http://events.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/dinin...ews/19rest.html Two stars from Bruni. Exactly what I suspected. "Le Cirque means luxury. Le Cirque equals privilege. Le Cirque connotes a culinary pecking order by which the rich and famous get the best tables and others get to breathe the same air. The name has so much iconic resonance that it’s molded into the butter on every table, stamped in gold on the chocolate flecks in some desserts and scrawled in red across the restroom towels. "But the restaurant itself is no longer an especially exciting one, at least not in its current incarnation. The new Le Cirque, in the Bloomberg Tower in Midtown, seems to be coasting on its myth, counting on the star power of Mr. Maccioni to compensate for a menu that could use more spark and a kitchen that could show more finesse."