New York ‘celebrity reservationist’ reveals his secrets to scoring the best tables at all the hottest restaurants in town

To score a reservation at a top New York City restaurant isn’t for the faint of heart — but there’s one man in town who might be able to help you out.

Nicky DiMaggio, 33, or “Little Nicky” as he is now commonly known, is a professional reservations agent who has made a career out of recruiting the right people to secure the most coveted tables.

From billionaires and celebrities to Wall Street giants and politicians, everyone, anyone, is looking for help to get their name on the right lists.

As he joked this week in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, he might be one of the most powerful people in the Big Apple (at least in the restaurant scene).

So how does he do it? Here, DiMaggio reveals his secrets for securing the best tables at the city’s hottest restaurants.

DiMaggio first became interested in securing reservations at restaurant hotspots after visiting Rao in Harlem.

The 125-year-old, 10-table diner spot 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 age 17, he became 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 New York’s most exclusive restaurants.

When foodies heard of DiMaggio connections, they started asking him if he could get them a reservation in his name.

They sent DiMaggio money as a thank you for the favor, but as more and more people made requests, he decided to make his company official as 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 are frustrated that you can’t get a reservation.”

“People will say, ‘I waited six months for a reservation, and you came in in six minutes.’ So 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 between $500 and $1,000 per reservation, depending on the date, time, location, number of people and how much notice he receives.

The most he received for a reservation was $5,000.

“A woman called me and said her boss (who was a billionaire) was flying to New York for a meeting and he wanted to take his clients out to dinner. She said he was flying to Teterboro, the driver would pick him up and take him to a restaurant called Per Se, and he would go back home.”

‘I made the Per Se reservation in 10 minutes. She sent me the thread within five minutes.

That’s not even the most money he’s seen a reservation 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.

Media outlets, such as TMZ, often contact DiMaggio to ask him where celebrities dine, he said. But he remains loyal to his customers.

‘I do not do that. Because that is trust,” he explained.

For this reason, celebrities even prefer to use DiMaggio. It also helps them keep their identities hidden because instead of using their own names for the reservation, DiMaggio volunteers, giving the celebrity a moment of privacy.

But it’s not just individuals who are contacting DiMaggio. He said he also helps companies like the NBA, NFL, Morgan Stanley and the United Nations.

He has connected people from all fields – from WAGS of professional athletes to the Vice President of Sweden.

DiMaggio has a limit on the number of people he can get in per restaurant, so even though he’s inundated with requests, he can only send a certain number of customers to those tables.

“(The restaurants) want to make it clear that it doesn’t matter who you are, celebrity or not,” he said.

So what differentiates 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 do to make this happen sometimes.”

Ballpark, DiMaggio said he makes about $500,000 just from selling reservations.

Some restaurants that ask DiMaggio to bring in some business give him a percentage of the customer’s spending on the restaurant

“Say someone comes to town and I take him to a club and he spends $10,000, I bill the club 20%,” he said.

DiMaggio has been approached by apps, such as Appointment Trader or Dorsia, that allow people with existing reservations to sell them on a virtual marketplace.

He said that at times these apps have even gone to Nicky to get more bookings for their site.

But he worries about the increasing use of bots that gobble up reservations as soon as they become available, leaving human thumbs standing no chance.

‘It’s not fair to the customers. It’s not fair to the restaurants. I’ve seen people get turned away for a reservation that doesn’t exist.”

DiMaggio said before the pandemic, it wasn’t that difficult to get reservations.

“I think (people) realized that the world can be shut down in one day,” he said.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, people create bots to create fake names, to create fake virtual credit cards. I mean, that’s fraud. Just for a reservation, you know, it’s getting out of hand.”

Every few months there are several restaurants that are popular, but aside from Rao’s, DiMaggio said the hardest reservation to get in New York City is 4 Charles Prime Rib — which he helped Hailey and Justin Bieber get into a month ago.

Coming in second is Polo Bar on E 55th Street, where he said you literally can’t walk through the doors without having a reservation.

In third place is Don Angie on Greenwich Avenue, for which he says he receives more than 2,000 reservation requests per day.

DiMaggio has some tentative campaigns in the pipeline, saying he and Deux Moi, a celebrity gossip Instagram account, are in talks to launch something new.

“They want to create an app, but their focus is only on the reservations where celebrities are sighted.”

Deux Moi confirmed to DailyMail.com that they are in discussions with DiMaggio, but “it is not yet finalized.”

DiMaggio’s entire livelihood revolves around getting people reservations. So what’s his personal favorite place to dine?

“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 chuckled and added, “My favorite restaurant isn’t necessarily impossible to get into.”

If you want to get in touch with the king of reservations yourself, DiMaggio keeps his number private.

But you can request to follow him on Instagram and message him. He also posts cancellations in his story, so you might get lucky if you scroll at the right time.