Creating community and the power of food, with Ruth Rogers

0:00Net-A-Porter presents The Incredible Women Podcast, Series 10, Supernovas. Welcome to the 10th series of The Incredible Women Podcast, in which we sit down with women who shine bright and draw greatness into their orbits. All at the top of their game, some of these incredible women you'll already be familiar with, and others we're excited to introduce you to. I'm Alice Casely-Hayford, Content Director at Net-A-Porter, and I'm thrilled to be joined for this episode of our Supernova series by Ruth Rogers. I was really amazed by the support and kindness of other restaurateurs. You know, people always like to say how competitive restaurants are, but I found it a community of great support and love.

0:48Born in upstate New York in 1948, Ruth Rogers' father was a doctor, while her mother was a teacher, librarian and trade union activist. She inherited her parents' activism and advocacy, and when she moved to London in the late 60s, she joined protests against the Vietnam War outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square. In 1969, she met the architect Richard Rogers, whom she married in 1973. She accompanied Rogers when he moved to Paris to oversee the building of the Pompidou Centre. They lived above a market in the Marais, where she learned the importance of seasonality. After her time in France and later Italy, Rogers was inspired to open an Italian restaurant in London in 1987 with Rose Grey, initially as a canteen for the staff at her husband's architecture practice nearby.

1:37The River Cafe swiftly became renowned for the seasonality and quality of its food, as well as its devotion to authentic Italian cooking, earning a Michelin star in 1997 and holding it ever since. Its cookbooks have become bestsellers and the restaurant has trained a series of successful chefs, including Jamie Oliver and Theo Randall. In 2021, Rogers launched the podcast Ruthie's Table 4, an interview series in which she speaks to patrons of her restaurant about their lives and favourite food memories. Let's meet Ruthie. Well, hello, Ruthie. Welcome to the Incredible Women podcast. It is such a pleasure to have you here.

2:18And thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing? I'm fine, but I'm the one to thank you, Alice. I'm really happy to be here. And I've had so many special moments at your restaurant. Have you? Oh, my goodness. It's such an honor to be chatting with you. Well, the next time you come, you have to let me know before. I will. Well, I was very, the last, well, one of the last times I was there was last summer. My baby was three weeks old and I came in with him and my husband. And you were very sweet saying hello to our baby. I just love a baby. And I love babies in restaurants. I love babies in places that, you know, are supposed to be quiet like a baby at a wedding.

2:52I always think that noise of somehow a child that isn't aware and it kind of brings you back to real life. Well, that's what I love about your restaurant. It is so welcoming. The atmosphere is unmatched. And it's just incredible. But before we get into the institution that is your restaurant, I actually wanted to start with your podcast, Ruthie's Table 4, which is phenomenal. And it's all about people's lives and their food memories. So what I wanted to ask you about is can you recall your first food memory or really a pivotal moment when you fell in love with food? Yeah, well, I grew up in a very small town in upstate New York.

3:30And we, you know, I went to school and I came home and I did my homework. And on the weekends, we had friends. My parents were quite social. And we always had that thing in our house so that people came to our house mostly rather than we go to other people's houses. and my father was a doctor and my mother was a teacher and a librarian and then we moved to a town called Woodstock which I think everybody's heard of and that kind of upped the game a bit because it actually, when we went there it was starting to be music but before that had been an artist town there was an art school there a lot of artists taught there and so cooking and food was important and it was also in the summer particularly I think we had a sense of the seasons because first of all there was corn.

4:22And I don't know if you've had corn on the cob in America, but there's a kind of real slot when Americans wake up to what a season is. I think it's better now, but it was just the idea that in summer you had this corn. And I always say that if we were having it for lunch, we bought it in the morning, and if we were having it for dinner, we bought it in the afternoon. And then I think there was a lot of people, if you're an artist, it's quite solitary. You paint in your studio all day. So I think people loved going out. And my mother cooked very simply, you know, because she was, well, I think it wasn't her greatest interest in life.

4:56But there was a sense that there was always room for one more person at the table. Wow. Well, that's a beautiful sentiment and obviously something that you've continued. Continuing on with your podcast, you started that during the pandemic. You're a busy woman running an incredible restaurant. What spurred you on to start the podcast? Well, years and years and years ago, I went, really long time ago, to a restaurant called Roberta's, and they had a radio station. And I guess that was before podcasts. And I remember thinking, wouldn't it be great to have something called River Cafe Radio and just interview people who are coming into dinner, people promoting books, people here to make a movie.

