If you’ve ever wondered what working in a restaurant is really like, Michael’s memoir, Your Table is Ready: Tales of a New York City Maître D’  give you a very good idea.  His book is the front of  house equivalent to Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential…. Your Table is Ready describes the heady 1980’s, think of Michael Douglas in the movie Wall Street, Gordon Gekko, Greed is Good Days, before social media, before the Me Too movement when money, booze, cocaine, and sex flowed like tap water, Michael, a natural storyteller,  had a front row seat at both the good and the bad times in the city. He lost a lot of friends during the AIDS crisis, and 20 years later he lost beloved clients in 9-11. This is not a book for the faint of heart. A paragraph from his excellent introduction below:

A well-run dining room is an art, a ballet, a confluence of pieces that come together to bring a guest a meal. Our guests come not just for sustenance, but to celebrate. Birthdays, anniversaries, a wedding, a death, a date. Friends getting together, the pursuit of sex, love. It’s all happening on any given night.

And on any given night, most of my working life has been spent in this environment. I am just a piece in the show. For many years, restaurants enabled me artistically, socially, and sexually. I’ve met the loves of my life in restaurants, my greatest friends have worked alongside me, and many are still my friends, even though the name above the door has changed numerous times for us. I’ve had trysts, got naked, fucked, laughed, drank, drugged, puked, and shared the gamut of our human existence in restaurants. It’s now time to share these experiences, the people, the food, the insanity of the places so many of us take for granted.

While Michael’s book gives a no holds barred look at what really went on in top NYC restaurants, his memoir is also a coming-of-age story from a New York City native who grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn where the jobs available were in sanitation, the police force or the mob. Michael fled those chosen career paths for the glittering lights of Manhattan.

 I met Michael recently at his own chic and delicious restaurant, Cecchi’s, in the West Village, which I highly recommend. In fact, I went back a second time, and hope to visit many more times. He knows exactly what makes a restaurant successful.  Below are a few highlights from our conversation. You can listen – and subscribe-  to the entire episode here on Elena Meets the Author or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Elena: Michael, welcome to the show. It’s great to have you here.

Thank you, Elena. It’s great to be here.

Elena: You have so many choice stories in your book and the Brooklyn mobster accents that you do on the Audible version are impressive. It makes sense that you also had a career in acting. Let’s start off by talking about the genesis of your book. What made you decide to write it?

 I had an acting career for many years. In fact, restaurants supported my theater habit. As an actor, you’re a storyteller. And when I was at restaurants and working, I told stories. I told stories about life. The wacky things that happened to me, to restaurants, to other guests.

People have come in and people always said, well, you should write this down. So, 30 odd years later, I decided to write it down.  I was the maître d’ and manager  at Le Coucou. So, once the last table is seated, and there are a couple of nights a week I had to close the restaurant, I really had nothing to do.

So, I’m standing there, and I figured, let me start writing. And I did. I went in the back and started typing away. And I got about 70 pages in and one of my guests, a known food writer, was walking out one day and I said, you know, I think I’m writing a book. Can I send it to you? And, let me know what you think.

And he said, yeah, sure, of course. So, I did, and he sent it back a few days later with notes. And he said, you need to do this, this, and this. So I responded to the notes, and we had a back and forth for about three or four weeks.

I probably wrote another hundred pages. Then he said, okay, that’s it. Stop bothering me. You’re a writer. Go finish your book. At that time, my young daughter was born. And I was working full time, I had a newborn, and I stopped writing.

And about a year and a half later, COVID happens.  I lost my job. My wife, our daughter and I, and some family members went up to a farm in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York. And we’re up there, and while I’m up there, a former host of mine sends me an email from someone out in L.A. whose offering writing scholarships to any restaurant worker that’s a writer and happens to be unemployed. How’s that for a niche? So, I applied, for this writing scholarship, I got it, and it was a ten-week workshop where you had to commit to two hours in the morning and two hours at night.

