What caused the downfall of New York City's glitziest restaurant?

Le Cirque, on the Upper East Side, was the city's go-to power spot for 40 years

One evening in May 2002, guests in evening dress crowded into Le Cirque 2000’s red dining room in midtown Manhattan’s Palace Hotel. The unofficial VIP space in the storied restaurant’s second New York location featured a lurid explosion of heavy silk brocade, red-and-gold banquettes, and fawning waiters carrying silver-covered trays.
 
Guests that night included chief executive officers and a smattering of A-list celebrities. Ivana Trump and her then-boyfriend Roffredo Gaetani sat at in the centre of the room; a few tables over was Jocelyn Wildenstein, the billionaire-ex wife of art dealership scion Alec Wildenstein, dining with an impishly younger