Amanda Sharp

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.

0:04Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. You are listening to Ruthie's Table 4 in partnership with Montclair. In 2018, for the first time, the River Cafe opened a second restaurant at the Fries Art Fair in Regions Park. It was only for a few days and not something we would think of doing, but we did say yes for three reasons. Because art is food and food is art. Because we love the concept of Frieze, the greatest art fair in the world.

0:45And most of all, because of our friendship and deep admiration for the founders, Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, whose vision, energy and determination makes Frieze what it is. Speak to friends of Amanda and they'll tell you she is curious. curious about the world and the people around her. Amanda says that art is like cooking, making something incredible out of basic ingredients. Today Amanda's with me in the River Cafe, and I'm the one who'll be curious about Amanda as we talk about food and memories, artists and chefs, and much, much more. I came here for my 21st birthday. I was desperate to try it, and my parents said to me, you can go anywhere for your birthday, what do you want to do?

1:30And that must have been in, I was 21 when I came, so it was 89. 89. So I came in 89. It was my first time I came here. That is very brave that you wanted to come here then, because we were only two years old. But I knew about you, and that to me was the most exciting thing I could do for my 21st birthday. Gosh, so it was a teeny tiny little six-table restaurant. Was it really? Nine, actually nine tables. I have a drawing I'll show you. It's one of my favorite drawings in any pages in any of our books, because it shows by architectural drawings how the River Cafe evolved from 19... Oh, I'd love to see that.

2:05Yeah, show it to you. And I remember at that time I was desperate to make movies and I remember Alan Yentog was in that stream and I was so starstruck. It wasn't just the food, it was the nexus of a creative world that I was desperate to be one day part of. And so how did Freeze come about? So the fair happened because probably London was getting to be a much more active art centre. There were more and more galleries open. It also was becoming a more international city. It was opening up through the 90s. And we just thought most good art capitals have an art fair. And we couldn't understand why there wasn't one in London.

2:52and for about six years we'd talk about it and just assume someone else would do it. And then the night Tate Modern opened. I was up in the rafters looking down and it was like little ants scurrying in. It was everyone, an abundancy of visitors. And Matthew and I kind of looked at each other and went, let's do an art fair. If you build it, they will come. So that was 25 years ago. So we launched three years after that, two or three years after that. In a tent? In a tent in the middle of Regent's Park, the size of three football pitches or something. Yeah, it was a bit of a folly. I think we just thought we were building this tent where galleries would come from around the world that we knew, and they'd show great art.

3:40And at that point, I don't think I'd ever met a collector. So I guess we were just banking on the fact that if you put great art up, Good people will come and look at it, and some of them will buy it, and it will work. And it did. And it did. Yeah. So when you were growing up, starting at the beginning, what was it like growing up in your home, and particularly with food? What was the food like in your house? Meals were rambunctious and full of conversation. How many are you? Three kids, two parents. But there would always be other people living with us. So whether it was grandparents, au pairs, friends of the family, it was a very open house, the more the merrier.

4:23That was sort of constant. And the meal, all the meals were the meeting point of the day. Who did the cooking? It was my mum. She did? And did she love to cook? I think she did it as a way of expressing love. I don't think she particularly enjoys cooking. I think she enjoyed baking. She was a doctor and she used to make... She actually used to bake cakes. I imagine it as, my memory is every morning I'd wake to the aroma of a baking cake. On a school day even. Oh yeah, before she'd get up, she'd bake, she'd take us to school, she'd go to hospital. It was amazing. You had a feeling that it was what, was there a feeling of why she would start her day making a cake?

5:04Maybe it was some kind of comfort, you know. Her mother made beautiful cakes. Where was your grandmother born? Poland. And she grew up not cooking in a very privileged kind of background. And I think only started cooking after the Second World War, probably in her 30s. Before that, I don't think she'd ever boiled an egg. Yeah, it's very much like my mother-in-law, Richard's mother, who grew up in Trieste. Again, very privileged family, probably didn't know where the kitchen was, was served. and then found herself under Mussolini escaping to London. And suddenly was, you know, I think she wanted to eat well because she was used to eating well.

5:49And so she learned to cook. And so probably there was a generation perhaps of women like your grandmother. Tell me more about her. Was she a refugee? She was a refugee. She ended up here in the end having lived in Israel for a while as well. She spoke 10 languages. She was a very mild-mannered lady, but actually she must have had real piss and vinegar because she went to university in the 20s in Italy. She went to the Sorbonne. She went to Egypt. So I met a very quiet older woman who must have been quite a feisty young woman. Do you think that was the effect of the war or do you think it was just getting older?

