Why This Episode Matters

Michael Cecchi-Azzolina offers a front-of-house counterpart to the classic back-of-house memoir: a sharp, funny, often brutal look at how great New York City dining rooms really worked.
The episode captures a vanished New York restaurant culture in which the maître d’ controlled access and the rhythm of the room long before reservation platforms flattened the experience.
It explores how restaurants became the center of nightlife in 1980s New York, and how the city’s economic, social, and cultural shifts shaped the dining room.
Beneath the wild stories is a real argument about hospitality: the loss of personality, judgment, and human discretion
The conversation also doesn’t romanticize the era. It reckons with the excess, the cruelty, and the devastation of the AIDS crisis inside restaurant culture.

The Banter

Mark Pascal and Francis Schott open the show debating whether seedless produce justifies gene-edited fruits and vegetables.

The Conversation

Michael Cecchi-Azzolina, longtime front-of-house fixture at iconic New York restaurants including The River Café and Raoul’s, joins Mark Pascal and Francis Schott to talk about his memoir Your Table Is Ready and the restaurant world he came up in. He shares stories from an era when the maître d’ ran the dining room through charm, discretion, and a certain kind of power—and what he did when that wasn’t enough. Along the way, Michael reflects on what’s changed in hospitality, what’s been lost, and how he’s keeping that spirit alive.

Timestamps

00:00 – Opening banter: gene editing and unintended consequences
07:00 – Michael Cecchi-Azzolina, Your Table Is Ready, 1980s NYC Nightlife
14:00 – Running the door at The River Café and the power of the maître d’
19:00 – Reservations, VIPs, bribery, and table politics before the internet
23:00 – Mob stories, dining-room pressure, and front-of-house survival
30:00 – Sundays in Brooklyn
33:00 – The power of the maître d’ and why they disappeared
38:00 – Restaurant excess, cocaine culture, and the AIDS crisis
45:00 – NYC Restaurants today
52:00 – The Guys share stories about celebrity guests at their restaurant in the 1990s

Bio

Michael Cecchi-Azzolina is a veteran New York maître d’ and restaurateur who has worked at iconic dining rooms including The River Café, Raoul’s, and Minetta Tavern. He is the author of Your Table Is Ready, a memoir of front-of-house life in New York City restaurants.

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