How I Landed the Toughest Table in NYC—with 24 Hours’ Notice

And what I learned that will let you do the same.

Author’s note: I posted about this magazine-instigated stunt on Instagram Stories a few days ago, when my phone reminded me it was the 12-year anniversary of the event. I noted that my story had never ran in the magazine as planned, and I soon received several DMs urging me to post it here. This isn’t what I wrote back then; the original text has long since been lost. But I still have some of the notes I took at the time. What I learned has remained surprisingly relevant, even in today’s app-driven reservation culture. This is the story behind that story.

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A number of years ago, I was working as a junior editor at a very fancy travel magazine. It was during the days of large (if no longer extravagant) budgets and of lofty editorial integrity and ambition: a glorious time.

It was also the time when dining out was beginning to transition from a mere trip-enhancer to being the entire reason for travel, and destination restaurants—those not merely “worth a special journey” as described by Michelin but worth an actual flight across an ocean—were on the rise. A colleague somewhat shocked the office when he nabbed a reservation at Noma first, and only then booked his flights: It simply wasn’t how things were done at the time. It illustrated a shift in thinking and planning, an early example of what would become commonplace within a few years.

The magazine’s editors soon sensed a need: What if a reader travels someplace on too-short notice to make a reservation through the usual channels of booking howevermany weeks in advance, but still wants to experience a white-hot restaurant while there? Are there tactics that will allow them to nab a table at the last minute?

I was the staffer assigned to find out.

It was put to me as a challenge: If I managed to somehow finagle a reservation at New York City’s hottest restaurant at the time, I could eat dinner there and expense the full amount to the magazine, and I could ostensibly get a good byline writing about what had and had not worked.

And if I didn’t manage to land one, then darn, I would have to miss out on an epic meal.

To replicate our hypothetical traveler’s experience, I also had to make it happen within a day of receiving the assignment, a timeframe that would see me trying to land a reservation at the hottest restaurant in town on a Saturday night.

But which restaurant? I reached out to Adam Platt, who was then the restaurant critic at New York magazine. According to him, the toughest reservation to get at that moment was at Eleven Madison Park. (To put this in perspective, he named Rao’s, essentially a private club and literally impossible to reserve at, as the third toughest.)

EMP held three stars from the Michelin Guide and four from the New York Times, the maximum number from each publication. It was among the most expensive restaurants in town at the time and also the most exciting. A meal there would, under ordinary circumstances, have been far out of reach for me—not just because it was close to impossible to land a reservation, even booking weeks in advance, but also because to dine there cost $195 per person for the full tasting menu, a staggering sum at the time and something my salary, then in the mid-$30,000s, would never have allowed.

The assigning editor established some parameters. Given the publication’s stringent requirements at the time to travel (and dine) incognito, I couldn’t drop the magazine’s name. I also couldn’t say it was my birthday or other special occasion.

And there was an additional stipulation, which requires a bit of context for those unfamiliar with the restaurant: EMP has a main dining room and also, adjacent to it, a bar area with bar stools and small tables. It accepts walk-ins at the bar and offers a limited food menu there, but to partake in the full tasting menu, one has to be seated in the main room. Most travelers, I suspect, would be happy to at least land a seat in the bar area and have a few dishes. The assigning editor specified I’d need to be in the exclusive, elusive main room.

I had 24 hours to get that table. But I wasn’t sure where to start.

“The first step is probably to just call the restaurant,” said the editor who had come to me with the assignment. We both knew it would be futile; soon afterward, I learned the place maintained a waitlist of about 800 names every evening. The reservationist didn’t actually laugh at me, but she did make it clear that I shouldn’t get my hopes up. “We are, of course, fully booked,” she said, “and every guest has confirmed their reservation.”

“Try using a credit-card concierge service,” suggested the editor who oversaw coverage of such things. With the help of an AmEx-wielding colleague, I called the number reserved for holders of the elite-level card. The woman on the other end promised to do what she could and call back if she was successful in getting a table for me. I didn’t hear from her again.  

“Try going through a hotel concierge; they should be able to hook you up,” suggested another editor. The Carlyle had been named number one for service that year in the magazine’s Readers’ Choice Awards, so we figured its concierge had the best chance at having the connections and clout I needed. Away I went to the Upper East Side early the next morning.

This time, the concierge did let an actual chuckle escape after hearing my request. “It won’t happen,” he said. “I just called for another guest earlier today, and they don’t have anything.”

“Could you please try calling again?” I asked. He raised an eyebrow at me. I raised one right back at him, and looked pointedly at the phone on the desk between us.

He sighed, picked up the receiver, and dialed. “Yes…yes, I know. Has anything opened up for tonight? I know, but I had to ask.” He set down the receiver. “They have nothing for tonight,” he told me. “At a place like that, one must reserve three or four weeks in advance.” It felt as though he was scolding me.

My colleagues, all believers in the near-invincibility of concierges (we regularly preached their powers to our readers, after all), had been sure that some concierge or another would come through for me. They were out of suggestions.

I had one more option: To simply show up at the restaurant and hope for the best.

