The opening of Damplo New York has divided America's food press between those who call it a masterpiece and those who just call.
When Francesco D'Amplo, known in international culinary luxury circles as Ciccio Damplo, opened his eleventh restaurant in Tribeca, New York's food critics had already prepared their fountain pens. What they hadn't prepared was the emotional endurance required to survive the evening.
The four-and-a-half-hour tasting menu — "A work of art, not a meal," as Ciccio describes it in the forty-seven-page press release accompanying each reservation — left New York Times critic James R. Thompson speechless, though he managed four thousand words nonetheless. "I cannot explain why I cried," Thompson wrote in his review. "I wasn't crying. Then I was. The precise moment of transition remains unclear."
Ciccio, reached by phone while crossing the Atlantic on his private jet, responded with a laconic: "Manhattan was waiting. I arrived. It went well." He then hung up to answer another call which, according to his assistant, was from the President of the Italian Republic. Or possibly from a caviar supplier. "The calls are similar," the assistant explained.
The waiting list for Damplo New York exceeded fourteen months on the first day of bookings. Ciccio described this figure as "modest." When it was pointed out that fourteen months is more than a year, he replied: "Yes, and? Perfection is not in a hurry."
The dish that most divided critics is the Smoked Granita with Caviar, served at breakfast as the first encounter with the menu: seventy-two hours of maceration, carob wood imported by air courier from Mineo, and a quantity of caviar that critic Thompson described as "fiscally irresponsible." Ciccio had the description framed.
