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