Cruise History – New York – Le Cirque’s famous owner Sirio Maccioni started as a waiter “crossing the pond” aboard the Home Lines SS ATLANTIC.  After achieving success, he sailed trans-Atlantic years later as a first class passenger aboard the Italian Line’s SS GIULIO CESARE.   In June 2004 Maccioni published his biography, Sirio: The Story of My Life and Le Cirque with restaurant critic Peter Elliot.

Sirio Maccioni (born 1932 in Montecatini Terme, Italy) is a restaurateur and author based in New York City.  He is known for Le Cirque, his award-winning flagship French restaurant and other ventures in New York, Las Vegas, the Dominican Republic and Mexico City, which are run with his wife Egidiana “Egi” and sons Mario, Marco and Mauro. A restaurant in London is scheduled to open in 2009.

In his biography, Maccioni tells his story to American co-author Peter Elliot, food critic for Bloomberg radio and winner of the James Beard award. Peter Elliot does a wondrous job piecing together Sirio’s autobiography along with interviews of Sirio’s friends, family, and New York notables and a sound history of each landscape visited in Sirio’s journey from Montecatini, Italy to New York City.

He is the ultimate American success – a small town boy who makes good.

His experiences working as a waiter aboard Home Lines S.S. Atlantic and S.S. Homeric are a highlight.

The S.S. Atlantic.

He signed on the S.S. Atlantic to work as a waiter with other young men in the mid-1950s.  They had been pitched by Home Lines to work for the steamship company because of their experience.  The multilingual crew were called “the chosen” because of their experiences as waiters.

American family in first class aboard the S.S. Homeric sailing from Europe to New York.  Photo was taken in First Class dining room.  Waiter could have been a contemporary of Maccioni at that time.

But Maccioni and his colleagues boarded the ship to have their passports taken by a monstrous purser and found themselves hired as waiters/cheap labor. [Read more...]