I turned to an acquaintance, Helen Rosner, who was then the managing editor at Saveur (she’s now a staff writer at The New Yorker). I gchatted her with frantic urgency, looking for advice. She graciously offered suggestions, which boiled down to: Go for a drink at the bar—and then while at the bar, mention to the maitre d’ that if a table opens up, you’d love to do the tasting menu. The implications of which, of course, are twofold: First, that I would be spending more money than a guest who might choose the cheaper abbreviated menu or the a la carte option, and second, that I’d need to be in the main dining room to do so.

But she had a caveat, which I now pass on to you: “Here is the thing, the BIG thing: If you pull a last-minute table through ANY means, you are MORALLY OBLIGATED to order big and tip big. Otherwise you fuck it up for all other last-minute table-getters who come after you. Consider it a late fee.”

I spent some time combing through chowhound or egullet or whichever now-defunct online forum we were all using back then, and got some additional pointers:

• Get dressed to the nines. This signals to the restaurant that it’s a special occasion, one for which you might be inclined to spend more money than an ordinary guest.

• Show up right when the restaurant opens. This ostensibly gives you priority over anyone who shows up after you with a similar strategy, and also maximizes the number of seatings for which a table might become available.

• Be flexible about the timing. Prepare to be sitting at the bar for hours if necessary.

• Absolutely do not bribe the maitre d’. It won’t help, and some might take offense to it. It is, however, acceptable and perhaps encouraged to tip him lavishly afterward if he does come through for you.

• Be unfailingly polite. And do not pester or be pushy to the maitre d’ while you’re waiting.

• Have a backup plan for the evening in mind, in case things don’t work out.

I donned a cocktail dress and told a man I knew to put on his best suit. We showed up just past the restaurant’s opening time, and I told the maitre d’ that we were on the waiting list and very much hoped to dine there that evening. As expected, he suggested we sit in the bar area and order food a la carte there. I said the lines I’d rehearsed in my head. “We actually are hoping to experience the full tasting menu, and I know that’s only offered in the main dining room. Please do let me know if anything happens to open up there.” We headed to the bar to wait.

Once we’d settled onto bar stools and had drinks in hand, the maitre d’ approached again. He told me that a table may become available later that evening, but that such a thing was rare since they charge a hefty fee for late cancellations or no-shows, and that they likely wouldn’t know until around 10pm. I told him I was willing to wait.

An hour went by, and then two. My date for the evening began to get antsy. I grew irritated by his antsiness. We probably were emitting vibes of “It’s our anniversary and he forgot to make a dinner reservation.” Which, in retrospect, perhaps helped our effort and in any case was better than the truth: “I’m increasingly concerned that if I don’t get a table I’ll be fired.”

And then, suddenly, so swiftly I barely registered what was happening, our drinks were whisked onto a tray and we were swept off to a corner banquette. Success!

To be honest, I don’t remember much about the meal, although I’m sure it was great. I do remember the fear I felt while filling out the corporate expense form the following week: What if the magazine reneged on the deal and I was on the hook for what I’d spent on dinner? The total exceeded what I paid for rent each month.

The magazine did pay up, but the story never ran. C’est la vie, I guess.

In the meantime, I’ve done the just-show-up thing at countless other restaurants. None has been quite as high-end as EMP, but many were pretty close.

I’ve since learned that nearly every restaurant holds back tables each evening. Sometimes it might be more than half, for instance at a popular neighborhood spot that’s confident it’ll be able to fill all its tables with locals who drop in. An extremely in-demand high-end restaurant might hold a table or two in case a celebrity or other VIP wants a last-minute meal. If no such celebrity appears that night, they’ll give the empty table to whichever lucky guest is already in the restaurant and (to take the cynical view) is deemed likely to spend the most money.

And my experiences have repeatedly confirmed that if you arrive close to opening time, are flexible about your dining time, and are willing to dine at the bar or wherever they have an open seat, you’ll get into just about any restaurant, just about every time.

I recently found myself chatting with the person who mans the door at the West Village’s most impossible-to-get-into spot. (I’m not going to name the place because the doorperson swore me to absolute secrecy on this. There are perhaps three possibilities that will leap to your mind, and yes, it’s one of those.) I asked them, mostly joking, “Is there a secret to actually getting a table here?” It turns out there is a precise strategy that works most of the time, and it’s essentially doing exactly what I outlined in the paragraph above.

But what about the apps? you might ask. Because you would think things have changed in the past 12 years, given the rise of reservation apps and their purported ease and democratization of reservation-making. In my experience, they haven’t changed the game as much as you might expect.

I can’t comment on Dorsia or whatever the Stubhub of restaurant reservations is these days. I will say that the Notify function on Resy works sometimes (like, it’s worked maybe twice for me, ever). You might also keep an eye on the apps early in the evening the day before you wish to dine—say, around 6:00, since that’s when restaurants tend to receive cancellations—and also late morning on the same day. I’ve frequently seen same-day tables available at, for example, Gage & Tollner that I hadn’t been able to book weeks in advance.

The Notify function only helps, however, when there’s a cancellation in advance. When there’s a no-show, forget it. Restaurants don’t want to lose money on an empty table; they need bodies to fill the suddenly available table right then. They don’t have time to go through the standard waitlist procedure and then wait for the guests to make their way to the restaurant. If you’re already there, you’re in.

When I was in journalism school, one professor loved to say that 90% of getting the story was showing up. I’m not sure that’s entirely true for journalism. But it’s absolutely the way to get a supposedly impossible table at the hottest restaurant in town. Which is just as true now as it ever was.