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!

This episode we welcome Ahris Kim, the Director of Operations for NA:EUN Hospitality, the multi-award-winning group behind Atoboy, Atomix, and NARO in New York. Ahris, born in Seoul, Korea, and chats about the opportunity to combine her career passions and her heritage, the impact of the awards and accolades, her start in luxury hotels, working for Daniel Boulud, the importance of self care, and how it’s good to try as many different things as possible when you’re starting out.

@hiyuwinefarms @atoboynyc @atomixnyc @seoulsalon.nyc @eparkato @jparkato @foodeducationfund

With passion, partnership, and maybe a soupçon of beginners’ ingenuousness Ronan Duchêne Le May and his wife chef Alexia Duchêne opened Le Chêne, a très chic, très Parisien restaurant on Carmine Street in the West Village in less than six months. Incroyable!

Listen in to our chat with Ronan to hear about how his love of restaurants drew him from his family winemaking world in Bordeaux to Paris, hospitality work, and how the couple’s decision to move to New York in 2023 has led to an adventure bigger than even they could have imagined.

We are kicking off Season 4 with the iconic Daryl Coke, who runs the beloved wine programs at NYC’s Ernesto’s and Bartolo’s, and a deep dive into Spanish and Basque restaurants and wines.

Daryl has been in New York for the past 16 years working at some of the city’s most beloved cult restaurants including The Beatrice Inn, The Fat Radish, Mission Chinese, Contra and Wildair.

She also gives us the inside scoop on where she loves to eat around town (and in Spain), what she wishes people knew about wine service, and what guest behaviors she’d like to see 86ed.

Listen in! You’ll come away hungry, thirsty, and with a long list of new restaurants you want to try. I know I did!

@ernestosnyc

@bartolonyc

@dib

@wildairnyc

@barcontranyc

@bridges.nyc

@missionchinesefoodny

@lefrenchdiner

@thaidiner @mommypais

@cafeselectnyc

@danny_bowen

@fabianvhv

@chefjeremiahstone

@mozzy_sticks_87

@pierrederrien84

@opsnyc

@luckycharliebk

@unclelouny

#SachaHormaechea #chefschef

#porron #sansebastian #galicia #priorat

#valentineday #womenwinemakers

#coatcheck #86list #soigneryourself

Maître d' Diaries is back!

Season 4 brings you more NYC front of the house folks, like Daryl Coke of Ernesto's and Bartolo, Ronan Le Chêne of Le Chêne, Ahris Kim of NA:EUN Hospitality, and Jenna Norfleet of Francie, along with the return of “That’s An Issue,” “We’re Booked,” and a new episode theme, “Destination Hospitality.”

Listen in here for a taste of what’s to come.

And check out our past episodes in Seasons 1 - 4!

Back in the year 2000 the Cherry Lane Theater hosted the premier of Becky Mode's side-splitting, lightening-paced one man show, "Fully Committed", and restaurant reservationists in basements and broom closets all around town felt seen. And maybe not a little bit exposed.

An updated version of the show moved to Broadway in 2016 starring the great Jesse Tyler Ferguson who won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance for his role as Sam, and the other 30-plus characters that populate this 90-minute whiplash inducing romp through the trials--and wins--of a New York City reservationist.

Now Jake Shipley, an actor and FOH restaurant worker since his teens, is performing FULLY COMMITTED at the Phoenician Playhouse in Phoenicia, NY, to great acclaim, for two weekend only.

Jake took an hour during his crazy performance schedule to chat with Maître d' Diaries about the role and the work. And the possible future of taking this behind-the-scenes in the restaurant world play back out on the road.

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