Four years ago in the great unknown landscape of 2020 Aaron and Victoria Bludorn, Cherif Mbodji, and their team–many imported colleagues from New York City and the Dinex (Daniel Boulud) Diaspora–opened the much celebrated Bludorn restaurant in Houston, Texas.

A little less than four years and two more restaurants later, on July 8th, 2024, Hurricane Beryl hit the Houston area and many homes and businesses were without power for a week or more.

Cherif Mbodji is the COO of Bludorn Hospitality Group, and a week after the storm, we were scheduled to do an interview. As you can imagine, we ended up talking about what was going on in Houston and how their three restaurants were handling the aftermath of the hurricane. We also got to hear the thrilling tale of how Cherif pulled off getting the power back on at their flagship Bludorn.

In honor of Bludorn’s 4th anniversary, this bonus episode takes you behind the scenes of the drama and difficulties that ensue when Mother Nature takes your business out of your hands.

Restaurant operators will recognize the emotional roller coaster of trying to get the electricity back on. Diners and restaurant fans will get some insight into the agility, creativity, and doggedness it takes to re-open the doors of your neighborhood restaurants after a forced closing.

Join us for this special episode, and get excited for Season Two of Maître d’ Diaries, coming soon!

Welcome to the final episode of Season One of Maître d’ Diaries.

Like most restaurants, the podcast has taken much longer to get up and running than we could have imagined, with lots of starts and stops, largely out of our control. To wrap up Season One we figured it would be a good time for you to get to know us better.

Dante and Erica are old friends who met at the Four Seasons Hotel Boston in the 90’s. We followed our hospitality dreams to NYC, worked in some of the finest restaurants in the city, were here through 911, and within years of each other left New York to move back to our respective home states (Hawai’i and Pennsylvania).

Working fine dining restaurant operations can take its toll on a spirit and a life, and we each had our own cocktail of reasons for leaving town.

Then, “just when we thought we were out…” we were unable to resist the allure of the city we love. Now we are both back, rolling up our sleeves and pitching in to do our part in post-Covid New York restaurant life.

We started the podcast as a way to build community and foster conversation amongst other FOH folks. We are having a wonderful time reminiscing about restaurants in the 90’s and 2000’s, for sure, but we are also enjoying real talk about the state of hospitality today, and gazing forward at what it can be in the years to come.

Join us as we interview each other, and find out how Dunkin’ Donuts and TGI Friday’s figure into our pasts.

#hospitality #restaurants #restaurantpodcast #restaurantlife #maitred #foh #service #nyc #nyrestaurants #86list #soigneryourself #wecantransferthis #werebooked #maitred

@dante_camara @ericawcantley

Aloha and welcome to our first Pop-Up episode of Maitre d’ Diaries the Podcast, where we record interviews from our visits to colleagues in restaurants around the country and the world.

On Dante’s most recent visit home he had lunch at Fete in Honolulu with his dear friend and sustainability proponent, Natalie Aczon, after which we had the pleasure to interview the co-owner of Fete, James Beard Award-Winning Chef Robynne Maii.

Dante has been boasting about Robynne and her husband Chuck Bussler’s restaurant Fete since it opened, and he was bursting with hometown pride two years ago when Robynne won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Northwest & Pacific.

Robynne and Dante have more than Honolulu and a love of sustainability in common, though. During our chat we discovered that both Dante and Robynne boast Rocco di Spirito’s Union Pacific as their first job in New York City. Listen in to hear about how she came to work at the world renowned Kitchen Arts & Letters, how it connects to her unique New York 911 story, what made Robynne and her husband Chuck decide to move back to Hawaii and open Fete, and much more!

@robynnemaii @asknataliehawaii @fetehawaii @chuckbussler @beardfoundation @roccodispirito @kalnyc @mattsartwell @zunicafe