado, good looks, and commanding presence. Anyone who was in Sirio’s company knew they were in the presence of someone larger than life.
In the mid-1990s, I was early in my tenure as a young chef in the original Le Cirque on east 65th Street, where I ended up working for around five years. The restaurant was a couple of years away from closing its doors to relocate, and we were hosting a collaborative dinner billed as the “Dinner of the Millennium.” Chefs from four different Michelin three-star restaurants were in the house: Paul Bocuse, Alain Ducasse, Roger Verge, and Gerard Boyer.
So it was understandable that nearly the entire kitchen team was enjoying their family meals in the presence of these culinary legends. I’m not sure why I wasn’t out there, too, but I was with a couple of other cooks eating back in the kitchen…
