Table 4 at the River Cafe

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1:16Learn more at thehartford.com slash risk mitigation. Policies provided by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its property and casualty affiliates, Hartford, Connecticut. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio.

1:40Carol Massar:Well, she is an award-winning chef, co-founder of a Michelin-starred restaurant, author of 13 cookbooks. A native New Yorker has a podcast where she talks with the likes of Paul McCartney, Tina Fey, David Beckham, Mel Brooks, Martha Stewart, Francis Ford Coppola, Mark Carney, Bob Iger, Johnny Ive, whose comfort food, by the way, is peas. Okay, I like that. Who would have known? She has also, full disclosure, talked with Michael Bloomberg, of course, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. She has talked with many, many folks. All of it comes together in a great book. It also comes together like a great meal with amazing company.

2:16Carol Massar:Her new book is entitled Table Four at the River Cafe, which, as we understand, is a highly coveted physical table located near the restaurant's open kitchen. Here to tell us about it and more is Ruthie Rogers, co-founder of the River Cafe in London, host of her podcast, Ruthie's Table Four. She joins us from London. We are so delighted to have you. We know it's a little bit later there in London. Congratulations on the new book. And we were thinking about where should we begin? And if you had to pick one single thing, Ruthie, as to where you are today, why you got there, your restaurant, iconic, well-known in London, award-winning, you've got now a five-year-old podcast.

2:55Carol Massar:What might that thing be? I think that, you know, from the very beginning, we started with the values of a restaurant. What is a restaurant? Why do people go to restaurants? What do you look for in a restaurant? And I was just downstairs just now and I see that the way people are greeted, the way people are made to feel welcome, of course the food, we change the menu for every meal. We write a menu, rather like you do at home, we see what is fresh, what we have, we bought the day before, and what, of course, always what is in season in the Italian market. So I think every day is a different day.

3:31We have great people working here who we, you know, the whole kitchen is open. And so there's a kind of way that we all work together. And I think, you know, we want really people to come to your restaurant and leave. I always say quite simply happier than when they arrived. So tell us about for people who haven't been to the restaurant, the coveted table four. Well, you know what? Michael Caine always used to sit at table four. but then you know um when nancy pelosi came in we said a table one and there might be a table who prefers somebody who prefers table table 10 which is near to the entrance table four is slightly also a pun on the word four so it's a table number but it also is a table for michael bloomberg a table for any of the other people who are in the book because what we wanted to do during when we had to stop the restaurant because of the pandemic, we wanted a way to reach the people who ate in the restaurant.

4:29How could we reach them? We thought about reading a recipe every day. And then that segued into the story, because when you think about, when we talk to people through the lens of food about their memories, it's very thoughtful. It brings back, if I asked you, did your mother cook? Did your father cook? Did you go to restaurants? It brings up other stories.

4:51Carol Massar:I love that aspect. Being from a large family, food was a big part. My mom loved to cook. And, you know, especially around holidays, birthdays, a relative in town, she would cook and make sure there was things for everybody who liked, you know, even if she had to do like five different vegetables to make sure everybody was happy. But we would sit, Ruthie, at that table for hours. And I feel like that's where you're coming from. The best things happen around a table, I think. And the sad things happen around a table. But I think it is around a table that we all meet. It doesn't matter. We could have a sandwich around the table or a drink around the table.

5:33But there is something of that conversation. and when I you know when we interviewed Elton John and David Furnish the woman who worked for his chief of staff who said she'd worked with and heard so many interviews over 25 years but it was only when Elton started talking about potting peas with his grandmother or how they tried you know the people who use food you know to seduce to impress to give joy to share. I meet a lot of women who don't cook or men who don't cook, and that's fine. It's not about the cooking. It's about somehow being together. Well, let's talk about the podcast a little bit and the way that these interviews have come together in this new book.

6:16As Carol mentioned, a host of names. These are not your favorites. These are just some of the interviews that the publisher picked. We should know. I have to make that clear because so many brilliant people are not in the book, but they'll be in volume two. Well, what is the connection between the podcast and the restaurant and the way that you try to bring what you bring to life in a restaurant to an audio format that you invite people to sort of be at the table with you? I think there are two things. I think a friend of mine came into the restaurant the other day and he said, you know, oh, I don't, you know, I'm having trouble with one of my children.

6:50I'm not sure that I can join this crowd. Look at this room, Ruthie. There are so many people at this table looking so happy and celebrating and I said you know if you went to every table in this restaurant everyone has a story everyone has a story it could be a happy story their daughter might have graduated or they could have been fired that day or their mother might be sick or you know there's so many stories that people have and I think what I wanted to do is talk to people and and have their stories told as I say through the lens of food and you discover we have different section we have the chapter of food is family and so we have the mccartney family we have um the beckham family we have the harry uh russell and matthew rice we have and that's families we have the art food is art we have tracy emmon and we have johnny ive who's a designer we have the political artist politics we have as you said mark carney and it's not about famous people it's not about celebrities it's about people who have stories that we all want to know about you know and so i think it's quite democratic you know yeah it is it is and and the approach is really fun to

8:03Carol Massar:kind of go through i want to ask you though i think your first podcast was september back in september of 2021 jake jake gyllenhaal was it was it jake and and if so yeah why how did that come to be and why Jake being the first? Well, we never thought we never Jake is a really good friend. I've known him for a long time. And I said, would you do this with me? Because I don't really know what I'm doing. But we're going to try and do this podcast. And it really came from my husband and I used to give evenings at one every year, in which an actor or a singer, or a writer would would perform in the living room of our house.

8:45And we would give the money to, you know, the charitable cause we believed in. And one night we had Ian McKellen. And, you know, he told an anecdote. He sang a song. He recounted something that had happened to him in the theater. He did a sonnet of Shakespeare. But the last thing he did was to get one of our cookbooks, the first cookbook, and read a recipe for a soup. And, you know, I always say a recipe is half science and half poetry. Right. And to listen to a recipe is actually, there's something rather beautiful about listening. So I said to Jake, help me out here. And so he did one, the first one, I think.

9:27And Wes Anderson was another good friend.

9:33Carol Massar:Listen, Ruthie, we have to jump and go. Ten seconds, though. What's your comfort food? My comfort food would be probably pasta and tomato sauce. Ah, a good one. Ruthie, thank you so much. We've been looking forward to catching up with you. Ruthie Rogers, co-founder of the River Cafe in London. Her podcast, Ruthie's Table, for her new book, Table Four at the River Cafe.

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