Score making a reservation at a top New York City restaurant isn’t for the faint-hearted—but there’s a man in town who might be able to help you with just that.
Nicky DiMaggio, 33, – or ‘Little Nicky’ as he is now commonly known – is a professional reservationist who has made a career out of gobbling up the right people to lock up the most coveted tables.
From billionaires and celebrities to Wall Street giants and politicians, everyone, anyone, seeks his help to get their name on the right lists.
In fact, as he joked in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com this week, he may well be one of the most powerful people in the Big Apple (at least on the restaurant scene).
So how does he do it? Here, DiMaggio reveals his secrets to securing the best tables at all the hottest restaurants in town.
Nick DiMaggio is a professional reservationist who scores the most coveted tables in NYC
His clientele includes not only celebrities, but the NFL, Morgan Stanley and the United Nations
Pictured: DiMaggio and Bruce Springsteen at Emilio Ballato’s on E Houston Street
DiMaggio became so good at acquiring bookings that he created his own LLC
DiMaggio first became interested in securing reservations at restaurant hotspots after visiting Rao in Harlem.
The 125-year-old, ten-table eatery doesn’t accept walk-ins or reservations, and there’s virtually no way to contact the restaurant unless you have an ‘in’ – even if you’re a celebrity.
But after his cousin helped him get a table at just 17, he was hooked.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, he said: ‘I realized that if I walked through these doors, I could walk through any door.’
From there, he began building his rolodex by networking with the owners of the most exclusive restaurants in New York.
When foodies got wind of DiMaggio’s connections, they started asking him if he could get them a reservation in his name.
They wanted to send DiMaggio money as a ‘thank you’ for the service, but as more and more people sent requests, he decided to make his business official with an LLC.
“The whole reservation thing is a science,” DiMaggio said. ‘People want what they can’t have. (Restaurants) want you to want more and be frustrated that you can’t secure a reservation.’
‘People will say ‘I’ve been waiting six months to get a booking and you came in in six minutes’. Then they want to know, ‘who is Nicky?”
But how much does a reservation cost? And how do you price something that would otherwise be free?
DiMaggio charges anywhere from $500 to $1,000 per reservation, depending on the date, time, location, number of people and how much notice he’s given.
The most he has been paid for a booking was $5,000.
‘A woman called me and said that her boss (who was a billionaire) was flying to New York for a meeting and that he wanted to take his clients to dinner. She said he was flying into Teterboro, the driver was going to pick him up, take them to a restaurant called Per Se, and he was going back home.’
‘I had the Per Se reservation made in 10 minutes. She sent me the cord within five minutes.
That’s not even the most money he’s seen a booking go for.
On a website called Charity Buzz, where users can bid on bookings, one reservation at Rao’s costs $20,000 — and that’s before the food.
‘People want what they can’t have. (Restaurants) want you to want more and be frustrated that you can’t secure a reservation,” DiMaggio said
New York’s scalping laws are particularly strict, but they only apply to entertainment and sports tickets, so what DiMaggio is doing is perfectly legal
DiMaggio charges between $500 and $1000 per booking
Media outlets such as TMZ often reach out to DiMaggio to ask him where celebrities eat, he said. But he remains loyal to his customers.
‘I dont do that. Because it is trust,’ he explained.
In fact, celebrities prefer to use DiMaggio for this very reason. It also helps them keep their identity hidden, because instead of using their own name for the booking, DiMaggio reports his own, giving the celebrity a moment of privacy.
But it’s not just individuals who reach out to DiMaggio. He said he also helps companies like the NBA, NFL, Morgan Stanley and the United Nations.
He has connected people of all trades – from WAGS of professional athletes to the Vice President of Sweden.
DiMaggio has a limit on how many people he can bring in per day. restaurant, so despite being inundated with requests, he can only send a certain amount of customers to those tables.
“(The restaurants) want to emphasize that it doesn’t matter who you are, celebrity or not,” he said.
So what separates DiMaggio’s business from scalping?
What DiMaggio is doing is not illegal. New York’s scalping laws are strict, but only apply to entertainment and sports tickets.
“I had to be at a professional level and start billing people,” he said. ‘I don’t scalp. People pay for my services, pay for my connection, pay for the work I have to put in to get it done sometimes.’
Ballpark, DiMaggio said he makes about $500,000 selling reservations alone.
Some restaurants that ask DiMaggio to help bring in business will give him a percentage of the customer’s spend at the restaurant
“Say someone comes to town and I get them into a club and they spend $10,000, then I bill the club 20%,” he said.
DiMaggio has been approached by apps, such as Appointment Trader or Dorsia, that let people with existing reservations sell them on a virtual marketplace.
He said these apps have even sometimes gone to Nicky to get more bookings for their site.
But he has grown concerned about the increasing use of bots that gobble up bookings the moment they’re available, so human thumbs don’t stand a chance.
“It is not fair to the customers. It is not fair to the restaurants. I’ve seen people turned away for a booking that doesn’t exist.’
DiMaggio said before the pandemic, reservations weren’t that hard to come by.
“I think (people) realized that the world can shut down in one day,” he said.
‘I have never seen anything like that. I mean, for people to create bots to create fake names, to create fake virtual credit cards. I mean it’s a scam. Just for a reservation, you know, it’s getting out of hand.’
Different restaurants trend every few months, but other than Rao’s, DiMaggio said the hardest reservation to get in New York City is 4 Charles Prime Rib — where he helped Hailey and Justin Bieber get in a month ago.
Coming in second is the Polo Bar on E 55th Street, where he said you literally can’t walk through the doors without a reservation.
In third place, Don Angie on Greenwich Avenue, which he said receives over 2,000 reservation requests a day.
The most he was paid for a booking was $5,000
Pictured: DiMaggio and Emily Ratajkowski at Emilio Ballato’s
Pictured: DiMaggio and rapper 50cent at Bice Cucina on W 55th Street
DiMaggio has some preliminary promotions coming up saying he and Deux Moi, a celebrity gossip Instagram account, are in discussions to launch something new.
‘They want to make an app, but their focus is only on the reserves where there are celebrity sightings.’
Deux Moi confirmed with DailyMail.com that they are in discussions with DiMaggio, but “it’s not definitely happening yet.”
DiMaggio’s entire livelihood revolves around getting people reservations. So what is his personal favorite place to eat?
“I like BondST in the lounge,” he said. ‘It’s such an atmosphere. They make me feel at home. I just love the energy.’
He laughed and added: ‘My favorite restaurant is not necessarily impossible to get into.’
If you want to get in touch with the king of reservations himself, DiMaggio keeps his number private.
But you can request to follow him on Instagram and send him a message. He also posts cancellations on his story so you might get lucky if you scroll at the right time.