Maître d’ Diaries

How do you get the help and support you crave to grow in your profession, and as a person?

Have you ever wished you had a mentor? Or two or three?

Listen to our chat with Paz Altamirano for some great tips and inspo on how to find and activate MENTORSHIP in your life. 

You’ll hear about: 

~ How Paz got on the track of finding mentors in her maître d’ work

~ The importance of being humble and able to accept feedback in order to grow

~ The thrill of taking walk-ins

~ Tricks for not taking things at work so personally 

~ The value of intergenerational friendships

~ Giovanna Cucolo’s mindset advice for making the door your own

~ And of course more of the annoying things people do in restaurants that Paz would like to see 86ed!

Is it possible to age into rather than out of the business? As we gain experience and perhaps take on leadership roles within our restaurant groups, is the concept of work life balance even viable for chefs and restaurant managers? 

Our guest Arnold Rossman is an industry legend and a veritable posterboy for longevity in restaurant operations. Arnold has over forty five years of experience in all facets of the food & hospitality industry. He’s worked as dishwasher and busser, cook and server, maître d’, ops director, executive chef and everything in between. 

Arnold arrived in NYC in 1977 during the summer of the Son of Sam, worked at Empire Diner and Danceteria in the days of disco, in San Francisco for great chefs including Jeremiah Tower, Traci Des Jardins, and Bradley Ogden, at the legendary women-owned La Tulipe in New York, and on the hot line at Le Cirque his second day at the job. 

Join us for a delightful conversation that includes: 

~ Arnold’s story of getting his big break in the kitchen of at Le Cirque with almost no experience 

~ His philosophy that service is a gift

~ The importance of taking the high road 

~ What he learned about intention from cleaning spinach

~ The power of anticipation

~ The time one of the mirrors fell down (with guests underneath it!) at Balthazar

~ Why he wants to be the one to throw out any drunk person or give someone the Heimlich maneuver 

~ How the pandemic pause helped him readdress the essential matters in his life

~ Why he became the Director of Mirth at Pastis

~ Starstruck moments including meeting the great food writer Elizabeth David

And be sure to stay on until the end when he shouts out a list of OG FOH legends who have mentored and inspired him throughout his career.

It’s no secret that some of the best front of the house players started out as English majors and thespians. Which comes first, a penchant for performance and storytelling, or the need for a paying gig? 

For sure the dining room can be a stage. The curtain rises when the door opens, and no matter how we feel or what might have happened that day, the show must go on. And like putting on a play, pitching in, working hard, and the adrenalin rush of pulling off yet another night is part of the fun. 

Our guest Mardee Bennett is the maître d’ of acclaimed regional Italian restaurant Borgo in New York City. He’s also a singer, actor, and award-winning playwright. Join us for this delightful chat with Mardee which includes highlights such as: 

~ Moving to New Orleans & getting a job at Commander’s Place

~ How the maître d’ controls the weather (in the dining room!) 

~ The importance of finding the right restaurant fit for you

~ The first and last time he snapped his fingers at a server

~ How being an actor and actually liking people are hospitality superpowers

~ His favorite star-struck moment

~ What he learned about humanity when a guest who insulted him ended up with her bashed her head in and covered with blood

~ The time they had a naked man in the restaurant 

~ Gospel music and the rituals that help him get into the right head space

~ His feelings about technology & a few things he’d like to see 86ed

People get into the hospitality business from all different angles, and it's not uncommon for someone to start as a host or a bus boy to make a little extra cash and end up on a totally different career path than they expected.

Our guest Alexandra Tierno Payard Morris started with a B.S. in marketing and advertising from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), and fairly early on moved from advertising into restaurant work, events, and ownership.

Alexandra is the founder and owner of Tastings, a luxury catering company that started in New York City has ,across the country, and now even to our beloved Paris. 

Alexandra is a model of excellence in everything she does, and her career path reflects the nimbleness that working front of the house can foster in a person. 

Join us to hear about: 

~ Alexandra’s shift from advertising to restaurants

~ What it was like to work at the original Restaurant Daniel 

~ The importance of having (female) mentors

~ Growing a business organically

~ Bringing a breathwork ritual to her team

~ The Golden Rule

~ Patisserie Payard’s Instagram moment before the era of cell phones

~ Alexandra's early memories of Lutece and La Grenouille

~ The importance of maintaining close relationships with current and former employees

People get into the hospitality business from all different angles, and it's not uncommon to start as a host or a bus boy to make a little extra cash and end up on a totally different career path than you expected. Our guest Alexandra Morris started with a B.S. in marketing and advertising from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), and fairly early on moved from advertising into restaurant work, events, and ownership.

Alexandra is the founder and owner of Tastings, a luxury catering company that started in New York City has ,across the country, and now even to our beloved Paris. 

Alexandra is a model of excellence in everything she does, and her career path reflects the nimbleness that working front of the house can foster in a person. 