We met remotely two or three nights a week, we’d have these talks with other writers who were in the program. Probably about eight of us were doing it. I finish the ten-week program, and at the end of it, you get an evaluation. And I’m now at this farm in the middle of nowhere, the only, reception I got on my phone was in the middle of a cow field.

So, I take a chair, and I trudge out to the middle of a cow field, I sit down. Phone rings, I get the evaluation, and it was very good. So, I hang up the phone, and I’m thinking, now what? The cows are looking at me, we’re in the middle of COVID, and my phone rings. And it’s a former customer of mine, calling to check in.

How are you? What’s going on? What are you doing? And I say, you know, I’m well, broke, haven’t worked in a long time, but I  just finished a book. He said, What’s the book? I said, It’s a front of house kitchen confidential. He goes, Oh, that sounds interesting. I say, Well, if you happen to know any literary agents, let me know.

He says, you know, I know a few. let me see what I can do for you. I hang up the phone. The next day I get an email from a literary agent saying I heard I should read your book. I send him the book. He writes back to me two weeks later. I love it. Stand by. Two weeks after that, he signed me. And then about a month later, we got a publishing deal. And the book came out. Well, it takes about a year. About a year later, the book came out.

Elena: What a story. You make it sound so easy.

 Honestly, I don’t tell this to writers, because I’m afraid they’ll kill me, because it’s so hard, but I guess people will hear this now. But it was (easy).

Elena: Let’s discuss your childhood in Bensonhurst  and how serving at your uncle’s poker games and being an altar boy gave you a sense that maybe the restaurant business could be for you.

When I started to write the book, I started thinking, how did I get into this business, how did I get to be a waiter?  I just started thinking, and I kind of always did it. I was an altar boy.  And when you’re an altar boy, you serve Mass. And what’s serving Mass? You assist the priest. You get the wine and the host, and you bring it out. And you get the linens, which are the tablecloths to cover the altar. And you polish the gold. You know? And you set up the cruets with the wine and the water and, you’re there and you’re serving. I thought, well, wow, my restaurant career really started in church.

I come from this very Italian Sicilian background neighbourhood and a lot of poker playing, booze drinking guys. On the weekends,  my mother played poker, and these guys would come over for poker games. They would come sit in the living room, and they’d be smoking cigarettes, and they’d be drinking, and I thought, I’d like to hang out with those guys.

It was kind of cool. I must have been six or seven years old, and I would change the ashtrays. If they needed a drink, I’d run in the kitchen, get them a drink, and there I was serving drinks and cleaning ashtrays, which, until no smoking happened in restaurants, is what you did. And so, I thought, that really was the genesis of it.

And I loved it. It was fun. It got me to be around all these really cool, though, albeit crazy people.

Elena: And in the altar boy job, there was a little bit of skimming money off the plate?

The neighbourhood  I grew up in, you had three paths in life, generally. You were sanitation, police, or mob. And the ethos of the time, whether you were sanitation, police, or the mob, was get what you can. Take what you can get because no one’s going to give it to you.

This is the mentality. It was very tribal, and that’s what I grew up in. And so after mass, we’d sell the Catholic newspaper called The Tablet. it was ten cents a copy, and there we were, these cute altar boys, ten cents a copy, collecting the money, and then the money would come in, and we’d go back in the rectory, and we would take five dollars off the top to buy a nickel bag of pot.

And then we’d go sneak some wine, before the priest coud get it, because the bottle was already open. Actually we’d get six dollars, because five dollars was for the pot, and then we’d go get high behind the church, and then with the last dollar, we’d go to the luncheonette on the corner and get coffee and toast, because we were hungry.

Elena: Jumping ahead now to when you started out as a waiter in NYC, you talk about going to an interview with famed restaurateur Danny Meyer and he asks you what’s more important, the food or the service? At the time you didn’t know. But you learned quickly. Which is more important?

