We are so happy to welcome New York Restaurant World Legend, Melba Wilson, to Maître d’ Diaries. Restaurants are all about creating community. The community that is fostered in dining rooms, across tables, in bars and lounges, AND the community we build INSIDE the restaurants where we work. 

One of the best things about the hospitality business is how it gives us the chance to work with and get to know people of diverse ages and backgrounds we might not meet otherwise. And when f&b folk are lucky enough to be out and about sometimes we get to meet friends of friends, or people we’ve admired from afar, and as a result our personal restaurant community continues to expand. This is what happened when Erica had the pleasure of meeting Melba Wilson at an event last year. 

Melba is the founder of the beloved Melba’s in Harlem, and she just recently opened the 4th Melba’s in Grand Central Terminal Dining Concourse. She is also a fixture on the New York food scene, a food insecurity activist, and a vibrant beacon of glamour and kindness.

Being “born, bred and buttered in Harlem”, Melba knew she wanted to stay close to home so she could nurture and provide an exquisite yet comfortable dining experience to the community that raised her.

Listen in to our chat to hear about: 

~ How Melba learned all aspects of the restaurant business from her aunt Sylvia Woods of the iconic American Classic Sylvia’s Restaurant in Harlem

~ The impact of growing up with grandparents who were gardeners

~ What Josefina Howard said to Melba when she said she wanted to open her own restaurant, and how that changed everything

~ How Melba took Windows on the World’s slow Sunday Brunches and turned them into the wildly successful Gospel Sunday Brunch that ran until Sunday, September 9th, 2001. 

~ The inspiration she’s taken from 114th Street, Harlem’s historic Minton’s Playhouse, and gazing at the monuments of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman

You meet the best people working in restaurants! Case in point, this episode’s guest, Tatiana Mejia, maître d’ at Michelin-starred Francie in Brooklyn, and a dear friend.  

Folks come to restaurant work via all different paths, many of us finding the right balance of physical activity, mental engagement, social interaction, and reliable income in a place we didn’t originally imagine ourselves belonging. 

One of the mission’s of Maître d’ Diaries is to share our love for the vocation of taking care of people through hospitality. To shine a spotlight on how the work of serving and hosting can be  a satisfying, fulfilling, and fun way to make a living. 

Listen in to hear: 

~ What it was like to be maître d’ at the landmark Tavern on the Green (600+ people a night, 1,200 for brunch, in case you didn’t know!)

~ The similarities and differences between working retail and restaurants 

~ How working FOH can develop people skills and build community

~ About crying in the coat check–the FOH version of crying in the walk-in

~ How a weekly sauna ritual helps Tatiana sweat out the stress of the work week

~ Her current favor savory martini

Ever wonder what it was like booking out a restaurant ON PAPER, before the dawn of online reservation platforms? 

At Maître d’ Diaries one of our raisons d’être is building a bridge between restaurant industry old guard and the vibrant, essential Next Generation populating the new post-pandemic workforce. One way we do this is by gathering and sharing stories from the trenches (or the floor, if you will).

This episode’s guest, Roger Raines, has a LOT of stories. Roger started his illustrious hospitality career with one of the most respected restaurant groups in the country—Union Square Hospitality—back when tables were reserved over the phone by humans using a pencil and sheets of paper.

And like many of the very best maîtres d’hotel, Roger is also a renaissance person with multiple cultural pursuits and passions that make him culturally aware and good to chat with at the front door of whatever restaurant he’s running.

Roger’s first restaurant job was reservationist at Gramercy Tavern. He worked his way up through Eleven Madison Park, Tabla, Maialino, and the opened new location of Union Square Cafe. 

Listen in to hear about:

~ How much fun it used to be to run a wait list by phone and on paper

~ What he hates about cell phones in restaurants 

~ The difference of how people treat men and women at the door 

~ What it was like to be James Brown’s road manager

~ The upstate B&B run by USHG alum that we should all visit 

~ What Tabla was like

~ How awesome the Criterion Collection is

You meet some of the best people in the restaurant business. Folks like our guest Olivia Salomon, a server at Le Veau d’Or in New York City, who find joy and satisfaction taking care of other people and helping create memorable experiences for them. 