Join us to hear about: 

~ Alexandra’s shift from advertising to restaurants

~ What it was like to work at the original Restaurant Daniel 

~ The importance of having (female) mentors

~ Growing a business organically

~ Bringing a breathwork ritual to her team

~ The Golden Rule

~ Patisserie Payard’s Instagram moment before the era of cell phones

~ Alexandra's early memories of Lutece and La Grenouille

~ The importance of maintaining close relationships with current and former employees

When you work in restaurants you join an extended community of colleagues, ex-colleagues, and people your colleagues used to work with. These folks all over the world are connections and networks just waiting to happen. EMANUEL MOOSBRUGGER is one of those friends I never worked with but was destined to meet. 

Emanuel grew up in Austria and represents the fifth generation of his family running the BIOHOTEL SCHWANEN in Bizau. But before he took over the mantle of running the family business, Emanuel had wonderful adventures and training in NYC with Daniel Boulud’s Dinex Group, and in San Francisco with chef Corey Lee at Michelin three-star restaurant Benu. Emanuel’s career embodies one of his credos: Achieving anything extraordinary can only come with extraordinary efforts.

Listen in to hear Emanuel talk about: 

~ Starting at the bottom and working his way up

~ How being a hard worker helps you learn 

~ What it was like to come to VIP central NYC from rural Austria

~ When Daniel Boulud dissected a cocktail he created

~ The upside of taking a job in which your are way over your head

~ The relationship he had with Mick Jagger at Cafe Boulud

~ The worst thing that happened to him in a restaurant

~ What makes a hotel a BioHotel (they really do follow the moon phases!) 

~ The importance of nutrition to have the energy we need to do this work

How do you become a better restaurant manager? THAT’S AN ISSUE! 

Have we lost the art of the clear? THAT’S another ISSUE, along with many others we discuss in this episode of the Maître d’ Diaries Podcast with guests ALISON ARTH & KIMBERLY BELLE.

Between cultural reckonings and shifts in workforce expectations, leadership roles in hospitality have become more challenging than ever. Being an effective manager while juggling the multiple personalities and needs of your team is not something we should expect to come naturally. 

Often in F&B we don't teach people how to lead. We let them get really good at bartending, hosting, serving or cooking and then tell them, you're promoted, run a team. But that’s a whole different skill set.

To that end we are delighted to chat with Alison and Kimberly about the important work they are doing with their hospitality coaching and consulting company SALT & ROE.

Alison and Kimberly love this industry and the people in it and they are dedicated to helping us restaurant folks develop different ways of thinking and showing up, coaching us to learn the skills it takes to build and train effective leaders.

Get ready to be inspired! With the right tools and support, running restaurants—and managing our own lives and careers—can be a whole lot easier and more satisfying.

Welcome to another WE’RE BOOKED episode of the podcast with scholar and professor PAUL FREEDMAN. Paul Freedman is the author of Ten Restaurants That Changed America, an essential historic tome for passionate restaurant fans as well as people fascinated by business success stories and the evolution of American society.

Listen in as we discuss topics such as status and prestige access, the ways in which restaurants reflect American history, how restaurant going has changed from a sociological perspective, and how social media has impacted the behavior of American diners, especially the younger ones. And you’ll find out how and why Professor Freedman selected these ten restaurants as the most impactful, game-changing American icons.

~ Delmonico’s

~ Antoine’s

~ Schrafft’s 

~ Howard Johnson’s

~ Mamma Leone’s 

~ The Mandarin

~ Sylvia’s

~ Le Pavillon

~ The Four Seasons

~ Chez Panisse

Ever wonder how someone might go from being a psych major to clearing tables, to being a Michelin-star bartender? Join us for our chat with JENNA NORFLEET, head bartender at Francie in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Jenna’s front of the house career path epitomizes how sometimes the restaurant job you have to support yourself as a student ends up being more fun–and more accessible–than the field you were studying in the first place. 

Jenna has had an impressive rise through the ranks of front of the house service in the last few years, facing her fears and working hard to learn the craft. 

Listen in to hear about: 

~ building egg white cocktails

~ taking over an already established list

~ kicking out intoxicated guests

~ the importance of running your own race

~ being able to assess body language 

~ how she gets inspiration and perspective from dining out in other restaurants

Welcome to our first DESTINATION HOSPITALITY episode with our guest ANDREA ZANA, the general manager of the Hotel Il San Pietro in Positano on the Amalfi Coast of Italy. 

Listen in to hear what it’s like to be part of the operational family that runs one of the world’s greatest resort hotels, how Tom Cruise helped inspire Andrea to get into hospitality, why Andrea loves interacting with tourists, what it was like to work in top hotels in Florence, London, Paris, Milan, and why he sees luxury hospitality as a world full of opportunities. 

Get ready to be surprised by what great hoteliers like Andrea and the Cinque Family do to constantly evolve: including bringing a team of sixteen people from the hotel with him to Cornell University Hotel School for a week of professional development during the closed season. 

Andrea shouts out the importance of mentorship with the examples set for him by Claudio Ceccarelli, Simone Giorgi, and the Cinque Family, and how restaurants and hotels can be the stage, and we FOH folks the protagonists!