Results tagged “lecirque”

            

Fifty years ago, chef and food writer James Beard consulted on the very first menu at the Four Seasons restaurant. Beard's input helped galvanize the kitchen in its early days, and over the last 50 years the Four Seasons has developed and maintained its position as the city's preeminent Caesar salad and power lunch spot, complete with seating charts that are more detailed than most star maps. On Saturday afternoon, the James Beard Foundation honored the Four Seasons' co-owners Alex von Bidder and Julian Niccolini at their annual Chefs & Champagne event.

Plated delivers the origin story of a dish as told by a restaurant’s chefs and/or owners. Today’s plate is a decidedly non-vegetarian Rabbit, Foie Gras, and Bacon Terrine off the Chef’s Tasting Menu at Le Cirque. The menu honors the famed restaurant’s 1974 grand opening (perhaps you’ve seen the recent documentary); Craig Hopson joined Le Cirque as executive chef last November. This dish is one of six that Hopson cooked for the Maccioni family, and one that ultimately got him the job.

Following a set of mediocre reviews, Pierre Schaedelin was brought on last December as the new executive chef at Alain Ducasse’s Benoit. The 40-year-old, it was announced, would also be a partner in the restaurant, which is modeled after an archetypal bistro that’s been open in Paris since 1912 (Ducasse's restaurant group assumed ownership in 2005). Schaedelin has an old school French chef background, for sure—all terrines, torchons, and rabbit sausage. He’s also developed some serious media chops during the last decade, having first worked for Sirio Maccioni at Le Cirque and then as Martha Stewart’s personal chef. At Benoit the prices have come down—a two-course lunch is now $19; three courses are $24—and Schaedelin is happy about that. Above all, he seems to like talking about cooking more than anything else, and he does so in an unstuffy way—we spoke with him last week about the relaxing parts of Top Chef, tarte flambée, and diner food on Sundays.

Anyone who toils as a cater waiter long enough eventually hears a horrible truth about the job: Clients at these uptight gala events routinely add a decent tip to their payment, but that money almost always ends up in the pockets of managers, not servers. Yesterday lawyer Maimon Kirschenbaum filed class action suits on behalf of waiters trying to claim their tips from the private catering operations at the Central Park Boathouse, Pier Sixty, and Le Cirque (pictured). He tells Grub Street that Pier Sixty is the worst of the three, because servers aren't allowed to accept tips during the course of a private party: "If you're really drunk at a wedding and you pull out a $100 bill and hand it to them, they're instructed to tell you, 'The host of this party has already given a gracious gratuity and I'm going to have to reject it.'"

    

Last night Gourmet magazine held a big party at the soon-to-open Shang, a new restaurant helmed by the acclaimed, formerly Toronto-based chef Susur Lee. In an uncharacteristically non-restaurant world domineering move, Lee closed his Toronto flagship restaurant (called Susur) in May in order to concentrate fully on his New York opening. Shang, which means growing upwards, will open next month.

Le Cirque owner Sirio Maccioni, who's been known to lash out at critics by publicly trashing their "ugly" wives, has agita all over again. The cause this time is a perceived betrayal by interior designer and architect Adam Tihany, who did Le Cirque's current home. His crime? Taking a job redesigning Daniel, which is located in the original Le Cirque space and operated by French chef Daniel Boulud, who ran Le Cirque's kitchen until an acrimonious meltdown with Maccioni. Now Maccioni "seethes" in a great stream-of-consciousness rant to Gael Greene that "Adam Tihany will never do anything for me again. I should have 10% cent of everything Adam earns. I should have 5% from everyone who copies the crème brulee—I would be rich. And the bass with potatoes that everyone copies. People stop now to work for the glory and just work for the money. People tell me Le Cirque should do pizza delivery and crème brulée delivery. I’m a single person. I’m a family." If Sirio seems a little confused, it's probably just because he's preoccupied with the impending truffle season.

This week in the Times, Bruni three-stars Le Cirque, bumping the restaurant's rating up from the two stars he awarded it in 2006. Executive chef Christophe Bellanca’s menu “nimbly straddles the line between predictable decadence… and creative flair,” he says. He also says that you’ll pay—a lot—for what you get, and that Le Cirque isn’t quite as reliable as other three star restaurants.

Fans of the neo-Gilded Age New York fantasy show Gossip Girl are so going to love this news: the fictional grilled fontina cheese sandwich with truffle oil ordered by Serena van der Woodsen in the show’s pilot is now a real sandwich! Zagat’s website reports that the item is now permanently part of the bar menu at Gilt – the very location where cameras filmed actress Blake Lively being served the sandwich. Once just a...

The most expensive dessert in the world (pictured) used to be the $14,500 “Fortress Aquamarine” served at a luxury resort in Sri Lanka. But today Sri Lankans can choke on their gilded shame, for the Upper East Side’s Serendipity 3 has put America back on top with a $25,000 triumph called the Frrrozen [sic] Haute Chocolate. Break out your giant diamond-encrusted foam fingers, because the Guinness Book of World Records will now list this as...

The massive $7,000 truffle acquired by Le Cirque owner Sirio Maccioni sits vulnerably under glass just steps from the restaurant’s doors. But Mauro Maccioni, who helps run the place with his brother Marco, says he’s not worried about any truffle-burglars scrambling off with the famous fungus. “They’d never make it. But that reminds me – my father was one of the first people to bring truffles to New York; he tells a story about a well-known restaurant critic who picked up a truffle and wondered why we had an Idaho potato on display.”

