A front-of-the-houseKitchen Confidentialfrom a career matre dhotel 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 seenor just to gawkat 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 Readytakes us places wed never be able to get into on our own: Raoul’s in Soho with its louche club vibe; Buzzy OKeefes casually elegant River Caf (the only outer-borough establishment desirable enough to be included in this roster), from Keith McNallys Minetta Tavern to Nolitas 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. InYour Table Is Ready, he breaks down how restaurantsreallyrun (and dont), 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 patronsandwith each other, in a very distinctive ecosystem thats somewhere between a George Orwell down and out in. dungeon and a sleek showmans smoke-and-mirrors palace.

Your Table Is Readyis a rollicking, raunchy, revelatory memoir.