Whether it’s a warm welcome at the door or a server with a wonderful tableside manner, someone who is called to the work and does it with care can really make a difference in how we feel at the end of the day. 

The word restaurant derives from the French word for restoration. A place where you can restore your body with sustenance. And perhaps now more than ever, restaurants are places where we can revive our spirits and sense of well being. At their best, good restaurants feed our need to connect with other humans. All the more so if our server or maitre d’ is someone who’s passionate about spreading joy and love and positivity in the world.

Listen in to our chat with Olivia to hear about: 

~ How she figured out Pete Wells was coming in and then what happened

~ The importance of mentorship and how we can support the Next Gen

~ Why she loves the Danny Meyer 51% philosophy 

~ How to hold the work of serving so it’s empowering rather than demeaning

~ The difference between being a server and a maître d’

~ The unexpected joy to be found taking care of older clientele

~ Why kindness is the life hack Olivia wants everyone to know about

~ How to deal with challenging personalities at the door

Tom Piscitello is a New York maître d’ legend! He ran the door at some of the city’s best Italian restaurants, including Coco Pazzo, Babbo, Beppe, A Voce, and Ci Siamo. 

Tom joined us from his terrazzo in Sicily, where he and his husband now live the semi-retired life of private hospitality, making beautiful memories for their guests at a 3-bedroom luxury lighthouse with a view of Mt. Etna, hosting and taking care of visiting friends and locals. Che bella vita! 

Tom saw it all working in the hottest spots in the 1990’s and turn of the millennium New York dining scene, and in this episode he shares some glimpses from behind the scenes and among the celebrity-filled tables at the restaurants that had the bella fortuna to have him as their host. 

Join us as we talk about: 

~ How to make a good first impression on the welcome

~ The two words that people always say when they’re lying

~ The thing he can’t tolerate from guests or staff

~ How great Esca was and what a genius Dave Pasternak is 

~ One way to make a guest “yours for life”

~ The time some old guy punched him for a table

~ The qualities he looks for in a maître d’ 

~ The one thing you should never ask on a first interview

~ Tom's favorite part of Italian hospitality 

Welcome to our 3rd “We’re Booked” episode. Our guest is author, cookbook collaborator, and podcast host, Andrew Friedman.

Andrew has made a career chronicling the life and work of some of our best chefs, and is currently collaborating on a memoir with Daniel Boulud, to be published by Grand Central Publishing in 2027.

Andrew is the author of Chefs, Drugs and Rock & Roll: How Food Lovers, Free Spirits, Misfits, and Wanderers Created a New American Profession. Chefs, Drugs and Rock & Roll (Ecco 2018) tells the story of the evolution of the American chef in the 1970s and 1980s, and is essential reading for anyone in love with restaurants and restaurant history. 

To write it, Andrew interviewed more than 200 industry figures including legends such as Wolfgang Puck, Jeremiah Tower, Alice Waters, Jonathan Waxman, and Ruth Reichl. 

We started this podcast to have a place to share stories and preserve the rich history of the exciting world of restaurants we’ve been blessed to be a part of. 

Listen in as we:

~ go back in time to the incipience of “California cuisine” and its impact on the development of a distinctive American cuisine

~ discuss the confluence of the Blue Ribbon after hours culture and the dawn of the food network in the early 90’s which ushered in the now seemingly perennial era of the celebrity chef

~ highlight the importance of FOH staff being able to call a play in real time

~ hear a real life example of the kind of hospitality behavior Andrew would like to see 86ed.

Fasten your seat belts for a spirit-driven ride through NYC modern cocktail culture with the beloved, legendary, Sarah Morrissey who worked on the front lines of the cocktail revolution in New York from almost the beginning. 

Recorded one Saturday over bagels pre-service at Le Veau d’Or, where Sarah’s the AGM and Bar Manager, if you don’t already have the pleasure of knowing Sarah, you’ll feel like you do after joining us for our chat. 

