An Interview With Sirio Maccioni

S.M.: I like to make drama, but I don't like to have stupid drama. You know, for many years, I was able to attract the very best people. For me, one of the best customers in the restaurant in the last 20 years was a guy that manufactured chairs in Queens. But he always used to come in with the most beautiful women, and he drank the very best wine, so I don't want to get involved or get excited. The best wine, and he liked the most beautiful women. And I think, from my point of view, especially today, there are not enough stars and kings and presidents to fill a restaurant, even though I've had most of them. So, you know, you do your job.

L.G.: Tell me, how long have you been here now?

S.M.: Eighteen months.

L.G.: And you've got some arrangement where you don't pay straight rent, you give a percentage of your gross to your landlord?

S.M.: I did my part, I hope they're doing their part. We don't know yet.

L.G.: Le Cirque was not in business for 11 months. That's a long time. Were you worried they'd forget about you?

S.M.: No, and I'm ready to move again. If I find something that brings me the people, and the people come to me, I'm ready to move again.

L.G.: What's the secret? I mean, you've been in the restaurant business-which is in itself a tough and brutal business, where you see restaurants open and close all the time-almost uninterrupted since 1974.

S.M.: When I had the first Le Cirque, which had 100 seats, I started the idea that you don't mind to be squeezed if good people are sitting next to you.

L.G.: So what's more important in terms of sort of creating a customer base? Is it the fact that you have Frank Sinatra and Sophia Loren and Henry Kissinger, or is it the food? Which is it?

S.M.: The food. It goes together. You cannot try to do anything if you don't feel that you have good food. Food can be a very different indication of what food is all about. To me it determines. If it's a cassoulet or an Italian dish, the sausage and beef, I go downtown. If you tell me that, with all due respect, it's nouvelle cuisine, I don't go. Now, you eat better in New York.... The big thing is, you need a place to go to eat. For many years, it's been changing, but always there's fine restaurants. One comes up, and another one went down. Everything has been done, going back many years ago...

L.G.: So what restaurants do you check out? You've been to Nobu obviously. Downtown or 57th Street?

S.M.: I like 57th Street. Nobu is a very intelligent way to do a restaurant. First of all it is the direction of what people want in food today. You don't go to Nobu to have an appetizer, a soup, and a main course. You go to Nobu to have a tasting. And everything tastes the same, no matter where. You have one sweet, and then sour, and it's very attractive.... I'm a friend of [Robert] De Niro [part-owner of Nobu].

L.G.: Do you know [Nobu executive] Drew Nieporent?

S.M.: Yeah. I am a friend of De Niro. Drew is not a friend of De Niro. I am a friend of Drew too. Very good friend...I also go to some Italian restaurants I know. San Pietro, because I know the owner.  I go to Shun Lee Palace East and always order the same thing—the Peking duck. I don't go to any place regularly. When I truly want to eat I call my wife and say, "Can I come home?"

L.G.: Have you been to the Waverly Inn?

S.M.: I like it. It's very difficult to get a reservation. You have to call Vanity Fair. Graydon Carter—I remember him when he was editor of Spy. I was there as a guest of Michael Douglas.

L.G.: Did you like it?

S.M.: It could be simpler and better.

L.G.: Did you try the truffled macaroni and cheese?

S.M.: I tried the chicken pie.

L.G.: How was that?

S.M.: A bit too dry, but anyway—

L.G.: You are not very generous with your praise of competitors, are you?

S.M.: No, I like simple food.

L.G.: Just like they say there are only three plots in literature, there's only so many enduring dishes and restaurants. I'm just going to ask you a question that's really impertinent: How much cash does a place like this have to throw off?

S.M.: Now, we break even, which is a miracle in places like this.

L.G.: Yeah, but what kind of volume, just in terms of dollars?

S.M.: I don't care about my money. Maybe I shouldn't say that. We are doing well. We are doing a million dollars a month.