A young woman sits expectantly at the table of an upscale restaurant in New York, enthralled by its pink hues, pristine condition and white orchids. She is being interviewed by the eatery’s owner for a server position, but the talk is filled with awkward silences. “You’ve got really nice nails,” she tells the owner at one point.

Trying to connect with her, he asks what she wants to be. A writer? An actress? The young woman shakes her head and replies, “I don’t know.”

Newly arrived from Dayton, Ohio, with no professional job experience, the MapQuest-equipped Tess has spent the day submitting resumes and interviewing at several restaurants. Although Tess is competing against several more experienced hopefuls at her final stop, she gets the job, charming the owner with a smile and a compliment.

The first episode of Starz’s “Sweetbitter,” which premiered May 6, is the prelude to a familiar story — small-town girl moves to the Big Apple in search of something greater than herself.

But Stephanie Danler, 34, author of the novel that inspired the series, said it’s rare to see a coming-of-age story about a young female character who is so inexperienced and her past so uneventful that she has no concrete idea of what she wants out of life.

That is a very real experience for young women that rarely shows up on screen, said Danler, who has run restaurants in the past and is executive producer of “Sweetbitter.”

“Managing restaurants for so long, I hired many women who came to New York without a specific goal but full of ambition, which I feel like is the most common state,” she said. “We just want to be something, and you think that the city will turn you into it.”

The series stars Ella Purnell (“Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”) as Tess, who dips her toes into a world of hedonism for the first time and immediately becomes entangled in complicated relationships with Will (Evan Jonigkeit), a kind and experienced back waiter; Jake (Tom Sturridge), her brooding love interest; and Simone (Caitlin FitzGerald), a slightly condescending mentor figure.

Danler’s novel is based on her experience moving to New York at age 22 and working at Union Square Cafe while she waited for her big break as a novelist. The book was a best-seller in 2016, catching the attention of her co-executive producer and showrunner, Stuart Zicherman (“The Americans”), and director Richard Shepard (“Girls”).

Danler and her team also saw potential in exploring the lives of the band of misfits that work at the restaurant, as well as the complicated dynamics of that industry.

“I love the whole notion of a restaurant where, in the back of house, you’ve got immigrants and people making $4 an hour washing dishes, and you go through those double doors, and all of a sudden there’s people buying a $1,200 bottle of wine,” Shepard said.

alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com