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

Aspen Maye, Food & Beverage Manager at the Arlo Hotel in Williamsburg, is relatively new to the hospitality business, but she’s a quick study and has already put a lot of thought into how to run a door, make people feel welcome, and add some silliness into training her front of the house team. Listen in as we learn about the 10 to 5 rule, what a Sasha Bar is, and why Aspen thinks everyone should work in hospitality for at least a year. (We wholeheartedly concur!)