 Service. You go to a restaurant for a meal, right? But you really don’t. You go to a restaurant for an experience. You go to celebrate a birthday, an anniversary, on a date, to find a date. You’re hungry, yes, but you go because you want to be around people.

And that’s the experience. And the most successful restaurants, at least the ones that I know, when you walk in that door, your shoulders drop. And if it’s done right, you’re in a whole other mindset, You sit down, someone brings you a drink and you get your food, and if that goes seamlessly, it’s wonderful.

And if things are great, and you love your server, and they come over and explain things, and your steak comes out, it’s well done, you’ll forgive a well-done steak.

But if your server’s a jerk, or the person at the door ignores you, or the bartender’s not looking at you for ten minutes, things start off on a bad foot. And even if the food’s delicious, will you really want to go back? If they forgot your appetizers, or they forgot your partner’s drink, or it was a birthday, and they forgot the candle. You’re probably not going to go back.

But if you get the service part right, and your food’s pretty good, you’re on your way to something successful.

You write about how the staff prepared for  restaurant critics and food inspectors. Tell us about that.

 Both strike fear into the hearts of mortal men. Are you talking about Pete Wells?

Elena: yes

So Pete Wells, who is now retired, was the food critic for the New York Times. And for many years, the food critic for the New York Times was the most powerful person in the city because he could make or break a restaurant. That’s changed drastically since those days. But you want to get a good review. You want to spot Pete Wells. And Pete would come incognito, or use pseudonyms. One of the things that he would do is there would be a party of four and three guests would show up, asked to be seated, and then he would just come in like 20 minutes later and just sneak in and go find the table. But we really wanted to spot him. We were waiting for people. Look, you wait for the reviewers, right? And Stephen Starr , owner of Le Coucou, is a master restaurateur, but also he’s been doing this for many years.

He hired people who’d be at the door who recognized every critic and food writer that ever walked through that door. We did not miss one person. Because you want to be ready. You don’t want the restaurant critic to come in and suddenly everyone’s having a bad night, and your worst server is at that station, and everything goes downhill. So, you want to be prepared for the best. There was a woman who worked the door, and pretty much knew all the aliases Pete Wells used, and some of the phone numbers, and, we were able to know when he was coming.

Elena: Didn’t you also leave a table empty for the critic?

 The day Le Coucou opened, we left the best table in the restaurant unseated, So, when a food writer or restaurant critic did come in, they got the best table in the restaurant. And that best table in the restaurant was always helmed by the best captain and the best server. And behind the desk there we had a fresh menu with a fresh wine list that was perfect. So, when they went down to the table, everything was perfect.

And this is a very busy restaurant, right? Packed, packed. People waited a year for a reservation. People would be walking in and waiting for a table. Why can’t I sit there? Why can’t I sit at that table? Why is no one sitting at the table?

And I would just say, I’m so sorry, it’s spoken for. And people would scream at you. Why, I’m waiting half an hour for a table. Why is that table open? It’s because it’s spoken for. I’m so sorry.

Elena: You have to be so diplomatic. Food and health inspectors, that was another nightmare…

 Oh my God,  the worst. Look, it’s New York City, most of these spaces are old. We have a health code now that when Bloomberg was mayor, it became a letter grade. You had A, B, C, or D in your window, depending on the state of cleanliness of your restaurant.

No one wants anything but an A. If you see a D on a restaurant window, you’re not walking in unless you’re starving. And there’s nothing else open. So, you really want that A. It’s a point system. You’re allowed 13 points of violations.

And once you go past 13, that’s when the B begins. And then more points to C or D. Getting 13 points in a restaurant is pretty easy. When the restaurant inspector comes in everything stops because generally, in the kitchen especially, nothing is legal. You got a bunch of orders coming in and there’s three pieces of fish sitting waiting to go into a pan and you’ve got three burgers on the side there that you’re going to put on the grill and  that meat and fish is sitting out. They’re not in the refrigerator because you have to temper them. Once you temper them, it becomes an illegal temperature. So, the inspector comes in, puts his thermometer in there, and you fail. And a piece of meat that fails temperature is, I forget how many points, it’s a lot of points. And if there’s two pieces of meat out, you’ve blown your 13 points.