6:30I think just getting older, if I'm honest. and she did something great for me because I grew up in a kosher house but I'd go and see her after school and she'd make me salami sandwiches and I loved it to eat something verboten like that was great you think that's a grandmother's indulgence it was our secret so she lived near you yeah she did from probably when I was about 6 years old until she passed away So she was around for most of my child, and she was my mother's best friend. So we saw her a lot. Tell me about, you talk about you grew up in a kosher house. And so was that also a house that had a sense of tradition, religion?

7:14Did you do Shabbat dinners on Friday nights? Tell me about growing up in a kosher home. I mean, it was an interesting dichotomy in that my father was English, Jewish, religious, becoming progressively less religious. so by the time I was growing up he was you know didn't believe in God but was culturally religious and my mother having grown up in Israel not kosher didn't go to synagogue you know just was Jewish by association in that way but kept the kosher house for my dad initially and we were never allowed out ever on Friday nights everyone had to be home for Friday night Oh, the whole way.

7:56Oh, really? I mean, probably if I moved home at 30, that would have been the rule as well. And, yeah, we'd say kiddush. It'd always be the chicken soup my mother had made that morning. Fridays was always the aroma of chicken soup in the morning. And, yeah, I think we were very, it played a large part in the family life. But I think what I took from it was learning to be inquisitive, challenge things, ask questions, don't just accept what is as being how it should be, which I'm very grateful for. And yes, I like gefilte fish and I like even some of the very heavy Ashkenazi food. It wouldn't be something I would cook, but it takes me back to my childhood.

8:42Would you go to restaurants? Never in my childhood. I think they were expensive and not how my parents grew up. But I had an interest, I have to admit, and I did save up money. And I remember going out just to a hamburger joint with a friend when I was about 14. Did you? Yeah, and just being so excited by it. You'd be served, that you'd be taken care of. Yeah, that hospitality aspect of it really being looked after was sort of magical. And so when you went to Oxford, is that where you were a student? Yeah. What was it like in terms of food? I think as a student, it's quite hard to figure out the role that food plays.

9:27It almost becomes a sort of background part of your life because you're so intoxicated by people. And, you know, everything is so novel and heady. and, you know, you're up all night and sleeping all morning and everything is new. And so food is fuel, I think, at that point, at least it was for me. But I think I linked food with hospitality. I liked having people over and I'd sort of just ask 15, 20 people to come over for dinner and then I had to cook. And you taught yourself. Yeah, and made lots of mistakes. mistakes I learned from buying fish that hadn't been gutted and then having to get home and do it myself, you know, that kind of thing.

10:13I remember buying a chicken in Paris that had not been cleaned as a 25-year-old from New York. What do I do with his neck and feathers? That's quite terrifying. I think I didn't do anything, probably.

10:32I will also ask you to read the recipe that you chose, quail al Forno, oven-roasted quail. Would you like to read the recipe? I'd love to. It's a recipe that I read and actually made me think about cooking quail for the first time when the book came out in 2003, I think. So I've made this recipe. So, four quails, seasoned two to four hours in advance. Two tablespoons of sea salt, coarsely ground-backed pepper, four small sprigs of sage, two sprigs of rosemary, two small lemons, and three tablespoons of butter, melted. Salt and pepper the quail all over, including inside the cavities. Stuff each bird with one sprig of sage, half a sprig of rosemary and a quarter of a lemon, squeezing the lemon as you insert it into the cavity.

11:25Pre-heat the oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit or 260 degrees Celsius, wherever you are. Arrange the quail on a roasting tray. Coat the birds on all sides with melted butter. Roast the birds for 15 minutes until the breast has just firmed. Put the quail on a plate to rest for about two minutes. Serve warm with the remaining lemon wedges. We just started cooking quail again, you know, for a while. We didn't use it. I like it very much in a tomato sauce polenta with sausages. Yeah. The taste is good. So it's good that you made it. I love being able to just rip it apart with my hands. And just rip it apart with my hands.

12:03Right.

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12:42Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50%, and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter. Park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. This week on a very special episode of Health Discovered, we're taking a closer look at a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of men each year, prostate cancer. I first found out about my cancer on my birthday at the age of 45. Found out my cancer has spread to my pelvic bone And from there, life just changed. About one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, and the risk increases with age.

13:29Anything with cancer, you just think death sentence. And the only thing I could think about was, who's going to take care of my family? You have to go out there and build your support system. You got to build your team. In this episode, we'll explore the science behind detection, along with the practical steps men can take to protect their health. Listen to Health Discovered on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app, search Health Discovered, and start listening. You met Matthew Sotover at Oxford. We'd sort of known to look out for each other because one of Matthew's friends had gone out with my sister.

