REQUIEM FOR A RESTAURANT LE CIRQUE was once the most famous restaurant in America. Such was its reputation on October 15, 1998, when from the first pour of Perrier-Jouet it placed our tacky gambling town on the world’s gastronomic map. 🍾 Le Cirque was a French restaurant with Italian soul. No matter the incarnation (and I was fortunate enough to eat in all of them), the menu was always decidedly haute, while the service was anything but haughty. (The enduring myth of imperious, snooty service was born of the typical, tendentious New York dining-out public which loves any tale, no matter how tall, which confirms their insecurities.) Our Le Cirque never had to deal with that problem. It was welcomed with open arms by locals and tourists alike, who were grateful for everything from the elegant circus tent decor, to the jewel box setting (which flattered everyone), to a menu which could be as simple or extravagant as you wanted. All of this was overseen by the legendary Sirio Maccioni (Sirio Maccioni), who, along with his wife Egi and three sons, brought oodles of Italian charm to the High Mojave to match their big city attention to detail. In those early days, it seemed like all of them were living at their restaurants (the inestimable CIRCO was next door @Bellagio , and single-handedly made every local Eye-talian look puny by comparison.) A succession of great chefs (Mark Poidevin, David Werly, et al) came and went, but the food never faltered, and the service never wavered — running like a finely-tuned watch, with a staff that has barely changed in 28 years. But Mother Nature and Father Time claim us all, and by 2018 (twenty years into its run), Sirio’s heart and health were no longer in the game, and he retired to his beloved Tuscany. Grubby corporate fingerprints replaced the painstaking hands of the family, and an absurd, obligatory tasting menu followed, using risible amounts of caviar to justify its larcenous prices. Thus did milking the old cow begin, which is fitting because the hotel now has all the charm of a stockyard, full of compliant cattle being led to slaughter. The restaurant is now a relic, an otiose ode to a bygone era, where hospitality served the client, instead of the customers serving the spreadsheet. No one should be sadder than I at Le Cirque’s demise, but watching everything I once loved about the great restaurants of Las Vegas get destroyed by real estate deals has robbed me of the ability to feel sorrow. Since the romance I once held for this town has been hollowed out, I shall leave you with a bit of romantic poetry to summarize my feelings (with apologies to William Wordsworth 1770-1850): I shall not weep for thee Le Cirque, even as I pine for the days of splendor in the glass, of the radiance which was once so bright, and the glory of the flower which, now gone, will never again be. 🥂🇫🇷🇮🇹 @EatTalkRepeat