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Your Table Is Ready
- Tales of a New York City Maître D'
- Narrated by: Michael Cecchi-Azzolina
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
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Publisher's Summary
"Trained in acting and a lifer in the restaurant business, Michael Cecchi-Azzolina doles out opinions in the tone of an authentic New Yorker. He narrates with a good pace and rhythm. The inner workings of the restaurant world as revealed are exhilarating but often sordid and salacious....this is an entertaining and insightful audiobook."- AudioFile
This program is read by the author.
A front-of-the-house Kitchen Confidential from a career maître d’hotel who manned the front of the room in New York City's hottest and most in-demand restaurants.
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.
Besides dropping us back into a vanished time, Your Table Is Ready 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 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 is a rollicking, raunchy, revelatory memoir.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.
What the critics say
"For more than three decades I’ve known Michael Cecchi-Azzolina as a great and gracious Maitre d’ at some of New York’s hottest restaurants. Who knew he was such a talented writer, or that he was having more fun behind the scenes than most of his guests? Your Table is Ready is the Front of House Kitchen Confidential--a funny, raunchy, savvy and hugely entertaining book." —Jay McInerney
"This peek behind the curtain reveals how a master restaurateur creates a scene so magical that big spenders, delicate egos and the eternally entitled will do almost anything to be in one of the seats at showtime. YOUR TABLE IS READY is required reading for anyone who wants to crack the code on how to get a coveted reservation in the see-and-be-seen restaurants of the moment in New York—or anywhere in the world!" —Michael Fazio, author of Concierge Confidential
"Michael Cecchi-Azzolina saw it all: the adrenaline-fueled days that built toward the mayhem of a dinner service, the juggling act that conjured a last-minute table when a billionaire showed up on a whim at the hottest restaurant in town. YOUR TABLE IS READY is an uproarious and ultimately endearing look into the personalities and pressures of the dining room in the rough-and-tumble New York City restaurant world of the 1980s and 1990s. Full of tasty bits!" —Andrew Friedman, author of Chefs, Drugs, and Rock and Roll
What listeners say about Your Table Is Ready
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- Lakers Fan
- 2023-06-16
A real unapologetic look into New York City restaurants
I always love books that offer inside glimpses into what's going on behind the scenes. This book does exactly that. The author, who is also the narrator, does a great job in conveying the feeling, grittiness and also sexual escapades that go on in a typical New York restaurant in the 1980s-2000s. If you are easily offended, then maybe move onto some thing else. The book at times can be crude, but this is just reality and sometimes reality can be rude and crude. The book itself isn't crude, but has certain parts that could offend some people, but I would hardly consider this book offensive in anyway. This is a great novel and I would recommend it to anyone that is interested in the restaurant business.
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- Cristy Byrom
- 2023-10-21
Brilliant!!!
I loved this book!!! I worked in hospitality in Toronto, Canada from age 13 to 30’s. Restaurants but nightclubs mainly in the 80’s and 90’s. All the crazy shit came flooding back to memory. Thank you, what great journey you took us on.
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- Amazon Customer
- 2023-01-10
Loved it!
Really enjoyed hearing this account of restaurant life in NY. Great insight ! Easy to follow along.
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- Anne-Marie Warburton
- 2022-12-14
perfect for audible
After getting over the raunchy aspects of restaurant life back in the day, I loved his story. Best of all is the author reading his own story. This book is better for listening than reading because you get his wonderful acting out of the dialogue that you wouldn't be able to appreciate by quietly reading yourself.
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- Anonymous User
- 2024-02-24
Great real life account of the industry from an industry insider.
Real life account of the update downs of the restaurant industry told with passion and emotion. Very insightful.
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- Sam243
- 2023-01-17
Authentic
As a 35 year veteran hospitality worker I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this book. Although I missed out on some of the debauchery mentioned in the 80s and 90s in NYC, the stories told about restaurant life are completely authentic. As a Maître D in one of the city’s best restaurants, all of the stories told bring back great memories. Some good, some bad! I miss the camaraderie, the noise and smells. The outrageous guests and their ridiculous demands. Thank you for shining a bright light on hospitality life…
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- Maxina
- 2023-07-15
Great read/listen!!!
Really enjoyed listening to that! Good story, so wonderful with the author narrating and so uncensored. Loved it! It was over too soon.
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- duncan spence
- 2024-02-25
Fantastic story teller
This book was recommended to me by a few people and I join them in recommending it too. This is a terrific look at the New York restaurant scene from the 80’s to the present through the eyes of the author. It’s bawdy, funny, gripping, touching, gossipy, informative and at times very touching. It’s also really well read/ performed by the author. You won’t be disappointed
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- Liz Gildner
- 2023-02-15
Rough, Ready and Rude
If you want to listen to a story about a life of alcohol, drugs and sex—this book is for you.
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1 person found this helpful