Sirio Maccioni is amused to call Le Cirque “a bistro.” So all those years when he talked about one day opening a humble trattoria for his wife, Egidiana, and their three sons (“I begged them to be doctors, lawyers, anything but --”) he probably meant exactly this: Osteria del Circo. An elegant and whimsical sideshow for his mollycoddled pets -- the power peerage and the parvenus -- starring pizza and smart Mediterranean dainties. And we love it. We’re here. Yes, the kitchen is splintered, the food uneven. The simple clarity of dishes designed by Egi, as everyone calls her, is often overwhelmed by the dizzying fuss her co-chefs favor. But we know what we like now and come primed for fun.

        Even as we watch the Maccioni heirs dodging the tentative serving crew (less green now, having been pruned and drilled into a reasonable celadon) and a hint of smoke from the testy exhaust hits the nose, the space feels electric, cozy, familiar, familial. One man’s family is ours. The well-tutored princelings (prepped at Les Crayères in Reims, the Moulin de Mougins on the Côte D’Azur and the Paris Ritz) woo us in relays. They are doing the Sirio, a dance of staccato attendance that can make you feel essential. Tonight it’s Mario, the senior son, and little Mauro, who is the tallest. Even before we can order, a crackle of “pizza pazza” arrives, with splendid prosciutto on bubbling mascarpone-tomato sauce. That sauce on its own, modest and pristine -- Mama Egidiana insists you must have it on the side, just in case, even though you ordered butter and sage with her bitter-greens-and-ricotta-plumped ravioli. Choreographing dinner for the president of Italy across town at Le Cirque, Sirio, never one to suffer in silence, observes that he is competing with himself. One of those ambivalent triumphs.

        Sunday is family night. With Le Cirque closed, Sirio can give Mario and second son Marco a night off. God rested, but not Sirio. He’s driving Mauro crazy, hissing at the waiters, racing away for napkins to keep the tables turning. Barbara Walters may give her lunch trade to Harry Cipriani, but she’s here tonight. Le Cirque stalwarts roll their eyes as Sirio leads an unlikely tourist duo to a table. Denim pedal pushers? Fat? Well, these things happen west of Sixth Avenue. Egi takes her granddaughter for a walk so Mario and his wife can finishing eating their dinner. “It’s Sunday,” she says, “and it’s the only way we can all be together.” She is the natural charmer -- unsuave,  unrehearsed, unshellacked.
 
        Her by-now mythic 30-vegetable soup (or 25, depending on the market), the homemade tagliolini with garlic oil and hot peppers (ask for that tomato sauce too), or the tepid spaghetti dressed with raw tomato, basil and garlic are what I expected to find here. A precise measure of tomato and Parmesan creates perfect balance against the musk of her homey tripe. But how many of Sirio’s blondined darlings will eat tripe? Not only must Egi arrive at 6 A.M. to claim a space in the too-tiny kitchen, she must argue her case to the chefly triumvirate. “They don’t want to do my vegetable lasagna. But I’m pointing my toes,” she swears, Egi-ese for “putting my foot down.”

        Sirio is convinced his groupies must have lobster salad, cod, seared tuna -- all the inevitables at this Mediterranean moment in Manhattan. Beefy rare tuna with white beans, red pepper, and a trail of olive pesto are actually sensational. Basil and olive pestos add pizzazz to whole calamari stuffed with a mince of shrimp and vegetables. Slight overcooking is my only regret about the giant sea scallops with roasted fingerlings and leeks, or the grilled striped bass with cranberry beans, black olives, roasted peppers, and zucchini crisps. Artichokes, pancetta, and goat cheese is my least-favorite topping for the bubbling, cracker-like pizza. But it’s hard to resist the olive focaccia or the cheese-flavored bread sticks that arrive one evening hot from the oven (and have since disappeared from the repertory).

        Too many ingredients -- perhaps too many cooks -- muddy the potato gnocchi,  oversalted lamb ravioli, and one night’s cavatelli. A daily special of roast cod is unseasoned, its clams overcooked. But listless minestrone and the monotone of tagliatelle with duck-and-porcini ragù are quickly forgotten in the lunchtime dazzle of Egi’s winning room-temperature spaghetti, her potato-mascarpone ravioli with minced walnuts and chopped tomato, the delicate wild-mushroom tortelloni, and the grilled-vegetable-and-bel-paese sandwich made with arugula-pestoed focaccia.