5:34But then you realize that that was quite difficult. People are coming into dinner and they don't necessarily want to stop and tell you what they're doing. And so we put that to bed. But when the pandemic came out, we thought, how do we reach the people that we're not going to see? And so I had this thought about just every day we could read a recipe, and anybody who was cooking at home who was isolated could make it, and we do that every day. And I spoke to a friend of mine, I think it was Graydon Carter, who was editor of Vanity Fair, and he said, Ruthie, I think it's a good idea, but honestly, you should segue into a story.

6:10Think of how you can do something more than read the recipe. So we thought, well, what if we read the recipe and then try and understand what food, get to know somebody really through their memories of food, what they cook, what they ate, what their mother taught them or their father, or what they feed their children, what they eat when they're working. And so the first three people, we did it with our friends who eat in the Rooke Cafe. One was Michael Caine. we you know got together and we went over to see michael cain in his apartment and he was great he was just you know full of stories and and and the other was jake gillenall who is a very close friend talked about his family growing up in la and the other one was wes anderson west interviewed himself you know and that was kind of eccentric and we kind of pitched it to iHeart and they commissioned it.

7:10I'm surprised. Well you know yeah so the aspirations were high and then and I think most people really do feel a sense of their own story through the food they ate. Exactly and it's universal something that connects us all and we all have so many memories that are associated so deeply with food so it's such a personal and very moving brilliant podcast your lineup has been pretty phenomenal and eclectic have there been any conversations that have been particularly unexpected or surprised you or moved you yeah there have and I think one of the things I'd also like to say is that is that of the how many have I done we're going into season five so maybe almost 200 podcasts.

7:54I would say there are so many people I've interviewed who did not grow up entitled, you know, who really struggled in their childhood with either the conditions of the country they were living in, people who came from other countries, people who were living here like Michael Caine during the war, or just people who didn't have money. Trudy Stiler describes sleeping, you know, in a room that had potatoes under the bed, you know, But I think what a lot of people feel is that food has been almost a measure of their success. So they've worked very hard and then they remember the day they could order a great bottle of wine.

8:34Or when they went to a restaurant and they didn't have to worry too much about the prices. Or they could cook for their children in a different way than they'd been cooked for. And a lot of people also come in with their own cookbooks. it's very moving to see Tom Hollinger come in with his grandmother's cookbook and then it became his mother's and then it became his. Or someone who's come from another country, an immigrant culture where the child adapts completely and almost rejects the food of home. The mother tries to adapt and cooks a bit of both, who will adapt her cooking to Britain, to living here.

9:17and the grandmother you know brings the culture with her and sticks to it and there's that and there's also I think um as a grandmother I know that I cook in a different way for my grandchildren probably for my children because as a working mother you're kind of trying to juggle as a grandmother you think they're coming I'm so happy to feed them yes I know that it's beans on toast for my kids whereas my mom does it proper but yeah yeah yeah and that's fine you know i think they they all know that and so who did i enjoy i've enjoyed them all everyone is so different you know i had i love the musicians you know why cliff sean did his in rap yeah when it came to the recipe we we got so involved that uh we forgot to do the recipe and i went oh god let's do the recipe and it was bruschetta I think with tomatoes and porlati beans or something I can't remember and he did it you know okay you know take one piece of wow sourdough bread and you know with John Lithgow when we started talking about My Fair Lady we both sang a song Bono sang a song Amazing Grace to my husband who was a friend of his Tina Fey came with her husband and he played the piano while she did the recipe and I think the same thing with Keira Knightley and James so everybody kind of takes it and interprets it in its own way.

10:45Well my goodness what phenomenal guests you've had. I've been very lucky yeah. It's amazing is there anyone left who you still are dreaming of? Yes there are yeah I mean I think that for me I love I love the musicians I love this the actors, I love the writers but I also doing Nancy Pelosi Al Gore Vivek Murphy who is a Surgeon General who talked about society and changing the way we view health especially in these times now I'm very interested in people who are politically engaged who would I like to have now? I would be people I missed You know, I always say people ask me I would have loved to have had Mandela.

