Summary of Your Table Is Ready By Michael Cecchi-Azzolina: Tales of a New York City Maître D'

By Willie M. Joseph

DISCLAIMER

This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book.

Summary of Your Table Is Ready By Michael Cecchi-Azzolina: Tales of a New York City Maître D'

 

IN THIS SUMMARIZED BOOK, YOU WILL GET:

• Chapter astute outline of the main contents.
• Fast & simple understanding of the content analysis.
• Exceptionally summarized content that you may skip in the original book

 

Michael Cecchi-Azzolina's memoir Your Table Is Ready is a front-of-the-house Kitchen Confidential from a maître d'hotel who manned the front of the room in New York City's hottest restaurants. In it, he breaks down how restaurants really run (and don't), and how the economics work for owners and overworked staff alike.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Willie M. Joseph
• Release date: Dec 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215924402

Willie M. Joseph

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Introduction

Restaurants have served as the family I never had, writes John Sutter. Nothing matches the feeling I get when I am in a packed dining room, the bar full, guests talking, laughing, having a cocktail or a glass of wine while waiting for a meal. It takes a special sort of person to put up with the long hours, the demands of the customers, the multitasking, the sometimes awful ownership, the abusive chefs and cooks. A well-run dining room is an art, a ballet, a confluence of pieces that come together to bring a guest a meal. The restaurant industry is not just about truffles and sweetbreads, caviar and cream.

The maître d'hôtel treated many of you as if you were my brother, sister, or lover. We need to escape, celebrate, run, hide, and live. We give one another life. The restaurant industry has been rocked by abuses of power, horrific sex scandals, and a complete disregard for women. Will I offend here?

I expect so. What I chronicle in these pages was of a time, and I write about those times as they were.

PART I

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

Le Coucou restaurant is a finalist for Best New Restaurant in America. Stephen Starr and Daniel Rose are up for Restaurateur of the Year. Rachael Ray leads the Food Network stars and is a presenter. The biggest and best of the restaurant world are at the Civic Opera House in New York City. Stephen Starr shelled out for at least twenty seats in the sold-out auditorium.

Of the scores of booths, not one was open and nary a bar was in sight. Most would be out in the lobby downing shots and champagne. Owner Stephen Starr wanted to give a big fuck-you to the doubters and naysayers. Every major restaurateur, chef, writer, manager, sommelier, you name it, was in attendance.

Brooklyn

In the 1970s and 80s, altar boys got anywhere from one to five bucks for good service. The priest got the most, usually $100 handed to him in an envelope. You get what you can, because if you don't, somebody else will, said an Italian American priest. The number of worshippers at Mass was the same as the cover count used in restaurants today. Covers mean money for the restaurant, vendors, et cetera.

The altar boys jockeyed for the cool jobs, everyone wanted to fill cruets and catch wafers. After mass, Frankie G and I would run outside and sell The Tablet, the Catholic newspaper, until we sold out. We'd steal a bottle of unopened wine, a bag of unconsecrated hosts to snack on, and skim the pot for seven bucks. These Sundays are when I first began to serve and bartend: Sundays were my role models. My uncles and their friends were all connected in some way to the Mob.

These guys were the type played by Al Pacino in the film Donnie Brasco. Uncle Joe would pinch my cheek so hard I thought he was ripping it off, and thrust a dollar bill in my hand. Lunch was at the Nineteenth Hole, a bar around the corner, and he'd order a pot roast sandwich for me. Bob Greene's uncle Joe Colombo was shot and killed at an Italian American Civil Rights League rally. He was part of the Colombo crime family, one of the legendary five Mafia families of New York.

Fran and Lou’s

Aptly named after the owners, Fran and Lou, the candy store was actually a luncheonette. Each neighborhood