Your Table Is Ready: Tales of a New York City Maître D'

by Michael Cecchi-Azzolina

Overview

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.

From 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. 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.

Besides 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.

From 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. 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. 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.

Your Table Is Ready is a rollicking, raunchy, revelatory memoir.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250281999
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/06/2022
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	69,825
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Michael Cecchi-Azzolina has been in the restaurant industry for more than thirty-five years. From his early career at La Rousse, he has gone on to run the front of house at New York’s most famous and influential restaurants, including The Water Club, The River Cafe, Raoul's, and Le Coucou. He lives in Manhattan.

Table of Contents

Introduction xiii

Part I The James Beard Awards, Civic Opera House, Chicago, May 1, 2017 3

Brooklyn 8

Fran and Lou's 15

Part II Back to the City 27

Playwrights Horizons 30

Restaurant 101 33

So This Is What It's Like 41

A Kick in the Dick 46

Althea 51

All Good Things Must Pass 55

Part III Life on the Water 59

Another World 66

Partners in Servitude 70

How Soft Is an Opening? 75

Success 80

And They Came … 84

Mimi 87

Extracurricular Activities 90

The All-Star 97

The River Café 100

The Call 105

It Begins 108

The Family That Dines Together … 111

The Trail 113

"Do Not Fuck Zees Up!" 121

Guilty 127

Jumpers 135

The Door 137

Mr. Debonair 143

The Donald 148

"Just When I Thought I Was Out, They Pull Me Back In!" 152

Acting Proceeds Apace 163

Part IV Raoul's 167

The Meet 170

Another Beginning 173

The Raoul's Brothers 177

Service 181

Celebrity 184

Drag 188

Harvard 190

9/11/2001 193

The Mob Redux 195

Crushed 200

Part V Unwanted 203

Minetta Tavern 206

Hope 213

"Failure Is Simply the Opportunity to Begin Again, This Time More Intelligently"-Henry Ford 216

The Resurrection 221

Bobo 226

Part VI Starr Ship Coucou 231

Le Chef 233

Starr Man 235

Le Coucou 237

Iron Bottoms 244

Soufflé 247

The Arrival 251

Gone at Last 256

The Shah 264

Fashionistas 270

Mr. James Beard 275

The Awards 277

Epilogue 279

Author's Note 285

Acknowledgments 287

Editorial Reviews

★ 10/24/2022

“A well-run dining room is an art, a ballet,” according to this riveting debut from Cecchi-Azzolina, a veteran of New York City’s restaurant industry. The author, who grew up in 1960s Brooklyn, landed a postcollege job as a server at the theater district restaurant La Rousse, where writer Tennessee Williams drank to excess. La Rousse closed because of mismanagement, and Cecchi-Azzolina went on to work at the Water Club (where he served actor and comedian Jackie Gleason, who requested off-menu hash browns); acted as maître d’ at Brooklyn’s top-rated River Café (“The lure for me was both egoistic and monetary”); and performed stints at “failing restaurant” Bobo, reliable date spot Raoul’s, and the small but gorgeous Minetta Tavern. The narrative provides plenty of celebrity encounters, but also reveals how restaurants work. Bribery for a coveted table? Sometimes. The main reason for delayed seating? Diners who wouldn’t leave the table. Even when Cecchi-Azzolina thinks he’s had enough of the industry, he’s soon reminded of its ability to “give one another life.” Readers will gobble up the juicy gossip and decadent stories from a man who has seen it all. Agent: Robert Guinsler, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

"For more than three decades I’ve known Michael Cecchi-Azzolina as a great and gracious Maitre d’ at some of New York’s hottest restaurants. Who knew he was such a talented writer, or that he was having more fun behind the scenes than most of his guests? Your Table is Ready is the Front of House Kitchen Confidential—a funny, raunchy, savvy and hugely entertaining book." —Jay McInerney

"This peek behind the curtain reveals how a master restaurateur creates a scene so magical that big spenders, delicate egos and the eternally entitled will do almost anything to be in one of the seats at showtime. YOUR TABLE IS READY is required reading for anyone who wants to crack the code on how to get a coveted reservation in the see-and-be-seen restaurants of the moment in New York—or anywhere in the world!"—Michael Fazio, author of Concierge Confidential

"This book is funny, nostalgic, and fascinating, an insider's peek into New York City's most iconic restaurants—including so many of my favorites! From late nights dancing at The Water Club when I was a young actress, to impromptu chats over a glass of wine at Raoul's when I was a young mother, Michael Cecchi-Azzolina captures a golden era. I always feel welcome the minute I see Michael wearing his warm smile, cool glasses and elegant suits and I always leave him laughing; Your Table is Ready will do the same for you." —Brooke Shields