11:34I would have loved to have had my husband, Richard Rogers, who loved to eat. And I think I would be thrilled to have Obama. I'd be thrilled to have Kamala Harris. Well, I'm sure they're all to come. And what an amazing back catalogue of guests you have. And we can't wait to see who's next. But now talking about the River Cafe, I would love to understand what you think the key is to its enduring magic. and I think I know the answer is that it's you. But beyond that, it is such an institution of the London culinary scene and the world. What do you think is the reason for that? Well, it's always very hard to talk about yourself.

12:15But I think that one of the things we started very small, we started with the values of what we wanted a restaurant to be. We wanted to be, of course, a place where left happier than they came. We wanted it to be a place that was welcoming to people, whether it was your little baby or someone who just wanted to have a pasta and leave. We wanted it to be a place where people who worked there wanted to come to work. So we wanted to have a place where, which was a modern way of having a kitchen, which was to be, unfortunately, you know, there was a history of restaurants and the way people behaved in kitchens.

12:55And we knew that we didn't want that. We were two women, Rose Gray and myself. So we started out that way with women. And we also wanted to be a place where you could feel that you were being taught and encouraged by hope rather than by fear. And these are all kind of, you know, I think they're not original values, but I think that we wanted people to have two days off a week, only do one double a week. There's a lot of that. And I'd say that was, we're going to be 38 years old next week on the 10th of September. Thank you. And I think that we've changed radically the restaurant. We're bigger.

13:34We're open earlier. We're open longer. We have a different, you know, the menu has obviously changed. And there's some of the values of the restaurant menu is same, that we don't buy farmed fish and we write the menu every service. And the way people come, people work there have different jobs. You know, they're not on salads for three months. But I think having one restaurant has helped because we haven't lost our focus. And I think that we have a core team of people who've worked for a long time who share those values. and I think it's a beautiful place. You know, I think that when you, it's a little bit of a trick to get there.

14:17We once had a woman who, when we asked her where she was going because she wanted a taxi, she said she was going to London. So I was sort of saying, wait a minute, you are in London. But I think that, you know, it really is about the team. You know, it's about the people who work there. It's about that we share a way of what we want a restaurant to be, whether it's a person washing the dishes or a person making your martini or a person who's writing the menu or welcoming you at the door. I think it's a really magical place to work. It's rigor. It's not all touchy-feely. And when I say we're encouraged by hope rather than fear, we also have a very professional team.

15:01It's very theatrical. The curtain goes up at a certain time. But you did touch on kitchens and restaurants haven't necessarily got the greatest rap. How do you create a safe space for your team that isn't super intense or chaotic? And also how do you look after yourself because the hours are long? What does your self-care look like? Oh, my self-care. I'm here right now, so this is self-care. Well, two questions. I think that we do create a safe place in every way. And I think one of the great things about the workplace now is that there is a real consciousness that you just don't get away with stuff that maybe you'd sort of hear that somebody was doing something inappropriate or talking in a certain way or making people feel unsafe.

15:54And you would sort of sit down and say, look, just don't do that anymore. And now there's a process, you know, which we have an HR person who was trained in how to do that. We still like to be the contact between the person, but I think that's really important that there is a behavior. And I think what's a great thing is that the younger generation just are not going to take that anymore. It's like they're just not going to be talked to in that way or be treated in that way. And I applaud it and I respect it. So there's a lot of talk about that in the River Cafe. And I think, you know, you create a happy, you know, a good environment.

16:40But as I said, you also have to have people there who are working with the same goal, you know, and to be that way. The restaurant is celebrating 38 years, which is phenomenal. But can you tell me a little bit about the inspiration behind opening the sort of baby sister in the River Cafe Cafe? Yeah, oh, the River Cafe Cafe. Somebody said to me, Ruthie, what are we going to call the River Cafe Cafe? And I said, let's call it the River Cafe Cafe. It's a little bit, it's a bit eccentric and people, I think in the press, you think, did they write the word cafe twice? but we have a beautiful space opposite us.

17:16It's a space that was my husband's office for his practice and then they moved to their own building in the city and then first we had a shop there and we have a beautiful private dining room called Sylvia's which seats 50 people right on the river. So we thought what should we do with the rest of the space and we thought well what we know how to do is maybe not a shop necessarily but why could open a place where people could have the food of the River Cafe cooked by the River Cafe chefs, ingredients chosen by us but in a different way so that it's affordable. Then we're really thinking of how we can make it a place where it already is in the summer but also in the winter a place where people want to come and sit, bring their kids, bring their dog and have a kind of experience of eating the River Coupe without River Cafe food.

