If You Can’t Take the Heat…

Sirio Maccioni simply couldn’t brush off that one-star review inflicted on Le Cirque by Pete Wells in the New York Times: “Roast chicken tasted the way roast chicken tasted in American restaurants 30 years ago (like nothing) and sat next to a muddy, shapeless swamp of porcini. A long log of Dover sole under a sheet of bread crumbs had neither the texture nor the flavor that might justify charging $41 for a fish stick.” As such, the Times reports, chef Olivier Reginensi, who started in January, is getting the axe.

At least Maccioni was honest about it:

“He is a very good chef and he is still in the kitchen,” said Mr. Maccioni, who owns the restaurant with his sons. “But he knows that we are looking for a replacement.” … “He’s a much bigger chef than one star, but that’s how it is in New York,” Mr. Maccioni said of Mr. Reginensi. “It’s a very painful thing for me to do.”

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