One of our main purposes at Maître d’ Diaries is sharing stories and preserving the incredible history of our ever evolving F&B business. During this episode you’ll get a comprehensive overview of all things cocktail, learn what a Sasha Bar is, and stroll down the streets of early 2000-2010’s New York City, past the legendary speakeasies and cocktail lounges that started it all, many of which are sadly closed, each of which played an important role in the way spirit culture has evolved in the 21st century. And you’ll meet some of the major innovators in the bartending world who directly impacted what we now experience as standard when we go out for a cocktail. 

Sarah epitomizes the amount of hard work, enthusiasm, and devotion to information acquisition required to work in beverage at a high level restaurant or bar. Her knowledge of all things spirits–and insider information about how the city’s most popular bars are run–is matched only by her incredible warmth and the down-to-earth genuine affection and appreciation with which she welcomes every guest she comes in contact with. 

You’ll also hear about Erica’s new favorite gin–just in time for the upcoming G&T season. Cheers! 

A “We Can Transfer That” episode happens at least once a season on Maître d’ Diaries. These episodes are designed to highlight the many transferable skills one can hone working the door and floor of a restaurant. It's sort of a "how did you get from there to here" interview that showcases the incredibly satisfying and multi-faceted careers that sometimes get their start when someone becomes a server, a host, or a busser. 

One of the best things about the hospitality business–and this podcast–is the people we get to meet. This year at Will Guidara’s wonderful Welcome Conference, Erica had the thoroughly joyful experience of meeting Bradley Knebel of Empowered Hospitality. Bradley was studying Mathematics at Georgia Tech when he got a job as a server and fell in love with hospitality. He turned his passion into a career, moved to New York City, and began working for Union Square Hospitality Group where worked in a variety of roles–which we elaborate on during our chat. 

Bradley is an impressively well-rounded F&B guy. He’s earned his Level 2 Sommelier Certification, taught classes at Murray’s Cheese, and in 2022 he was the opening general manager of Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi, which earned a 3-star review in the New York Times, and two years in a row topped Pete Wells’ list of best restaurants in New York City.  

Listen in to hear about: 

~ What it was like to be involved in the Hospitality Included movement at USHG

~ Bradley’s thoughts on the pay disparity between front and back of the house workers

~ What working in HR can teach you about running a business

~ What an independent HR company can offer smaller operators

~ Why Bradley thinks that egos are the biggest killer of restaurants

~ How it all sort of started for him at Longhorn Steakhouse

~ How to help people become better leaders and how satisfying that can be

~ The power of mentorship on both sides of the relationship

Maître d’ Diaries is a front of the house industry podcast designed to build community with other dining room professionals, foster pride in the art of hospitality, share stories from the front lines, facilitate conversation among OG restaurant folks and the Next Gen, and address the very real challenges that are facing the industry we love.

We are delighted to introduce you to Sabrina Marte, an up-and-coming FOH star who has recently taken on the position of maître d’ at NoHo Hospitality’s Bar Primi in Penn Center. Sabrina is one of those people who lights up a room and exudes a welcome at the door that embraces each guest as they cross the threshold. While she may be what some people call a natural, you’ll learn that she also puts an enormous amount of thought into how she executes hospitality.

Listen in on our chat to hear about:

~ How she got into the business

~ Who inspires her: shout outs to Sean Prinz, Inta Erglis, Trisha Devila, and Justin Sievers!

~ All the love she has for NoHo Hospitality

~ How what managers remember about us can make all the difference

~ Pretty much the weirdest guest interaction you’ve ever heard of

You’ll end up feeling that the future of hospitality is in good hands!

Join us this episode as we step away from the welcome and into the wine cellar for our chat with Raj Vaidya, whose career trajectory has taken him from a bagel shop in New Jersey all the way to being Chef Daniel Boulud’s International Wine Director, and now collaborating with Daniel Johnnes, as the Director of Operations for Pressoir, the organization behind wine festivals La Paulée, La Fête du Champagne, La Tablée, and much more.

Born in New Jersey and raised in his family’s native Bombay and in Singapore, Raj attributes his passion for fine cuisine and wine to his family and their obsession with food and drink.

