A review by travellingcari
Your Table Is Ready: Tales of a New York City Maître D' by Michael Cecchi-Azzolina

4.0

This was a hoot, albeit a depressing one. Cecchi (as he refers to himself throughout) grew up in Bensonhurst with Colombo soldiers as his "uncles", hoped to be an actor and ended up with a career in fine dining working at restaurants from the River Cafe to Le Coucou. His story began in the late 70s and took us through both the cocaine and AIDS epidemics, humor in a dark period in which the restaurants featured a lot of sex, and cocaine. The restaurant world has changed so much (addition of HR), yet not at all (Ken Friedman, Mario Batali). A fun look at the world that was as the author wrote this after being out of work during the pandemic.