Phoebe Damrosch— “The Wisdom of the Waiter”

What this episode covers

Click here to begin listening. Behind the scenes in Per Se, a four star restaurant in New York City, a sister restaurant to The French Laundry in Napa, California, is one of the topics in this edition of Radio Curious. Phoebe Damrosch, author of, “Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter,” was the first female captain (head waiter) at a New York four-star restaurant. A graduate of Columbia University’s Barnard College, she shares surprising episodes and charm in a story relayed from the always-pleasant server’s point of view that some people spend several hundred dollars each to witness from the diner’s perspective. However, Phoebe sees things that the diners don’t. Phoebe Damrosch was born in a small rural mountaintop cabin next to a pure water lake several hours north of New York City, and grew up partly in Vermont and rural Haiti. This conversation, recorded on July 15, 2008, began when I asked her to explain what a restaurant must do to receive the four-star nomination. The book she recommends is “Drown,” by Junot Diaz.

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