14:13We literally passed as ships when we were kids at a bar mitzvah. So it was sort of natural that we would bump into each other when we were there. Did you study art history at Oxford? I wish. No, I studied politics, philosophy, economics. I was really passionate about film at that time. But Matthew met Damien Hirst and a few other people in London when we left college. And that would be what year? 1990. Yeah. So the YBAs, the Young British Artists. Was that around that time? It was the very, very start of it. That's where we got so lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Because what that group were doing was so exciting.

15:00and nobody was that interested in what was happening in Britain in contemporary art at that time. The country was in the doldrums economically. There was lots of raw empty spaces. People couldn't really get jobs. It was very unfamiliar to London as it stands today. And there were a group of young British artists who'd gone to Goldsmiths and taught by some wonderful teachers there, including Michael Craig Martin. and when they left college they were very connected to each other and they put on exhibitions together and were in shows together and they were daring and they wanted people to know what they were doing and I remember Matthew saying to me, look, you need to come and see this exhibition and we drove over to somewhere east London and we walked into a derelict warehouse and it was huge, cavernous, with literally pigeons flying around in the rafters.

16:01And he said, you're going to love this. And I walked around and it was electrifying. It just looked like nothing I'd ever seen, but I immediately got it. It felt really like, you know, your pulse race, it felt urgent, it just felt relevant and it just felt daring. And Matt said, look, I really want to learn about contemporary art. And there were artists like Gary Heumann or Anya Galaccio, quite a lot of, I think, maybe Sarah Lucas. There were a lot of famous people who are now famous. All of the people you think of as the YBAs were in these mixed-up shows. And today you'll pick up a Sunday newspaper and there'll be an article of an artist.

16:50but in those days you would meet people who knew all about films or books or plays they couldn't name an artist gallery there was no White Cube, Sadie Coles these things were just going to happen he was huge and he had a huge influence on those artists because he put on incredible exhibitions at Boundary Road was that in the early 90s? yeah and even a bit earlier The first place I saw Cindy Sherman, Charles Ray, Richard Prince. One of the great galleries, I always think, people used to say, what is your favourite museum in the world? And I used to say, you know, obviously it wasn't the collection of the Met, but what Max Gordon and the architect and Charles Hatchie did there was phenomenal, wasn't it?

17:39Just the way you entered walking down a ramp, and then I remember the Warhols. I can remember the oil. Exactly. The permanent installation of that oil room. incredible can you say describe what it was you walked into a room and memory place is funny but i think at about hip height all around you with a kind of road ahead which sort of came to a point like a v you were in a pool of oil and it didn't move it was still but it could ripple and you could sort of slightly smell it as well. Definitely had a smell and also it was so it was like a mirror. Yes. It was so still. Yes. As I remember. Yes you're right.

18:27That you could look at it and see you know hair on your on your forehead you could see anything and so there was that sense that you wanted to touch it almost. Yeah. And I remember the Mao the massive Mao when you did the warhols and the tuanlies. And of course Damien's shark. And Damien's shark. And we thought we were so witty. We had an art magazine at that time, and we agreed with Damien to film the installation of the shark. And I think we put it on the last page of the magazine and called it Finn. We were really silly. You just dropped in that you asked Damien to do something for your magazine, but you haven't told us how this magazine happened.

19:06What was the magazine? Well, it was Matthew's idea. I think it was just a way of us learning about art, to be honest. It felt so exciting to be part of it. And it was such a small community. But you started the magazine. We did in 1991. What was it called? It was called Freeze. It was the first thing we did out of college. And we just learned on the job. We'd never done a magazine. We didn't know about art. But we were really hardworking and curious and ambitious. And, you know, you could fit the whole London art world into a pub at that time. It was tiny. But we got to travel a bit. there was a great mistake that Hoover did where Douglas Gordon, an artist, called me up and said, go and buy a Hoover because with every Hoover you get a ticket to New York.

19:54Really? For free. We were like, that can't be true. What? We must have bought 20 Hoovers because for like 30 quid you got a free ticket on Virgin to New York. That's hilarious. It was amazing. That got us through a couple of years of flying to New York, I think. And New York's amazing. We were 22 years old or 21 years old, from Susan Sontag to Glenn O 'Brien to Gary. Every single person met with us, and every single person said yes. It was amazing. Richard's father, when I met his father, he said to me, Ruthie, you know, we have a friend from Trieste who went to New York to start a gallery. And I wonder if you might know who he is.

20:34And I was like, oh, yeah, right. You know, like another person from a foreign country goes to New York to start a gallery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I'm sure. I said, I'm sure I don't. And he said, well, I said, but okay, you know, what's his name? And he said, well, we used to call him Little Leo. Leo Castelli. Little Leo. And he was Leo Castelli. Well, you can explain who Leo Castelli was. He was the king of New York. We actually ran an article on Leo Castelli on the second issue of our magazine. I think it's the only profile we ever ran of a gallerist. And the title was King of Neal. Yeah.

