July 27, 2007

Caribbean | Dominican Republic

Le Cirque by the Sea

By Lisa Wixon

New York’s A-list eatery lets its hair down with a new Caribbean outpost.

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Saunter into New York’s Le Cirque in flip flops and you’ll get le booted. But now the perennially casual can find the restaurant’s cuisine at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic. Le Cirque founder Sirio Maccioni recently sent chef Paul Scordino to Cirque-ify El Pescador, one of the mega-resort’s nine restaurants, on private Las Minitas beach (pictured). The new seaside eatery isn’t the restaurant’s first foray into Latin America — Le Cirque Camino Real has also opened tables in Mexico City. Among the golfers and yachties, El Pescador might draw such A-listers as Dominican designer Oscar de la Renta, who owns a villa amid the 7,000-acre grounds.

You might also expect to see him at the resort’s annual charity fashion show, August 3-5, featuring designs by Escada and “glitter by Tiffany.” But wherefore all the glamour? It might have something to do with Casa de Campo’s owners — the Palm Beach socialites and sugar barons, the Fanjul family, who fled Cuba in 1959 and acquired the getaway because it reminded them of home. Home being the Cuban playas of Varadero, where the Latin elite mingled pre-Castro with the likes of Al Capone. Oh, by the way, Al’s house there was confiscated and turned into — what else? — a seaside restaurant.