So, when the DOH (Department of Health) comes in, we have a code word. And many restaurants have a word for whatever it is. Tsunami was one of the ones we used in a restaurant. And the host comes in, and the DOH person shows their badge. Thank you very much. And some places have buzzers at the front door that alerts the kitchen.

Some say, okay, give me one second, turn, and the host will run back and tell everyone, tsunami, tsunami, tsunami. And you race through the restaurant to make sure everybody on the floor knows, the bar knows, the kitchen knows, that there’s a health inspector in the restaurant.

Now, some inspectors will stop there at reception and put their paperwork together, and some will just walk straight through and go into the kitchen. So as they’re coming, when you hear Tsunami, the first thing kitchen staff do in the kitchen with those burgers and fish, they throw them out. In the refrigerator, all your dairy products, anything in the refrigerator, the doors are opening and closing, you can’t keep them at the required temperature so all that gets thrown out. Your bar garnishes, those are never at the right temperature. They all get thrown out. You throw everything out. So, all those people waiting for their orders, their food is now in the garbage, and we’re not going to cook a thing until that inspector leaves, because once that fish is up there, if the inspector’s thermometer comes out, we’re in trouble.

And restaurants in New York, there are mice. There are roaches. Every single, brand-new restaurant has mice and roaches. And if there’s one little speck of mouse poop on the floor, no matter how clean you are, how many exterminators you have, that’s a violation. So, when they come through the door, it’s a disaster.

 What was my thinking? I was in quarantine. I wrote a book, the book got published and I was done. I wasn’t going to come back and work for anybody. I tried to open something before, but everything was too expensive. It just didn’t make any sense. The rents were too high, and you couldn’t make ends meet.

My older daughter said, what are you going to do now, Dad? And I said, nothing. And she says, no, you have to open Cecchi’s. And I said, oh, Jesus Christ. And so, I thought about it and slept on it.

And a lot of restaurants had gone out of business during Covid, and no one knew what was going to happen. So, there were a lot of deals to be had. I thought, okay, I’m going to do it. And I found a spot that I fell in love with at a very good price because of the pandemic.

I saw that in covid when people sat outside in 20-degree (Fahrenheit) weather because they wanted to support restaurants, they wanted to see other people, I saw that people will come back to restaurants. I didn’t know to what extent. I knew the fact that I’ve done this for a long time, I’m not an unknown entity that people would probably come to the restaurant. So, I felt pretty good about it. I didn’t know we would do as well as we’re doing now. And that’s a whole other story. But we’re doing very well.

But it’s a risk. It’s an absolute risk. It’s hard.  And a lot of people go into the business, not knowing what they’re doing. I’m here every day. I was here every day for 7 months, 7 days a week. You’re talking 15, 18-hour days. Because I wanted this to be right.

You’ve definitely cracked it. It was bold to open, but I’m so glad you did because your restaurant is great. The design, the lighting, the food, my martini- everything was great. It’s like theatre.

It is theatre. You open the door and the show’s on.

January, 2025

The post Your Table Is Ready: Tales of a New York City Maître D’ – Q&A with Author Michael Cecchi-Azzolina appeared first on Elena Bowes.

I want to stay put, cosy on my upper east side sofa, cosy in my upper east side life, binging on the latest mind escape. White Lotus got me through December. What’s going to get me through January? But being the amazing wife that I am, I put on my coat, hat and gloves and follow Stretch to what I’m sure will be an outing we’ll regret.

How late does this thing go? I ask Stretch in the Uber downtown?

4am

Jesus Christ.

Don’t worry we can leave after an hour. It’s good for us, take advantage of this city.

