Sirio Maccioni has lived his life on the periphery of celebrity photographs. As maitre d' and owner of Le Cirque, the New York restaurant where Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger reconciled, Frank Sinatra parked his limo and the "ladies who lunch" lunched, he has served for three decades as something of a mealtime matador to high society. 

His memoir might have been a shallow name-dropper, full of chat about the Kennedy clan and insights into caviar. But that's the last thing "Sirio" is. Indeed, from the first chapter's anecdote of Ronald Reagan tossing off an ethnic joke, the book signals that it's no gladhanding salute to famous people or monied swells. No, this is an immigrant's story as rich in history and food as it is in celebrity.