Besides being asked to recommend cocktails and wines, I get a fair numbers of questions about restaurants. Mostly, people ask if I know any tricks to scoring a reservation at some hot restaurant. Especially for holidays like Valentine’s Day and New Year’s or, honestly, during the height of our winter tourist season. Can’t say I know of any secret passwords or handshakes, but here are my Top Five Ways to Score a Reservation at a Hot Restaurant.
1) The best times to call if you need a reservations that same day are the moment the reservation phone lines open and 1 p.m. What’s so special about one o’clock? That’s when most restaurants make available all the tables they’ve held back in case regular customers and other VIPs call to reserve them.
2) If no tables are available the day you’d like to dine, ask if you can be added to a wait list. Also, make it known how flexible you are about times.
This article appears in Jan 13-19, 2010.