If you don’t have a reservation and absolutely need one at that particular restaurant and you’re told they are booked, $100 will almost certainly get you a table. Or a complimentary round of champagne is sent over because he knows you’re celebrating your anniversary. Or if you want extra attention that night because it’s your husband’s birthday and she sees to it that the dessert has a candle. A tip at the door should be a thank-you-a thank-you for the same warm welcome and greeting each time you see that person, a thank-you for squeezing you in, or getting you that hard-to-get reservation. It’s thievery and has given maîtres d’hôtel a bad rap over the years. Second, if a maître d’hôtel holds out from giving you a table or attempts to “sell” you a table in any way, if you can, leave. Extreme hypocrisy at that! He first of all says it's thievery what he's trying to do and then tells you to do it anyway! So, what are the rules? Should you tip a maître d’hôtel? First, it’s absolutely not necessary. $50 shows appreciation, tipped regularly before the meal, $100 is even better. He says you won't get favoured customer status, or a good table, or a free dessert for 15%. The author is always looking for a chance to be on the take. Screwing the customer and blatant hypocrisy. Couples are often described in terms of how attractive the woman is. Another woman, again extremely efficient but he doesn't like her he calls Iron Bottoms. His first trainer, a very efficient blonde woman he says wouldn't be out of place as a Nazi. The author describes ad nauseum all the screwing (and drug-taking) that goes on in the restaurants toilets, slipping out to screw someone, getting a hand job at a table from a customer, and women are generally described in terms of whether he or the male staff want to screw a waitress. Review The four elements of this book are screwing, hypocrisy, disrespect and worship of celebrities (exceptions: Naomi Campbell and Anna Wintour but not Meghan Markle's 'escort' who aks him don't you know who she is? The author couldn't care less, he just wants cash up front). Your Table Is Ready is a rollicking, raunchy, revelatory memoir. The professionals who gravitate to the business are a special, tougher breed, practiced in dealing with the demanding patrons and with each other, in a very distinctive ecosystem that’s somewhere between a George Orwell “down and out in….” dungeon and a sleek showman’s smoke-and-mirrors palace. In Your Table Is Ready, he breaks down how restaurants really run (and don’t), and how the economics work for owners and overworked staff alike. His phone number was passed around among those who wanted to curry favor, during the decades when restaurants replaced clubs and theater as, well, theater in the most visible, vibrant city in the world.īesides dropping us back into a vanished time, Your Table Is Ready takes us places we’d never be able to get into on our own: Raoul's in Soho with its louche club vibe Buzzy O’Keefe’s casually elegant River Café (the only outer-borough establishment desirable enough to be included in this roster), from Keith McNally’s Minetta Tavern to Nolita’s Le Coucou, possibly the most beautiful room in New York City in 2018, with its French Country Auberge-meets-winery look and the most exquisite and enormous stands of flowers, changed every three days.įrom his early career serving theater stars like Tennessee Williams and Dustin Hoffman at La Rousse right through to the last pre-pandemic-shutdown full houses at Le Coucou, Cecchi-Azzolina has seen it all. A front-of-the-house Kitchen Confidential from a career maître d’hotel who manned the front of the room in New York City's hottest and most in-demand restaurants.įrom the glamorous to the entitled, from royalty to the financially ruined, everyone who wanted to be seen―or just to gawk―at the hottest restaurants in New York City came to places Michael Cecchi-Azzolina helped run.
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