        Sure, it’s all much more expensive than expected: entrées $13.50 to $24.75 at lunch, $18 to $28 at dinner, the $8 desserts. But so was construction. Two and a half million as Sirio obsessed endlessly during the summer of delays. Supposedly relaxing in Montecatini, he ranted and pleaded long-distance, then calmly assigned Le Cirque’s tables from a reservation list faxed nightly by Marco. With architect Adam Tihany’s signature rare woods and custom everything, you can almost feel the whiplash of negative cash flow.  For me, it’s a shade too good-taste, too sparse, not enough fun. You have to look up to see the red-and-yellow banners, the absolute brilliance of revolving monkeys and the metal mannequins dancing over the kitchen. Plush toy monkeys tugging ropes below and hugging a magnum of champagne at the bar add a welcome silliness.

        The impoverished can always stop by for soup and a pizza at the bar or oder takeout from Circo’s tiny new shop on the building promenade -- everything from breakfast bagels and Tuscan doughnuts to prosciutto-and-green-tomato sandwiches and Valrhona brownies.

        Now Mario insists, very à la Papa, that we sample a parade of desserts. Two minutes later, Mauro glides by: “You must try a dessert tasting.”

        “Mario beat you to it,” we say.

        He shakes his head disconsolately. “I’m behind the ball. Please don’t tell my father.”

        Perhaps there could be a smarter balsamic kick in the latte cotto custard, more oomph in the chocolate torta. I wish the sorbets had more citric sting. But I love the espresso cream disguised as cappuccino. And the custard-plump bomboloncini guarded by a candy clown are irresistible. This was meant to be a circus, after all.

        Downtown runs in the family, too. the latest local seedling of the legendary Harry’s Bar in Venice, its determined perversity (definitely genetic) already has crowds piling in. Bankers and Euros and runway gazelles with a spicing of art-world satraps. It’s SoHo for uptowners who find the commute dislocation enough. Pops, Arrigo “Harry” Cipriani, might drop in to join pals for dinner, but this is son Giuseppe’s turf (though he seems to have vanished for the moment - off opening still another pod in Buenos Aires).

        We are pressed into a restless clot of pilgrims trying to look nonchalant while waiting 40 minutes to be seated. The cloakroom attendant wanders in a daze, and lucky preppies get herded like lambs to a cramped table -- four on a stern park bench meant for three. “This is our neighborhood place,” the loft-dwelling friends confide. “It’s an accident of fate that we live downtown. We’re really uptown people.”

        Of course, the plates are small. How else could the house shoehorn five grownups into a table for two? And these prices may be steep for SoHo - entrées $15 to $25, but the $25 monkfish costs $11 more when Dad’s dishing it out. Word’s gotten around that the food can be wonderful. I suspect a veteran cook from Fifth Avenue was imported for the launch and has since snuck home. Clam-and-mussel soup is pleasant enough, and tonight’s cannelloni is rich and seductively creamy. But the veal ragu on polenta is pathetically plain; the calamari, undistinguished. The baked tagliolini gratinati that I never can resist uptown tastes frozen, thawed and rewarmed here. It’s rare to find lamb chops this tough and tasteless. And the hamburger of beloved memory at Cipriani seems chewy as bubble gum, its onions soft but not meltingly sweet.  

        Spring at last brings a beneficence at lunch. Light pours into the cream-hued room, and what looked like cellophane still wrapping the grandiloquent chandelier is now clearly the glassblower’s whimsy. Perhaps if the Bellini were icier, the prosecco and peach puree wouldn’t seem quite so flat. Still, the kitchen seems to have perked up a bit. Salt, pepper, a splash of olive oil is all the bean soup needs, but the cook’s been too stingy with the balsamic and seasoning on the otherwise fine tuna. The pesto tastes like stale grass, and sticky tagliolini noodles seem to grow on the plate as I unravel them. Our good-natured waiter promises my liver with onions will be rare. And on the second try, it is. Now it’s time for the Cipriani ritual of show-and-tell desserts: Meringue and frosting fluff are not my weakness. But the chocolate cake has sweet heft and the pecan tart only one scorched nut.

        At the next table, a couple is lighting up. “Can we call the police?” I ask the waiter.

        “We can’t do nothing,” he whispers. “This is a European restaurant.”

        I am determined to try once more. Who said this isn’t work? Back again with reinforcements for one more joust with dinner. No need to catalogue the mundane. Downtown is not about gastronomic epiphany, for goodness’ sake. If you hunger for theater of the absurd, by all means book ahead. Nibble a breadstick. And take a cue from those two six-foot stunners content to feast on the scene and sip water for two hours at the table against the wall under the painting of the fully erect cigar.