maitre d'hotel

There he worked at the Marco Polo lounge at the Waldorf Astoria and then as maître d’hôtel at La Grenouille, on East 52nd Street near Fifth Avenue, today the last of the city’s surviving internationally renowned haute cuisine French restaurants of the 1960s era.

The two men first met in the late-1970s when Mr. King was maître d’hôtel at Joe Allen, the London outpost of the Manhattan theater-district restaurant, and Mr. Corbin worked at Langan’s Brasserie, where the actor Michael Caine was once an owner.

"We've been waiting for this day for several months. The pleasure is as much ours as it is our diners," said the maitre d'hotel Tony Gonsard.

"Your frients haff gone up-stairs," the German maître d'hôtel said in English.

But Ignacio Anaya, the maître d’hôtel, had no cooks in the kitchen.