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3.5 AVERAGE
3.5 AVERAGE
funny
informative
sad
fast-paced
Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a review. Your Table is Ready is the raucous and outrageous memoir of a New York City waiter/maitre D/restaurant general manager that takes the reader from the late 1970s to today to give them an insight into fine dining.
This was an interesting and somewhat polarizing book. The chapters of the book really take you through the chapters of New York City's history at this time. It is so interesting to see how how events like the AIDS crisis, the crash of Wall Street, and 9/11 play out through the lens of the restaurant industry. Some of the anecdotes (both of celebrities and of regular customers) were genuinely hilarious and I found myself chuckling in multiple places. However, the pacing of this book is jarring. Some things are explained ad nauseum while other seemingly important details are glossed over. It can make the trajectory of Cecchi-Azzolina's career hard to follow at some points. The author is also quick to bring up every torrid detail from his storied career as well. While I am sure all of the stories are true and that is just how the restaurant industry was back then, the repetitive graphic sexual stories start to lose their shock value and just feel overdone. Overall, this was an interesting read that will likely stick with me for awhile but not excellently written.
This was an interesting and somewhat polarizing book. The chapters of the book really take you through the chapters of New York City's history at this time. It is so interesting to see how how events like the AIDS crisis, the crash of Wall Street, and 9/11 play out through the lens of the restaurant industry. Some of the anecdotes (both of celebrities and of regular customers) were genuinely hilarious and I found myself chuckling in multiple places. However, the pacing of this book is jarring. Some things are explained ad nauseum while other seemingly important details are glossed over. It can make the trajectory of Cecchi-Azzolina's career hard to follow at some points. The author is also quick to bring up every torrid detail from his storied career as well. While I am sure all of the stories are true and that is just how the restaurant industry was back then, the repetitive graphic sexual stories start to lose their shock value and just feel overdone. Overall, this was an interesting read that will likely stick with me for awhile but not excellently written.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use
I absolutely loved this book. Thank you to NetGalley for approving me for the Audiobook version. It was all I listened to until it was finished. Having worked in the restaurant business for 25 years I related to so much of what this book was about. The author did an amazing job writing as well as being the narrator.
I love a restaurant memoir! Sex, drugs, celebrities, food…I am always in! This one intrigued me because the focus is on the front of the house and not the kitchen. The author is a career mâitre d’hotel who has worked in the hottest restaurants in NYC. He tells us how restaurants really run, why there are open tables when you are told the restaurant is booked, and how to palm the mâitre d’hotel to get the table by the window. Of course there are celebrity appearances, including an unflattering portrayal of the Duchess of Sussex, and the fraudster, Anna Delvey (Sorokin). Read this if you liked: Kitchen Confidential, Sweetbitter, anything by Ruth Reichl, Notes From a Young Black Chef, Yes, Chef.
Prior to reading this book I genuinely didn’t know anything about the restaurant industry having never worked in it myself. But I found this entire book so fascinating and loved reading about all of the different stories and experiences that were shared. Super excited to hear about the restaurant he opens himself!
DNF - didn’t even get past the introduction, to be honest.
I read the intro and was…surprised. The style sounds like it’s trying to echo Kitchen Confidential, but not effectively, though the most surprising bit is how you can essentially capitalize on the success of a better writer who came before you and paved the way for a book like yours to even be interesting…and not even remotely mention that fact? How do you bill a book as a “FOH Kitchen Confidential” and not even acknowledge the man in the introduction?
Then I read the intro again, this time for my husband, who has worked in restaurants for decades now. The lists! Oh my god the lists! Will someone please tell the author that writing is more than listing all synonyms or possible variables? It reads as though he needs us to know that he has so many more words inside him…except zero discernment for which of the words are, well, good writing.
I hopped on here, read the bad reviews to see if I was in good company with my observations, and decided I didn’t need to continue. I’m just not that into lists, I guess.
Capitalizing on the success of Bourdain but without the talent, as far as I can see. Congratulations on everything that happened or I’m sorry it happened, whichever, I’m not reading all that.
I read the intro and was…surprised. The style sounds like it’s trying to echo Kitchen Confidential, but not effectively, though the most surprising bit is how you can essentially capitalize on the success of a better writer who came before you and paved the way for a book like yours to even be interesting…and not even remotely mention that fact? How do you bill a book as a “FOH Kitchen Confidential” and not even acknowledge the man in the introduction?
Then I read the intro again, this time for my husband, who has worked in restaurants for decades now. The lists! Oh my god the lists! Will someone please tell the author that writing is more than listing all synonyms or possible variables? It reads as though he needs us to know that he has so many more words inside him…except zero discernment for which of the words are, well, good writing.
I hopped on here, read the bad reviews to see if I was in good company with my observations, and decided I didn’t need to continue. I’m just not that into lists, I guess.
Capitalizing on the success of Bourdain but without the talent, as far as I can see. Congratulations on everything that happened or I’m sorry it happened, whichever, I’m not reading all that.
Sex, drugs, and fine wine service. I actually found the celebrity diners and wild times of the 80s some of the least interesting parts of the book, compared to the peak behind the curtain of the high end NYC restaurant scene.
Certainly well written, though I think there were some definite opportunities to mix up the pacing in places. I really thought the book sticks the landing with the last Part and epilogue.
Certainly well written, though I think there were some definite opportunities to mix up the pacing in places. I really thought the book sticks the landing with the last Part and epilogue.
Loved the book. Loved living vicariously through the sloppy, gritty days of the late '70s/early '80s New York scene. Though the dishing about coworkers, bosses, celebrities, and bigwigs was fun. Even the snippets of Mob connections drew me into a world I will never experience. Blew through the book in two days.
Definitely not for everyone, but neither is spending $500 on dinner for two.
Definitely not for everyone, but neither is spending $500 on dinner for two.
Your Table is Ready by Michael Cecchi is coming out on December 6th with St. Martin's Press. A memoir from Cecchi about his thirty-five years in the NYC Restaurant Business. Cecchi started his career at La Rousse before moving on to The Water Club, The River Cafe, Raoul’s and Le Coucou.
I read Your Table Is Ready as part of my NonFiction November stack and like most memoirs, I loved it. What I love about memoirs is getting to see the world and society through different eyes.
Cecchi doesn’t hold back about his time as a Maitre D’ Hotel in some of NYC’s hottest and most influential restaurants. Littered throughout the pages are names you’ll recognize and their behavior but this isn’t a celebrity gossip tell-all. This is about Cecchi and what he experienced, what he learned and how he feels looking back on it all.
I’ve never worked in a restaurant so I appreciated that Cecchi wrote this in a manner everyone can understand. The stories are wild and thoroughly entertaining.
Thank you SMP for the copy to review.
I read Your Table Is Ready as part of my NonFiction November stack and like most memoirs, I loved it. What I love about memoirs is getting to see the world and society through different eyes.
Cecchi doesn’t hold back about his time as a Maitre D’ Hotel in some of NYC’s hottest and most influential restaurants. Littered throughout the pages are names you’ll recognize and their behavior but this isn’t a celebrity gossip tell-all. This is about Cecchi and what he experienced, what he learned and how he feels looking back on it all.
I’ve never worked in a restaurant so I appreciated that Cecchi wrote this in a manner everyone can understand. The stories are wild and thoroughly entertaining.
Thank you SMP for the copy to review.
This was fine but mostly it made me want to reread Kitchen Confidential.