"Michael Cecchi-Azzolina saw it all: the adrenaline-fueled days that built toward the mayhem of a dinner service, the juggling act that conjured a last-minute table when a billionaire showed up on a whim at the hottest restaurant in town. YOUR TABLE IS READY is an uproarious and ultimately endearing look into the personalities and pressures of the dining room in the rough-and-tumble New York City restaurant world of the 1980s and 1990s. Full of tasty bits!" — Andrew Friedman, author of Chefs, Drugs, and Rock and Roll

"What he experienced was an in-house riot of sex, drugs, alcohol and, now and then, excellent cuisine...vivid, detailed, unsparing." — Alan Richman, James Beard award-winning food journalist

"This riveting debut...provides plenty of celebrity encounters, but also reveals how restaurants work.... Readers will gobble up the juicy gossip and decadent stories from a man who has seen it all." —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"Cecchi-Azzolina’s...tales are entertaining and affecting... His honesty in acknowledging the many ills of the industry’s past and its continued long journey to legitimacy is enlightening and refreshing...a vivid, candid account of an admirable restaurant career." —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Trained in acting and a lifer in the restaurant business, Michael Cecchi-Azzolina doles out opinions in the tone of an authentic New Yorker. He narrates with a good pace and rhythm. The inner workings of the restaurant world as revealed are exhilarating but often sordid and salacious. Drugs, sex, gambling, and problem drinking accompany great food and glittering guest lists. In his long, successful career in New York City—with stops at the River Café, Raoul’s, and Le Coucou—the Brooklyn-born master maître d’ has had his share of adventures. The scenes in which he is threatened by a gangster are hilarious. Candidly, the world described is sexist and often graphic in its depictions of late-night antics. That said, this is an entertaining and insightful audiobook. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2023 - AudioFile

Trained in acting and a lifer in the restaurant business, Michael Cecchi-Azzolina doles out opinions in the tone of an authentic New Yorker. He narrates with a good pace and rhythm. The inner workings of the restaurant world as revealed are exhilarating but often sordid and salacious. Drugs, sex, gambling, and problem drinking accompany great food and glittering guest lists. In his long, successful career in New York City—with stops at the River Café, Raoul’s, and Le Coucou—the Brooklyn-born master maître d’ has had his share of adventures. The scenes in which he is threatened by a gangster are hilarious. Candidly, the world described is sexist and often graphic in its depictions of late-night antics. That said, this is an entertaining and insightful audiobook. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2023 - AudioFile

2022-09-17
An industry veteran dishes on more than three decades of service in New York City’s hottest restaurants.

“The restaurant industry is not just about truffles and sweetbreads, caviar and cream, a prime fillet of beef or a freshly caught Dover sole. It’s also about sex, drugs, and an array of misbehaviors perpetrated by both staff and guests.” So writes Cecchi-Azzolina in the introduction, highlighting the reality that intertwined with the glamour of fine dining is plenty of bad behavior. The author grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and started working at a local luncheonette while in high school, where he learned the basics of the business. He moved to Florida and attended college, then back to the city to pursue his master’s degree in theater at NYU. After a stint at La Rousse, the author went to “Michael ‘Buzzy’ O’Keeffe’s soon-to-be-mecca to WASP cuisine and the yacht-club lifestyle, the Water Club.” Then it was on to the River Café, an even hotter venture, where Cecchi-Azzolina was named captain of the front of the house. He eventually became the maître d’hôtel at Le Coucou, which won a James Beard Award during his tenure. The author’s account of life in the restaurant industry is fast-paced, long on the meticulous details of service, unsparing of the salacious tales of sex, drugs, alcohol, run-ins with the mob, “jumpers” within view of the River Café, and much more. Readers interested in the who’s who of the NYC celebrity world will not be disappointed, as the high-profile clientele the author mentions runs the gamut from actors and musicians to international ambassadors to “the absolutely horrid Anna Wintour.” Cecchi-Azzolina’s prose can border on abrasive and overly detailed, but at its best, his tales are entertaining and affecting, as when he describes the toll the AIDS epidemic took on his colleagues in the industry. His honesty in acknowledging the many ills of the industry’s past and its continued long journey to legitimacy is enlightening and refreshing.

An overlong yet vivid, candid account of an admirable restaurant career.

Kirkus Reviews