#ReadThis #YOURTABLEISREADY Tales of a New York City Maître D’ by #MichaelCecchiAzzolina @StMartinsPress
It's not who you know, it's Whom You Know and this is the second book we have reviewed by someone from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn (the first one is obviously by Willie Schirripa's dad.) We know we have readers that love restaurants, and that fact alone should make this book of interest to you. But even if you don't enjoy eating (a small percentage of the world), chances are, you do love stories and there are stories in here the world has not heard that will regale you to no end. Despite a formal Jesuit education, Peachy Deegan had never equated being an altar server with the restaurant world and right from the start Michael Cecchi-Azzolina proves his imagination and sharp correlation will capture you with the trifecta of philosophy, storytelling, and what has happened to him specifically in the wide world of things that can only happen in New York.
Not at all G-rated and highly colorful, Cecchi paints a cast of characters worthy of the next hot new television series that doesn't exist yet. This is the furthest you can be from a black and white Leave it to Beaver and absolutely technicolor! Not only could he have a namesake restaurant but also he could achieve a screenworthy name-in-lights with these tales. You might go to a restaurant and find it all fun and games, but what you don't know is really quite a lot. We never have published on any of our bad experiences, but we certainly have stories and Peachy has a long memory. Cecchi paints a brutally honest tale that includes challenging, horrifying experiences that are truly one-of-a-kind. Equally horrifying are some of the customers that surely must not read Etiquette from Connecticut (p. 180).
We like that he was among the first to build a cellar around American Wines. However, we do not understand his multiple references to Jean-Paul Belmondo when ultimately it is Alain Delon that is the envy of the acting world and the world at large! Alain we still want to go visit Il Gattopardo avec vous. The only other small criticism we'd have is his use of who instead of whom on page 287 (after daughters...Interestingly, he uses whom properly in the following sentence and maybe his publisher should employ us for proofreading.)
From a business perspective, Michael tells you why restaurants fail and there are stories that support this as well. Also, he accounts for inflation in his explanations (and we might add you should also consider the inversion of the yield curve after the one year).
Everyone that eats should read this. Especially everyone in New York that eats! If you work in the hospitality industry in any way, shape or form, this should be priority reading for you.
Top Ten Reasons To Read This
(in no particular order)
Learn about someone's Mechanized Death Process of Serving Tables
Find out who loves Hash Browns
His Anna Wintour stories (click here for ours and her two video interviews from long ago before people were doing social media videos...) and his Graydon Carter stories and YES JACQUES PEPIN IS NICE.
The History of Dupes
See how shooting movies is a lot of work and how heat/costumes/makeup killers can be solved by a restaurant
Thank God he prefers Hellmann's
You know Port Salut is Cheese
He is not afraid to go up to people either and introduce himself and that is how he met Buzzy O'Keefe
Ciaran's imitation of Tarzan
Tablecloths save lives
Additionally, we were gratified to see him pay homage to and respect history in including Mover and Shaker Liz Smith. If you haven't figured it out yet, he is quite hilarious and yes no one wants to be known as Typhoid Mary and we all want an A. We look forward to seeing Cecchi the restaurant and seeing what we think! In any event since he thinks most guests don't read or speak French, we think our readers will be able to improve upon that. Not only is your table ready, but your book is also ready. Crack it open!
Your Table is Ready is Highly Recommended by Whom You Know.
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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-Azzolini 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 (St. Martin's Press) 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 Larousse 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.
Michael Cecchi-Azzolina has been in the restaurant industry for more than thirty-five years. From his early career at La Rousse, he has gone on to run the front of house at New York’s most famous and influential restaurants, including The Water Club, The River Cafe, Raoul's, and Le Coucou. He lives in Manhattan. Incredibly, we have never met him or worked with him but hope to with his first namesake spot. Good thing he wrote a book.
