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.
0 有用 Veneanar 2023-07-11 18:16:42 河南
因为作者上了On with Kara Swisher所以找来看。很冗长,但是很有趣,尤其跟Bear和很多Dave Chang对看。staff们的工餐太可怕了,不知厨师们的工餐是什么样。
0 有用 mori 2023-05-28 16:23:24 上海
Speaking of services and creating experience for your customers
0 有用 ...維 2023-07-28 00:02:07 美国
看了很多跟餐饮行业相关的节目 看这本书感觉很亲切 river café在黑道家族里出现了的!虽然是个人角度的小叙事 也可以窥看历史 以小见大
0 有用 Grace_BC 2023-04-22 07:02:11 加拿大
太多F- words,太多个人情绪。无论归入哪个种类,都不是一本有价值的书。
0 有用 ...維 2023-07-28 00:02:07 美国
看了很多跟餐饮行业相关的节目 看这本书感觉很亲切 river café在黑道家族里出现了的!虽然是个人角度的小叙事 也可以窥看历史 以小见大
0 有用 Veneanar 2023-07-11 18:16:42 河南
因为作者上了On with Kara Swisher所以找来看。很冗长,但是很有趣,尤其跟Bear和很多Dave Chang对看。staff们的工餐太可怕了,不知厨师们的工餐是什么样。
0 有用 mori 2023-05-28 16:23:24 上海
Speaking of services and creating experience for your customers
0 有用 Grace_BC 2023-04-22 07:02:11 加拿大
太多F- words,太多个人情绪。无论归入哪个种类,都不是一本有价值的书。