Michael Cecchi-Azzolina: Author of Your Table Is Ready: Tales of a New York City Maître D⁠’

I speak with Michael Cecchi-Azzolina about his memoir called Your Table Is Ready: Tales of a New York City Maître D’ about being a maître d’ in New York City’s top restaurants from the 80s onward. This book is a historical time capsule of the culture of the past 40 years and a meditation of the restaurant as a dense site of psychology, theater, familial simulation, and the joy of communion. We discuss all of this and the changing social role of restaurants with the introduction of the internet age and shifting social mores.  Cecchi’s restaurant My food blog Food Fantasy with NYC restaurant recommendations, contemplations of food phenomenology, funny food PR stories, and more!