The Uber pulls up to some nondescript street full of small shops. I don’t really want to get out. Old fears sometimes stick. But there goes Stretch heading to the back of a line of people so I follow.

Did you bring any ID? They’re checking people’s ID, Stretch says.

I quickly scramble scanning my phone for some ID. When we get to the bouncer, he looks at us and our tickets and waves us in. No ID needed. We’re clearly not minors. Fine, I’m old I know it. Then we go inside, and I see a big room filled with people, all in their 20’s and 30’s.

What are we doing here? I wonder. We so don’t belong. My next thought- No way I won’t get Covid. Then we go to check our coats. It’s the honesty system. Ohh Jeez. Goodbye coat, I think. Why did I wear my favorite snuggly coat, plus saffron-coloured cute hat and brown leather gloves? They’ll all be gone by the end of the night.

We go to the dance floor- it’s very intimate- crowded but people make way for us oldsters. Stretch beams at me and immediately starts swinging his hips, getting into the groove and calling me Baby.

Who is this man? We are too old for this. My name is Elena, not Baby.

But he’s not deterred. He won’t comply. He keeps dancing, smiling, kisses my neck. PDA, no, no, no. Not at 60! I turn and face the stage and pretend I don’t know him.

Doesn’t he realise we look ridiculous? We are the oldest people in the room by at least twenty years. I scan the crowd looking for anyone, please someone older than us. Spotted! There’s a woman, full head of grey hair, jacket still on, wearing a mask. And I feel better. The lead singer is a man named Brian Jackson. He talks to the audience in between each song. I’ve never heard of Brian, but the crowd seems to know him. There’s a lot of clapping and whooping when he talks.

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One song, Brian says, he wrote in 1973. I was 11 in 1973. Brian couldn’t have written this song when he was 11. Brian is older than us. And he’s good. Before another song he tells us that the media is full of violence and war right now, but we need to remember tonight-

We’re a cool, calm fun community, he tells the attentive crowd.  My band, our mascot is the gorilla. The gorilla is a super peaceful animal.

I look around the room. Everyone is having a good time, dancing and chatting, meeting up with friends. We’re all just peace-loving gorillas. No one is interested in stealing my stuff. Everyone here just came out for some fun  and good music on a Saturday night.  I might not even get Covid.

When did I become so negative? So cautious? So uptight? Age is about an attitude, and I didn’t like mine.

Then Brian talks about it being ok to disagree with your neighbor- and if you want change, you need to change yourself first. I like this guy. I realise as I scan the room that I used to be like these people. Carefree, somewhat adventurous (I’m only a few miles from my cosy apartment after all), relaxed and willing to give it a go. But as I got older I put up walls, got more afraid, resistant to winging it and seeing how an unconventional evening might go. By the end of the set, I am dancing with abandon as is that other older women with the grey hair and the mask.

I realise that it’s easy to come here in your 20’s and 30’s but what’s important is to come here in your 60’s, to be reminded of who you once were. I’m not quite ready for Burning Man. For me, this was adventure enough. I saw glimpses of myself thirty years ago and don’t want to say goodbye to that person.  And my coat and favourite hat and gloves, they were right where I left them.

Postscript- when we got home I googled Brian Jackson and here’s what came up:

Brian Jackson earned mythic status among music fans thanks to his pioneering work with Gil Scott-Heron in the 70’s, where his flute and electric piano performances on ‘Pieces of a Man’ and ‘Winter In America’ virtually defined the sound of an era. From the 80s onwards he went on to record with Kool & The Gang, Will Downing (whose debut album he produced), Roy Ayers and Gwen Guthrie among many others, and while many veteran musicians tend to stick with the sounds they know best at some point in their careers, Jackson remains an unusually adventurous, vital and broad-minded artist to this day.

January, 2023

The post Stretch Takes Me Out of My Comfort Zone, and That’s a Good Thing appeared first on Elena Bowes.

