If like me, you're in love with New York’s restaurant world, no doubt you watched Andrew Rossi’s fabulous documentary Le Cirque, A Table in Heaven on HBO.

Rossi has created a masterpiece—funny, smart, endearing, presumptuous and above all intimate. The film follows the life of the Maccionis over the year that preceded the reopening of the restaurant in the Bloomberg Building. Sirio, who started his career as a 13-year-old waiter in his hometown of Montecatini, takes location advice from Kissinger. His wife of 40 years, Egidiana is seen cooking at home, making the kind of pasta dough that has accumulated around her imposing girth. Oldest son Mario has somewhat escaped paternal tyranny by moving to Las Vegas where he runs the successful Le Cirque La Vegas. And Mauro and Marco struggle with their Italian male identity as they play second noodle to their formidable father in New York.

Thanks to an amazing soundtrack (from opera to Neapolitan folk songs) and the best quotes in documentary history—“I want your fish,” thunders Donald Trump at the reopening party, “I’ve been working in restaurant all my life,” sighs Sirio, “but I hate this business. I do it for my three son.”

This is pure Italian drama, half Dolce Vita, half Mastroianni, and as in any dysfunctional family business, love gets in the way.

http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/lecirque/index.html

# posted by Sylvie Bigar : 6:17 PM  6 Comments