18:10You can have a piece of Nemesis or a lemon tart, but you don't have to sit through a meal, which is a different price range that you do in the River Cafe. So we're excited by it. We're going to make this one improve. It's only six months old and it's doing well, but we want to make it better and then maybe do another one somewhere. Oh, wow. Why not? So what does a day off look like for you if you ever have one? Oh, a day off. Oh, a day off. Well, what I do is very often I, and certainly with my husband, is that we both worked really hard when we were here working. And then we take time off, you know, because we love to travel.

18:50And I still have that. I've just come back from being in Italy. one week it was children and friends the next week it was friends and friends the next week it was one of my sons just invited his friends it's a house that sleeps 16 so there's a long table and beautiful days but I still work, I still found the restaurant because I want to, I love it and then I suppose, then I went to the Venice Film Festival and that was exciting and glamorous and fun my friend Noah Brumbach just opened a movie called Jay Kelly. And so I went to that and that was great. But then I suppose a day off, I would always, you know, I love doing the podcast, so I do different things.

19:34A day off might be working on my new book. A day off could be absolutely, you know, meeting a friend and going to see a show. But I don't actually do that much of a day off during the week. You know, I see my children. I have, you know, 13 grandchildren and step-grandchildren and children's children and children's friends. I see my family, see my friends. And I suppose for me, there's not a huge barrier between work and time off. They kind of meld together. Absolutely. Well, family and friends, it sounds like they're incredibly important to you. And you've spoken very poignantly, beautifully about your grief and how the River Cafe has provided some comfort or solace.

20:21are you able to talk a little bit more sure of course well first Rose died Rose was diagnosed with cancer in about 2006 2005 and seeing her through her illness we wrote a book together we did whatever she could do but we didn't she would come into work for 5 minutes or 10 minutes or 2 hours or a morning she was very much part of the restaurant we would send her food she'd tell us what was wrong with it and I'd go you know almost daily to see her um and when she died in 2010 a lot of it was to do with you know almost the best tribute to rose that we could do would be to make the river cafe better you know and what would she want how would she want this how would she cut this slice of bread talking to new people who'd um come to work who hadn't met her and it still goes on you know 15 years later that we go, a rose wouldn't like that.

21:22A rose would. It's different now, of course. It isn't like it was when it was in 2010. And so I think the tribute that we could grow, make it better, make it more vibrant and popular and maybe expand it, was all to do with that grounding that she gave us to carry on. And I think I was really amazed by the support and kindness of other restauranteurs. You know, people always like to say how competitive restaurants are. But I found it a community of great support and love. And then nothing's like having a child die. So there's no, there's nothing there, you know, that I can say. So that was just, you know, Richard and I, I can't describe what that's like, but I think that the way I, again, you know, that we kind of managed to walk and talk and take care was taking care of his brothers and his, you know, nieces and the family.

22:27and I think that as a family we all gathered together and went places in memory of him and celebrated him and his name was Bo. And then I think for me cooking was really important. I found it hard to cook. I remember one time I was in the River Cafe soon after he died and I was making tomato sauce and I realized I was just standing there stirring, stirring, stirring and she had to come down. But I think for me, the smell of food, the day that I knew that he had died in an accident in Italy, I said to one of my children, put a tomato sauce on. I need to smell food. And then Richard, my husband died two years ago.

23:17And that was an experience because he had an accident in Mexico. And we lived there for six months. and I was thrust into a new city where I had a lot of friends and I took two rooms in a hotel and the other room was always occupied by somebody, a friend, a child, a cousin, some friend who lived in California would fly down. So it was the unhappiest time, I suppose, in my life, but it was also so beautiful because there was no conflict. I would say, you know, should I be here, should I be there, should I be in the restaurant, should I be at work, should I be with my children? I was there. I learned about Mexican food and Mexican breakfast.

24:01And I think Mexico City is the most beautiful city. And also the warmth of the people there. How kind I'd go to the hospital and there would just be five architects sitting in the waiting room or people sending me drawings. So you learn from, you know, you learn from experience. You know, you learn from the happiest experiences and you learn from the saddest, I suppose. Well, as you said, the restaurant is a living, breathing tribute to all of those amazing, amazing people. And I've celebrated the lives of people I've lost there. So the River Cafe. So it's particularly moving. And thank you for sharing that with us and creating a space that is so welcome and safe to celebrate the happiest times and sort of commemorate the saddest.

