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. more ›

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.” more ›

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.) more ›

What’s worth watching on food-TV this week? more ›

Jeffrey Chodorow has it out for Frank Bruni, and we mean big time. In a full page ad in yesterday's New York Times dining section (at a reported cost of over $83,000), Chodorow a essentially called Bruni a hack with no real food or reviewing experience (see Bruni's bio here), and accused Bruni of personally attacking him rather than focusing on the food at his latest restaurant, Kobe Club. more ›

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. more ›

Movies that make you hungry: Big Night, Eat Drink Man Woman, Babette's Feast, Like Water for Chocolate.
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), 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." more ›