This week, we share stories from the world of fine dining. Maître d' Michael Cecchi-Azzolina has encounters with mobsters, fainting celebrities and unruly guests at New York’s top restaurants and reveals the secrets to great service. Writer Geraldine DeRuiter sits down for the world’s strangest Michelin-starred meal: She eats rancid cheese, slurps foam out of a ceramic mouth and is forced to watch the kitchen staff play extreme sports. Plus, historian Rebecca Spang uncovers the invention of the restaurant, Sara Moulton reveals the most baffling thing she ever witnessed in her career as a chef, and actors tell us how waiting tables unexpectedly helped their theater careers. (Originally aired June 22nd, 2023.)

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