An Evening with Le Cirque

Le Cirque New York did a tour of several US cities for pop-up events at private clubs, I attended the Atlanta event held at the Buckhead Club.

At the helm of Le Cirque since start of 2012 is chef Olivier Reginensi but the touch of Sirio Maccioni and family is still everywhere (pictures of prominent Le Cirque dinners with Sirio, including the king and queen of Spain, were displayed on way to dining room).

To bring an extra touch of authenticity to the evening, Le Cirque flies in complete set of their distinctive dinner plates for the occasion:

Here's the menu for the evening:

The amuse bouche looked like a small ice cream cone, salmon cream in a thin wafer crust

For first course we decided on the tuna tartare with curry and the soft poached egg with morels

Out of these two the definite winner was the morels dish, which was a generous serving and had great taste. I thought the tuna needed a little extra kick, the curry was nice but not enough spice.

We then moved on to the second course and had the porcini mushroom risotto and the potato ravioli

Really enjoyed both of these dishes but the winner here was the risotto, perfectly cooked and the mushroom sauce was delicious.

For entrees we had the filet and the the paupiette of black bass, which has been one of the longstanding dishes at Le Cirque.

Filet was served with Bordelaise sauce and was fantastic, melt in your mouth goodness, but the winner here was the black bass, served over leeks and a delicious Rocca di Frassinello wine sauce, every bite left you wanting more.

While there were wine pairings with each of the courses, since I am not that big of a white wine fan I pretty much went with the Stags Leap cabernet throughout (although fellow madridista and Spaniard Miguel Diaz, F&B Director for the club, did convince me to try the Napa chardonnay, which I have to admit actually went nice with the amuse bouche and the tuna).

And finally time for dessert!

Here we tried the creme brulee, the chocolate fondant and the Napoleon

As much as I love a good creme brulee, the winner here was the Napoleon, flaky, creamy, very nice...

To close out the night we had some truffles and macaroons (ate too fast so no picture...) and received a farewell gift of Sirio's book, The Story of My Life and Le Cirque http://lecirque.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=4

Overall, a wonderful experience, wish other restaurants of the stature/history of Le Cirque would follow this model for other pop-up events...