Osteria del Circo

You were warned by the name: The place is a circus—a loud, crowded production where sculpted trapeze artists spin overhead and wide-eyed fans file in to see famed restaurateur Sirio Maccioni’s nightly show. Maccioni has a thing for circuses—see his famed Le Cirque—but unfortunately, Osteria is not the greatest show on earth. An appetizer pizza with dense, dull crust brought back distinct memories of eating frozen Tombstones. In another appetizer, the duck-liver prosciutto seemed tainted by the stale air of a refrigerator. A fish-stew entrée was an abomination—imagine spaghetti sauce dumped over octopus, mussels and calamari—and veal scaloppine was sufficiently tender but looked like a blue-plate special, two flat gray discs smothered with thick caper-speckled sauce. A snooty bartender, seats in the frigid doorway and sluggish service didn’t help redeem the $140 check.