Clutched like a shot put by a chef in Le Cirque's kitchen, here’s a photo we took of that $7000 truffle that has been making the news this week- it even landed in the Daily News' gossip pages. In true Page 6 style, we became ad hoc truffle paparazzi Tuesday night in an effort to score a candid of the truffle at the restaurant. Armed with our crummy digital camera and generally warded off by Le Cirque valets, we knew the moment had arrived when the delivery car pulled up: From 5 yards away, the October air literally filled with the smell of truffles as the car doors opened.

Le Cirque owner Sirio Maccioni made big news recently by dropping $7,000 on a single white truffle, telling the Post, “Once in a while, you have to be crazy.” Indeed, the highly coveted tubers – which at Le Cirque are often shaved sparingly onto pastas or used for tortellini filling – are known to drive chefs and gourmands mad with ecstasy. (Melissa Hom, who took the above photo for Grub Street, snapped a hilarious shot of Le Cirque’s kitchen team partying around Sirio’s huge score.)

One of the city's biggest industries is the tourism, and the city announced a major push to keep the tourists coming in. Mayor Bloomberg and other officials kicked off the " first-ever global multimedia communications campaign to promote New York City." An advertising campaign titled "This is New York City" will features outdoor posters, internet advertising and a TV spot. Plus, the NYCVisit website features ways for visitors to plan their trip.

- And finally, any email with the subject line "Pork and Beer Night" is enough to catch our attention. Starting December 17th, Porchetta's Jason Neroni will be hosting Pork and Beer Nights, with a four-course pairing menu featuring Heritage Foods USA pork and beer from American Beer. $45. 241 Smith Street, Brooklyn, 718-237-9100.

1. A girl was shot after a community center Halloween party on Saturday - and there may be a link to the Chicken Noodle rappers
2. From Upper East Side mansion to 7 World Trade Center: The Academy of the Sciences have moves downtown
3. Fun fact: 73% of the city's registered domestic partnerships are for straight couples
4. Alan Hevesi is persona-non-grata the Democrats' Election Day party... politics is so like high school!
5. Buy your own CBGB's chairs on eBay:
6. Le Cirque and Hawaiian Tropic Zone have really good publicists, given the ink they get... and why aren't we surprised that Mets hottie David Wright would be at Hawaiian Tropic Zone?
7. NBC might be a one-show-about-sketch-comedy network, as it could be axing Studio 60
8. The Knicks waive Jalen Rose... it's too early to say anything about season's Knicks team, but they've gotta be better than last season's (maybe they'll just have the second worst season ever)

- Le Cirque - It's a pretty hilarious article - and we hope this means Charlie has earned her street cred as a beat reporter.

">Bruni two-stars Little Owl, says “It has an irresistible earnestness and exuberance that explain its instant, well-deserved popularity.” Also, he really likes the pork chop. Chef Joey Campanero, formerly executive chef at The Harrison and Pace, gets kudos for “disciplined cooking,” as does manager and co-owner Gabriel Stulman, for “real hospitality.”

Bruni two-stars Le Cirque, experiences it’s "famously split personality, half dismissive and half pampering, depending on who you are,” first brought to light by Ruth Reichl at the start of her reign as Times critic. Finds the restaurant itself full of old people, not so exciting. And Eater calls the BruniBetting right this week.

Adam Platt takes a first stab at the new Le Cirque, awarding it two out of five stars in New York Magazine this week. He's certainly not wowed, but not thoroughly disappointed either. Some excerpts to whet your whistle:

, taking readers behind the scenes at both magazines, as well as through celebrity encounters, a stint at Beautyscene.com, and into her present dual life as working woman and Westchester mom of two. Extolling her love of yoga and its beauty-enhancing properties, Godfrey-June also shares makeup tips and favorite products and shortcuts. She describes a perfume by Lev Glazman as being “like Le Cirque versus McDonald’s: The inside of one person’s mind versus something a stadium full of people can agree on.” During a busy day, she took the time to tell Gothamist about her love for the word "operative," the shampoo and mascara she swears by, sorting through hundreds of beauty products each week, dry nail polish, and her ideal perfume container.

Bruni two-stars Degustation. The restaurant is the latest incarnation of Jewel Bako Robato, which had previously morphed into Grace's Kalbi Bar, and is a part of the Grace & Jack Lamb East Village empire. Creativity "courses through the concise lineup of dishes," says Bruni.

Just over a year old, but with a window full of gastronomic accolades, former Le Cirque pastry chef Iacopo Falai's eponymously named Clinton Street joint radiates with new flavor and experimentation of Florentine style brought to the Lower East Side. With white tile, white tables, white chairs, white candles, and a white-bricked garden, Falai relies upon the reflections of dining patrons in the mirrors and the color of food on plates to bring color where color is due. When Gothamist visited on a recent night, reservations were required even for an early seat--upon sitting waiters hovered with the night's menu, immediately taking beverage orders and reciting the evening's specialties.

This summer has been one docu after another in the art house theaters. If you've seen enough talking heads, soft money and political intrigue to last you until the next election cycle, might we recommend a documentary on a topic near and dear to the Gothamist heart: New York restaurants.

Say the word "chocolate" and Gothamist swoons with thoughts of deep, dark rich pleasure. Mention the name Jacques Torres and we're lost in memories of his decadent, gourmet chocolates, hand-crafted in his DUMBO factory and retail shop, Jacques Torres Chocolates.

Gothamist on the hilarious tiff between Sirio and former NY Times food critic William Grimes.

), Maccioni told WWD, "When a reviewer has an ugly wife, he can never be very good." Ever diligent, Page Six gets Grimes to speak, "It's a contemptible comment, regardless of who he was referring to. I thought he was a gentleman." Grimes doesn't think Maccioni was really talking about him, because, among other reasons, "Objectively, my wife is very attractive."