21:10We went to see him, and I told him that Richard's father had remembered him. I mean, they probably were teenagers at the time in Trieste before the war. He was very moved. Yeah. Very elegant man. Handsome. Yes. And what was the food scene like? If we know that the art scene was kind of dire, what was the food scene like? You know what? it's like the art world loves to celebrate so every time an artist opens a show they're going to go and have a dinner afterwards so it's it's a really important component of the art world is to meet with people drink in the pub drink in the bar get something to eat after an exhibition has opened and I don't know if there's any other industry quite like that where it's really important that the community meets to celebrate the artists that way and what I didn't realize so much was how proximate we were to the AIDS crisis and how decimated that community was because no one spoke about it even though it was it was very strange so it was it was an interesting time to be in New York and we'd go to an art fair in Basel that was fantastic the Basel Art Fair because you could go one place and meet everyone from all over the world and you'd be up till four in the morning talking to people and I met so many people there I learned so much about art and that's sort of the beginning of my love affair with art fairs I think.

22:43And New York apart from the socializing did New York have a food scene that you were? I wasn't connected to the food scene in New York. I would go to the restaurants where the art world went, to the Odeon, to Jerry's, Fennelly's, all these Soho downtown places. It was after Gordon Matter Clark's food had closed, but there were a few kind of drinking spots that everyone ended up in, and the Odeon was a big deal. Yeah, it was. Yeah. Well, now, I was talking to someone last night about the Odeon. It's still thriving and going. Balthazar. Yes, indeed. Yeah. I mean, I lived in New York for 18 years.

23:22A lot of artists are amazing cooks. It's that truth to materials, isn't it? And the alchemy aspect. Yeah. Really, every artist that I know is either a passionate eater or a passionate cook. And they are. And even Philip Guston, you know, he would always show up at our house for mealtime. You know, he just loved to eat. And I think he really cared about food. And, you know, he would go in the kitchen or, I was trying to remember as a child, if he went, if he ever cooked a meal. But I think he probably cooked more than his wife, Musa. And I think he really cared. And the architects that I know really care about food.

24:03The River Cafe Winter Set Lunch is now running from Monday to Thursday. Reserve a booking on www.rivercafe.co.uk or give us a call.

24:18Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. This week on a very special episode of Health Discovered, we're taking a closer look at a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of men each year. prostate cancer. I first found out about my cancer on my birthday at the age of 45. Found out my cancer has spread to my pelvic bone. And from there, life just changed. About one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, and the risk increases with age.

25:06Anything with cancer, you just think death sentence. And the only thing I could think about was, who's going to take care of my family? You have to go out there and build your support system. You got to build your team. In this episode, we'll explore the science behind detection, along with the practical steps men can take to protect their health. Listen to Health Discovered on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app, search Health Discovered, and start listening.

25:39Tell me more about the adventure of actually creating one of the great art fairs. Well, not dissimilar from starting a magazine, where you go and find someone who really knows how to put together a magazine and ask for their help. We found someone who knew how to put on a trade show, literally in terms of the nuts and bolts and building. and then we had to go and speak to our wish list of galleries and I drew up a wish list of 120 galleries in the world and because we'd done the magazine for 10 years at that point we knew people so I think they were predisposed to be supportive and I think if I hadn't lived in America for a while at that point we would have found it harder to get Americans to come so far and it made a big difference having them but I think out of our wish list we only didn't get one but it involved a lot of talking to people and a lot of late nights and a lot of planning and it was for the art world it's for the professionals but we didn't want to shut the door on the possibility other people would come so we sent invitations to chefs we sent invitations to fashion designers we sent to invitations to architects, to novelists.

26:57And I think that it was my great pleasure that it went wider and that London celebrated it and the museums were the first people we asked to go to to help us do this. So the first person I ever spoke to was Nick Sarota and said, it's the best thing about London is the museums. We want to help you. Is there something we can do with this fair? And he was so supportive. and really the fair only happened because London got behind it. And what about Regent's Park? They said no. They said no. But then they came back to us after a couple of months and they said, you know what, the park is a site for contemplation and actually artists too will let you do it.

27:44And it's always been in Regent's Park. Always. And you have Fries in New York. We have Fries in LA. We have Fries in LA. and we have Fries in Seoul. The Seoul. Yeah. Do you have also a memory of how you decided to do the restaurants? Why, you could have easily had an art fair without food. It's very special when you're chosen to come to Fries to do the food. I know friends of mine who, whether it's Skye or I think Sally Clark did it. Did Sally Clark do it? Well, Skye did it for a while. It was fantastic. Peterstrom did it. Morrow. I mean, a lot of people you know well. I think we tried to look at the way fairs were done and think about, same way we approached a magazine, you kind of say, well, just because it's been done this way doesn't mean it has to be done this way.