24:48Yeah, I think restaurants are interesting. Going back to the pandemic, I think, you know, how many people missed restaurants? Yeah, exactly. When we opened after seven months, people were quite tearful. I'm like, I'm tearful now, goodness. You know, that they came in and just thought, well, you know, there's a spontaneous connection. You don't call somebody and say, will you be at this restaurant tonight? You go with your friends. And then at the table next door is somebody you haven't seen for months. Exactly. or somebody you'd just like to talk to for a minute. Exactly. I think there's that.

25:21And then for me now, it's my safe place, definitely. I'm there all the time. Yes. And I just find that walking through those doors and seeing these young people who are so great, working there, seeing friends, it's, for me, grief, I think everybody goes through different ways of handling grief. And I judge none, as I always say. I almost have a fear of stopping. Yes, that's quite like me. Yeah, exactly. And people might think it's a bit bonkers, but it works for me. Did you have someone close to you, Doug? Yeah, my father passed away in 2019 after a battle with cancer. And my response was just to go straight back to work.

26:03And it worked for me. But grief is a strange process. And actually, I feel a lot of it now harder six, seven years down the line. because that person feels further away from you, whereas the immediacy of the loss, you can still remember their smell, their touch, their voice, their laugh, whereas now it's more distant and they seem a bit more sort of like a ghost, which is really sad. But then we also think of the incredible joy that we have. How old is your baby? My baby, I have a four-year-old and a one-year-old, so they didn't meet my father. But part of the reason why we were excited to take the newest one to the River Cafe was because I had so many happy times at the River Cafe with my dad.

26:46It was one of the first places where my husband met my parents. So it's a very, very special place. Well, I wanted to touch on fashion, actually, away from food. You are an impeccably stylish woman. I know you love a bit of Phoebe Philo. She's a great designer, a great friend. Exactly. And you appeared in a Stone Island campaign recently, which was fantastic. I know, I was about that. That was funny. What does fashion mean to you and how would you describe your style? I love clothes. I love getting dressed. As a chef, you change. So you get dressed in whatever you're going to wear and then you go and put on your chef's trousers and your white jacket.

27:28And then I suppose I like quite simple clothes. I don't wear a lot of patterns. I like solid colors. And I suppose I like clothes that don't shout. you know I don't wear a lot of trousers I've never worn that many trousers and I think the designers that I gravitate to think about clothes in that way for women who are either working or express themselves in a non-very it's nice to look sexy obviously for me it's about much more kind of classic, comfortable I like the robe very much and Erdem Erdem is a great friend of mine and I think that But again, when I say I don't wear patterns much, but to wear a dress that Erdem's designed, if they fit so well, they look so beautiful.

28:17And all summer I was dressed in Erdem and Tuscany and I felt so kind of cool and great. Yeah, I adore his designs too. And sometimes I really enjoy just trying out, at the end of the day, sometimes if I'm in Mayfair, I'll go into the row, which I think is a really beautiful store. Oh, the store's exquisite. It's so beautiful and they're so nice there. and just to say, maybe if I tried this and I'll be a different person. Maybe I'll be a different Ruthie and maybe I will. And it's expensive. We're talking about really, really expensive clothes, but I think I'd rather buy one good thing than a lot of different things.

28:58So I don't have a lot of clothes in my cupboard. Exactly, yeah. Well, you mentioned lots of incredible female designers there like Phoebe and you are obviously an incredible woman and I would love to learn a bit more about the people or the women who have been most influential in your career. I would say my mother and my sister, both of whom, my sister is a painter and an artist, Susan Elias. And so I think seeing her, she's six years older than I am, but seeing as a person younger, her determination, her ambition, her dedication to her art meant a lot to me as a role model. And my mother also, who went back to school, she kept family that couldn't afford for her to go to university at 18.

29:46So when I think I went into sort of elementary school, she started getting a degree, and she went every day, drove 30 miles to the university in upstate New York, and got her degree. I went to my mom's graduation. And so I think those two in my family, And then, of course, Rose, working with Rose every day as a partner, seeing somebody who grew up in a very different way. She came from a very kind of family of culture and food and travel in Italy, and I came from a very different... I grew up in a family of culture, but it was quite different. It was more about the talk at the table than what you ate.