Listen in to hear about:

~ How working breakfast in a diner in New Jersey taught Raj to understand the theater of service

~ His thoughts on corkage

~ How making an old lady cry early on in his career forever changed his understanding of what people are looking for when they come to a restaurant

~ Tips for the two best ways to learn more about wine

~ Some of the places Raj likes to eat in NYC

~ Which two wine books he recommends for people who want the best general reference options

~ Who he’s learned from over the years (shout out to Chefs Craig Shelton & Daniel Boulud, Brett Traussi, Daniel Johnnes, John Slover, Robert Bohr, Michel Couvreux, and more.)

Paris Pryor has been hearing about Maître d’ Diaries since long before we launched. In fact, her passion for the business and for hearing stories about restaurants past and present helped inspire our inception. Erica and Paris met while opening the Michelin-starred Francie in Williamsburg, Brooklyn during the pandemic and became fast friends. (Although some have asked if they are really mother and daughter!)

Paris has experienced, accomplished, and learned quite a bit in the decade since she arrived in New York City in 2015, when she started moonlighting in the hospitality industry while pursuing her passion for theater at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Maybe her roots in the dramatic arts explain why she has one of the most sparkling dining room and tableside presences you’ll ever see. Very quickly, Paris was inspired by the vibrant excitement of her new stage, which has become a rewarding vocation and career.

Paris got her start with USHG and participated in the reopening of the iconic Union Square Cafe, one of NYC most renowned and successful restaurants. Her first post as a kitchen server/food runner ignited her passion to learn more and she quickly moved up to private dining captain. Before long Paris was invited to join the pre-opening team at Manhatta, where she was restaurant manager.

Listen in to hear about:

~ How she teamed up with John Winterman and Chef Chris Cipollone to open Francie, and got the dream opportunity to work with and learn from NYC wine legend Raj Vaidya

~ The unparalleled service and dining experiences she had at Cafe Carmellini & Restaurant Daniel

~ The "disconnect of wanting to be connected" and why she thinks taking pictures in restaurants should be mostly 86ed

~ How she established the reputation as the most loyal employee by trekking through the snow in the pandemic to deliver fried chicken to a certain famous personage

Welcome to our chat with Tizzy Beck, maître d’/manager at the Waverly Inn in the West Village. Tizzy is one of those people you meet and say, where have you been all my life? She’s a personality powerhouse, a native New Yorker and a born host. She's been featured in the New York Times for helping to kick off a New York style burger trend in Milan. Clearly she’s quite a badass.

Listen in as we talk about how moving to Milan to work in fashion led her to becoming a restaurateur because she wanted to create the kind of American restaurant she was missing and knew would be embraced. Prior to opening Tizzy’s Bar & Grill, Tizzy had never worked in a restaurant, and she believes that thinking like a guest (as opposed to an employee) has made her a certain kind of owner.

We also discuss what it’s like to work in a legendary restaurant where photography is not allowed, how our Maître d’ Spidey Sense helps us when a celebrity we don’t know arrives, a great meal she and her partner Mark Ladner had at Fasano, and how she wants to make sure we all just “keep it classy”.

Dante and Erica look back at 2024 and the holiday season in NYC. We talk about our aspirations for 2025, the physical challenges of doing a job that has us on our feet most of the day, what it’s like to do a restaurant brand refresh in a popular 15 year old restaurant, and what it means to have a purge party.

Listen in for Dante’s reaction to the news that Maître d’ Diaries has a YouTube channel, what’s new for Season 3, and Erica’s current obsession with what the runway to 60 looks like.

You’ll also get a preview of some of the guests for Season 3.

Maître d’s have a lot of great stories, and sometimes we get to meet really interesting people while just doing our jobs. 

In honor of ELECTION WEEK we’re offering up a wholly positive, but still dishy behind-the-scenes story of what happened when President and Mrs. Obama came to dinner at Maialino in New York City. 

Listen in to hear how Roger Raines graced telling a private party that they couldn’t be seated until everyone in their party had arrived, and what happened when he inadvertently tried to check the Presidential Football.

God Bless America

Welcome to the 2nd “We’re Booked” episode of Maître  d’ Diaries, a front of the house restaurant industry podcast.

