One day while i was having dinner in New York...

In the two-story dining room of Downtown Cipriani in Soho, a din of French, Italian, English and Russian voices turns the space into a tower of babble, where St. Tropez–tanned couples sip $13 Bellinis and pick at $25 carpaccio. Waiters bustle about in white blazers and black bow ties. This colony of cologne-soaked European elegance was created by a family whose surname today is a byword for conspicuous consumption: Cipriani.

Indeed, this high-flying buzz can be felt at any of the seven Cipriani establishments in New York City. Cipriani 42nd Street, in Midtown, has housed Dionysian events like Roberto Cavalli’s Halloween bash, while the Cipriani-run Rainbow Room hosted the wedding of former French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy in March. At Downtown Cipriani, diners are likely to rub elbows with Lindsay Lohan or Jay-Z and Beyoncé. Upstairs at Cipriani, the exclusive Soho nightclub, is crammed to the rafters every weekend with boldface names (director Brett Ratner, Ivanka Trump) and bony models.

But not all is well in the house of Cipriani. After nearly 80 years atop the world’s nightlife pyramid, the dynasty is in disarray. In August 2007, Arrigo Cipriani, the 76-year-old patriarch, CEO of the parent company Cipriani S.A. and son of founder Giuseppe Cipriani, became a tax felon. His son, a 43-year-old bachelor also named Giuseppe, pled guilty to misdemeanor charges of tax evasion. Such legal snarls have endangered the company’s liquor licenses. In three weeks, the State Liquor Authority will vote on whether or not to revoke the permits that allow the Ciprianis to serve alcohol at all of their New York establishments. To make matters worse, earlier this month the clan lost their lease on the 23rd Street hall, one of the most profitable gems in their crown. Despite the crowded dining rooms, these troubles—not to mention the free fall of the economy—might just be enough to topple the family tower.


Photo: Tiffany Hagler-Geard
The Rainbow Room: In NYC's weak economy, it's getting harder to book lavish banquets-and pay the $4 million a month rent on this iconic Cipriani space in Rockefeller Center.
Born into poverty in Verona, Italy, in 1900, Giuseppe Cipriani was a 30-year-old bartender at Venice’s Hotel Europa when he met the man who would change his life. Harry Pickering had been sent to Italy by his Boston family to escape his alcoholism. Though wealthy, he had run adrift in Venice and convinced Giuseppe to loan him 10,000 lire (worth approximately $526 then and $6,552 now). Harry disappeared, the Great Depression hit and the money seemed lost forever. But when Harry returned three months later, he added 40,000 lire ($2,105 then; $27,306 now) to the loan repayment. According to family legend, Harry walked into the Hotel Europa and said, “To show you how grateful I am, take this as well. We can use it to open a bar together.”

Harry’s Bar opened in 1931 on Piazza San Marco in Venice, and soon became legendary. Weathering the political turmoil of the ’30s and ’40s, by the 1950s Harry’s became the epicenter of Venetian nightlife. On any given evening, one might find Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles, Aga Khan or Truman Capote knocking back a martini or a Bellini—the now-iconic drink Giuseppe concocted out of peach puree and prosecco in 1948. The Ciprianis (who by this time had grown to include Giuseppe’s wife, Giulietta, son, Arrigo, and daughters, Bruna and Carla) had practically become royalty themselves. Giuseppe and his son, Arrigo—who joined his father behind the bar in 1953—were raking it in.

In 1958, Giuseppe retired from the bar business, leaving Harry’s in the hands of Arrigo. The bar continued to flourish, and Arrigo’s personal life thrived as well. He and his wife, Tomassina (whom he married in 1957), had three children: Giuseppe, Carmela and Giovanna. Following his father’s footsteps and original recipes, Arrigo led the establishment intact through the fads and fashions of the ’70s and ’80s that doomed many other à la mode hangouts. Five years after his father’s death in 1980, Arrigo decided to expand internationally and take Manhattan. Along with Italian hoteliers Baron Charles Forte and his son Sir Rocco Forte, Arrigo opened Harry Cipriani, an elegant spot in the Sherry Netherland Hotel at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street. The restaurant was an instant hit. According to Michael Gross, the author of 740 Park,“The crowd at Harry Cipriani [when it first opened] was plutocrats. It was uptown money. Cipriani was Ronald Perelman, Gianni Agnelli... John Fairchild and Bill Blass.”


Photo: Catherine Nance
Cipriani 23rd street: Earlier this month, the family lost the lease on perhaps its most profitable catering hall, where events would book up years in advance.
Arrigo’s son, Giuseppe, joined the family business too, and from 1985 until today, the Cipriani empire exploded. The family has had a hand in opening more than a dozen establishments in New York, with seven eateries still standing, as well as six more hot spots in London, Italy, Hong Kong and Miami. Expanding beyond restaurants and bars, the Cipriani family has also launched a line of sauces, cookbooks and tableware; condos in Miami and New York and a hotel in Beverly Hills.

In 2006, Cipriani USA revenue exceed ed $106 million (that same year, the company also hosted 1,600 events in NYC). In 2007, revenues were up to $132 million. But all this success has come at a cost to the family and its legacy.

Cipriani’s food was never exceptional. Even Arrigo admits to Page Six Magazine, “We don’t have chefs. We have cooks.” What was exceptional was the service. It was upon a customer’s request that the first Giuseppe concocted carpaccio—thin slices of raw beef—in 1950. Hemingway wrote that Harry’s Bar was “an almost sacred space to those who know it and have enjoyed...the hospitality.” Though the food is expensive—$13.95 for a bowl of minestrone—the style is free from the affectation typically associated with fine dining. “I learned from my father that freedom is the bottom line,” Arrigo explains.


Photo: Steven Hirsch
Tax felon Arrigo works for the family business.
But in a November 2007 review, New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni called the service at Harry Cipriani “confused” and inept. It was a harsh blow for an operation that prides itself on hospitality. Lately, however, the biggest danger for the Ciprianis comes not from critics but from the law. In 2007, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau charged Arrigo and Giuseppe with tax evasion, after investigating an anonymous letter, accusing the father and son of knowingly filing falsified returns. The report claimed that in 2003 and 2004, the two evaded paying nearly $10 million in city and state taxes by making phony “royalty payments” to Cipriani S.A. Arrigo accepted the felony tax evasion charge and received five years probation. Giuseppe, who pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge, received three years of probation. They were also ordered to pay back $10 million in taxes.



Thomas C Lewis
CEO, Innovectra
Sent from my iPad