LEADER 00000pam a2200313 i 4500 
003    DLC 
005    20230307160233.0 
008    220810s2022    nyu           000 0aeng   
010      2022035063 
020    9781250281982|q(hardcover) 
040    DLC|beng|erda|cDLC|dNjBwBT|dIMmBT|dNjBwBT|dUtOrBLW 
042    pcc 
043    n-us---|an-us-ny 
092    647.95092|bCEC 
100 1  Cecchi-Azzolina, Michael,|eauthor. 
245 10 Your table is ready :|btales of a New York City maître d' 
       /|cMichael Cecchi-Azzolina. 
250    First edition. 
264  1 New York :|bSt. Martin's Press,|c2022. 
300    xvi, 288 pages ;|c25 cm 
336    text|btxt|2rdacontent 
337    unmediated|bn|2rdamedia 
338    volume|bnc|2rdacarrier 
520    "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"--|cProvided by 
       publisher. 
600 10 Cecchi-Azzolina, Michael. 
650  0 Restaurateurs|zUnited States|vBiography. 
650  0 Restaurants|zNew York (State)|zNew York.