On our “We’re Booked” episodes we chat with authors who write about restaurants and restaurant life, and the specialty book sellers who collect and curate the books we long to own and read. 

This episode we welcome food writer, author, and entrepreneur Leslie Brenner. 

Leslie has won two James Beard Awards, published five food & beverage oriented books, and an award-winning novel. She has been the food editor at The LA Times, restaurant critic and dining editor at The Dallas Morning News, and writes the award-winning Substack and Websites, Cooks Without Borders. 

Join us as we discuss what it’s been like writing about food for decades, researching trends, working with chefs and restaurateurs, and the need to constantly reinvent yourself as a journalist and f & b professional. 

You’ll hear the stories behind her books: 

~ Fear of Wine, (Bantam, 1995) Illustrated by Wall Street Journal Wine Columnist, Lettie Teague

~ American Appetite: The Coming of Age of a Cuisine (Avon Books, 1999)   

~ The Fourth Star: Dispatches from Inside Daniel Boulud’s Celebrated New York Restaurant (Clarkson Potter, 2002) 

Along with: 

~ Her favorite new wine book

~ Tips for aspiring food writers

~ All the different tricks and costumes a restaurant reviewer has up their sleeve

~ How good restaurant criticism can contribute to the quality of a city’s dining scene

~ The importance of anonymity for food critics today

~ Why she thinks a star system in restaurant reviewing is a good thing

~ Anticipating impact of the Michelin Guide coming to Texas

Thanks for joining us at Maître d’ Diaries, and welcome to our first “That’s an Issue!” episode. 

At Maître d’ Diaries we spend a lot of time thinking about the management of dining room operations and how we could do it better. While we are well past Covid–knock on wood–our industry is still very much in a culture correcting moment. It seems like every six months there is a new Major Issue. 

To that end, our guest this episode is Preston Lee, who we discovered on Instagram. 

Preston is the founder of The 30% Rule, and if your feed is as food & restaurant oriented as ours, maybe you’ve already found him, too. 

Preston’s vibrant videos caught our attention for their engaging presentation of high level systems designed to help independent restaurants be more successful through hospitality training and management. 

Join us for our chat with Preston. 

If you work in the FOH you’re sure to feel seen and get lots of inspo as we discuss how: 

~ “if it’s measured, it can be managed”

~ people always pick consistency over their desired product

~ elevated food is easier than elevated hospitality

~ that restaurant failure rate you’ve always heard about is fake news

~ training is pretty much everything

“We Can Transfer That.”

If you’ve spent much time in restaurants, you’ve no doubt heard or used the phrase “We can transfer that,” which refers to transferring a drink tab from the bar to a table.

Do you ever look at people with really cool restaurant-adjacent jobs they seem to have crafted to perfectly suit them and wonder how they got there? 

Many of us feel that the world would be a kinder, more civilized place if everyone worked in customer service for at least a year. The transferable skills that are honed taking care of people in a welcoming, hospitable, efficient, unflappable way can be applied to how we move through life and how we treat the people who take care of us. They can also lead to other fun and satisfying work. 

To that end, at least once a season Maître d’ Diaries will interview someone for a “We Can Transfer That” episode in which our guest talks about how working in dining room service helped them gain knowledge, hone skills, and make connections they now use in hospitality adjacent roles and careers. 

Who better to be our first “We Can Transfer That” guest than our friend, Shari Bayer? 

Shari is the founder of New York City culinary & hospitality focused Bayer Public Relations, the host of the popular All in the Industry podcast on Heritage Radio Network, and the author of Chefwise: Life Lessons from Leading Chefs Around the World (published by Phaidon last Spring).

Shari’s worked in restaurants since she was in high school, went to culinary school, attended the Food Studies Program at NYU, and boasts some serious OG credit having worked at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago. Join us to hear about how Shari went from summer jobs at Bennigan's and Chili’s to running her own company, sharing the stories of behind the scenes talent in the hospitality industry on her award-winning podcast, and traveling to visit chefs in their restaurants all over the world.