Why walk to the corner to get an avocado when one click shopping means I can lounge in bed for the foreseeable future – or until the avocado appears on my doorstep.

And a ripe avocado please, I specify from my laptop.

I don’t want to wait for my avocado toast. Click by click, I am becoming a real New Yorker where everything but everything is made easy – 24 hour pharmacies, doormen, diners. This can do philosophy, where everything is available and easy, is quite alluring.

So you can imagine my distress when I came home from Nashville Saturday only to see a jumble of boxes blocking my entry.

This can do philosophy doesn’t stretch to, you guessed it, Stretch.

Hi, I grumbled, as I maneuvered myself into our apartment. Couldn’t you have  opened at least one box?

I didn’t know where to start, he said. I feel like I’m being buried alive. I think you need to calm down.

I ignore him and go get a knife. Clutter to him are life’s essentials to me. The two of us have finally moved into our new apartment, and I’m in that every day is Christmas mode when you’ve just moved in and lack everything from paper towels to Nature’s Miracle (used in tandem when you own two pugs).

I may start out searching for a simple soap dish, only to realise that a bathroom isn’t quite complete without a few pretty bottles and jars and maybe a smelly candle and a bath tray, and oooh, my makeup is so old (jumping sites now) I wouldn’t want to get an infection from using old  mascara which somehow reminds me that we need toilet brushes and a Dyson hair dryer. (On-line shopping is a killer if you’re a lateral thinker.) The beauty of the internet is that not only has it broadened my definition of life’s essentials, but it’s all available, right here, right now.

I was fifteen minutes late for my therapist the other day.

Quite a day! I texted her from the taxi.

When I got there, she gave me a serious look.

Elena, why was your day so crazy? You know you are only short-changing yourself.

I thought about it and told her that actually, I had been sitting at my laptop all day and wasn’t sure why my day had been so crazy, but she’d just have to take my word for it. I didn’t mention the fun black fire bucket that says FIRE in red letters  on  Luminaire

or the ingenious collapsible water bottle on Food 52

or the adorable elephant bookends from Oka.

She wouldn’t understand. I can tell from her spare office. I mean, wouldn’t this elicit a small smile from even the most depressed patient?

Stretch did call me the unmentionable, the S word, the word that I have always associated with my mother, my aunt and maybe even a sister and a daughter (you know who you are), but never myself. I have always thought that I take after my father’s prudent, measured side. No Shopaholic here! But Stretch laughs a little too hard when I tell him that.

Shoot. I quickly google the definition of an online addict (my laptop is my bible). This article was helpful. I only ticked one box on the 10 point questionnaire. That’s nine boxes unticked. Got to go, my doorbell is ringing.

February, 2020

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“Yeah, Anne that sounds great,” I mumbled down the phone.

I hadn’t thought about what it would be like to immerse myself in the colourful, floral, funny, some might say zany, over the top and down the rabbit hole world of the late Prince of Chintz.

Well, let me tell you. It was fun.

Why buy one when you can buy ten? More is always better. Mario Buatta, who was the most famous American decorator in the 80’s and 90’s  said there wasn’t a color he didn’t like, that he must have been born under a rainbow.

His favourite colors  being lemon yellow, leaf green and Prussian blue. He also liked full-on pistachios, apricots, and aubergine.

Some pretty plates from the auction – which is going gangbusters by the way. It’s a two day sale, there’s still time to bid.

The self-taught boy from Staten Island made good with his cultivated eye, steel trap mind and  great sense of humour.  He was famous when decorators were not. He was also complicated and moody- all the makings of an interesting story.

Anne was right (she usually is).  It is a good story.  Read all about Mario’s inventive world in our piece for British H&G here.

Back to shopping/ bidding- the exhibition made me realise I have always wanted certain things, I just never knew it, like this very practical bird cage…

or this ostrich candelabra

Cheers to Mario…

January, 2020

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