Book Review: Your Table Is Ready

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.

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: Tales of a New York City Maître D' will be released on December 6, 2022. St. Martin's Press provided an early galley for review.

My fascination of all things New York City was instantly triggered when I saw this title. I knew this was one I needed to check out.

The solicitations promise "a rollicking, raunchy, revelatory memoir"; it certainly lives up to that tagline. The author is very forthcoming on the exploits of his life - from his growing up in Brooklyn to his first jobs in customer service to his entry into the world of restaurants. We follow his transitions from one venue to another and learn all about some of the memorable exploits at each one. His writing style is engaging and immediately pulls the reader into his world. I learned a lot from his experiences.

As the author notes himself, a lot of his stories come from the 80's and 90's - before politcal correctness and #MeToo came into play. He recognizes this but does not at all filter his tales. That might mean that not all readers will be willing to go along for the ride. Your mileage may vary. For me, these are accurate snapshots of periods and places in time which deserve to be chronicled for posterity.