Get ready for a serious OG Alert. 

You’re about to spend some time with restaurant legend Barry Wine of the famed Quilted Giraffe. 

American cuisine and fine dining–along with the concept of signature dishes going viral–can be traced to the Quilted Giraffe, which opened almost 50 years ago in 1975. 

The Quilted Giraffe epitomized the excess and extravagance of the 80’s in New York City. It’s been called “the Studio 54 of New York’s restaurant scene” because of the rock stars, models, socialites, movie stars, and Wall Street millionaires who had regular tables there. 

In addition to being a huge celebrity scene, the Quilted Giraffe was a pioneer and a game changer in the business. They introduced tasting menus, an 18% service charge in lieu of tips, the inclusion of Japanese ingredients and techniques, and “must have” dishes like their caviar beggar’s purses and tuna wasabi pizza.

In its lifetime the Quilted Giraffe consistently held 4 stars longer than any other restaurant, and for a while was known as the most expensive restaurant in the country, and maybe the world. 

Did you, like us, miss out on experiencing the Quilted Giraffe IRL? Listen in to hear about some of the moments in American restaurant history upon whose shoulders we all stand today, including: 

~ The 3 Michelin Star restaurants in France that inspired Barry & Susan

~ The Howdy Doody litmus test they used for hiring

~ The pranks Barry would play on regular guest Warren Beatty

~ How his 25 trips to Japan impacted what they did at QG

~ What top model rock star wife they spilled red wine on

~ What restaurants Barry Wine likes now

~ Some uncanny parallels between what they did at the Quilted Giraffe and some of the things we saw in The Bear 

Get ready for a guest and a restaurant that are unapologetically analog.

Building community among our FOH colleagues is the primary reason we started Maitre d’ Diaries, so it’s fitting that wine & spirit OG and self-proclaimed connection artist, Ryan Looper, launched us on the trail to meet the bewitchingly romantic restaurateur, Tina Vaughn, co-owner of Eulalie, in Tribeca. 

Tina and her husband Chef Chip Smith have a decidedly nostalgic, if not utopian, approach to restaurant ownership, which you will quickly discover when you try to make a reservation. 

Eulalie books tables exclusively by phone, has a long (and enjoyably quixotic) voice message, actually calls you back, presents hand-written menus, envelops you in a quiet dining room (by NYC standards) and respectfully suggests you put your phone on a time out while you dine.

Located in the former space of Montrachet, Corton, and Batard, Eulalie earned the second 3 star New York Times review for this talented couple. Their first was for The Simone on the Upper East Side, which opened in 2013 and closed in 2022 after the pandemic. 

Listen in to hear: 

~ Tina’s journey from Rockette to wine pairing whisperer

~ Chip and Tina’s tres romantique “meet cute in a restaurant” story 

~ How a wine from Chateau de Cenac in Cahors gave the restaurant its name

~ The ways in which working with Larry Forgione, Jean-Louis Palladin, and Patrick O’Connell influenced Chip’s cooking

~ Where Tina and Chip like to dine when they aren’t working

~ Why Tina would like to see table times 86ed

Cherif Mbodji’s passion for hospitality is deeply rooted in his upbringing in Senegal. When he came to America in 2000 to attend the University of Michigan, he had no way of knowing that homesickness for the liveliness and generosity of his big family in Senegal would lead him to a career in hospitality. 

When Cherif stumbled into Rain, a Thai restaurant on the Upper East Side, he got a summer job as a busser that kicked off a journey that took him to the dining rooms of the China Grill Group, Bouley, and Daniel Boulud, to being nominated for a James Beard Hospitality Award in Houston with his partners Aaron and Victoria Pappas Bludorn.

Join us to hear:

- What it was like to grow up in a family of 9 kids

- Their family tradition of always saving a plate of food in case a stranger or visitor passes by

- The time Cherif got in big trouble with Charlie Rose

- How he created an 8-top in a packed dining room and saved the job of a bigwig’s assistant 

- What he learned about the real role of manager on the floor at Bouley 

- How working for Dinex prepared him to run his own business

- What’s happening in Houston with Bludorn Hospitality Group