Best of Season Three: Part 1

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0:48That's why over 200 ,000 happy customers have made the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com. Offers are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply. You are listening to Ruthie's Table 4 in partnership with Montclair. When people talk about food, they talk about memories, the meals of their childhood, unforgettable parties they went to, comfort eating, and the grandmother's kitchen. 44 guests have joined me at Table 4 this season, chefs, actors, tennis champions, football heroes. as part of the podcast many have cooked with our chefs in the River Cafe kitchen.

1:31As the season comes to a close, we're sharing some of these conversations with you. In this episode, Wycliffe Sean, Carrie Mulligan, Tom Hollander, and Guy Ritchie. Let's begin with Sarah Jessica Parker, who brought her family to the River Cafe, learned how to make punterrel in the kitchen, and joined me for a lunchtime event with an invited audience. Thank you, Ritchie. Thank you. So, here we are. Did you ever work in a restaurant? No, but I say this knowing how hard it is. I think I would really love to be a server. Mm-hmm. Like, I really think that I know how hard it is. You're a bit worried about this summer.

2:11Yeah, she is. Higher. But you were really admiring your servers today because I said to the girls, I was like, I'm not sure that I've seen servers move this fast in a long time. because Sunday is a very busy day for you guys, right? Like, especially so. Well, that day was a really busy day. And I was saying to somebody, and I said, you know, I don't get to come to the River Cafe very often. I don't live in London. And to myself, to Matthew, it's like a very, it's like a special thing. It's like something you earn or maybe you work toward or you pine about and then you visit it and you're not sure if you made it all up.

2:50Like, is it possible that you joined a sort of cult, like a kind of thinking about it? Can it be? And then you come here, my hand to go, it is. And the kitchen really is, it's extraordinary to watch. It is like a pinball machine, but it's like, there's such precision about it. And I love watching the chefs talk to each other quickly in passing or actually come together to speak. I don't know. It's amazing and it's glorious. We were thrilled to be here, really. We were thrilled to have you. When we first did the completely open kitchen, you will remember after the fire, Richard Eyre, who's the director of the theater, came in and I said, Richard, isn't this just like theater, watching everyone around?

3:39And he said, actually, Ruthie, it isn't. It's like ballet. And he said, because watching people, everybody, you can't shout in an open kitchen. I mean, sometimes raise your voice. But basically you're moving around to speak to people about if you need to. Usually there's a kind of communication. And this time I had the ravioli with the spinach and the ricotta and those tiny gorgeous porcini mushrooms that are like a surprise. They don't talk about that as much. And we ordered two. And I was like, my daughter said, do you think we can order another one? And Jane Sulkie said, can we order another one?

4:15which just seems so, like, gluttonous and decadent and greedy. And then I was like, you know what? Yes, and if anybody says anything, I'll just say, we'll take it. Like, I'm sorry that we're being so, like, animals about this, but it's good to think of it as this kind of once-in-a-lifetime. It's just incredible. One of the things I think that we all, probably everyone in this room would think about was that in Sex and the City and the way you talk about food, the joy. So many conversations were over food and it was the pleasure of food. It was enjoying food as a way of communicating and being together, which we all feel here.

5:02The restaurant is a place where you share food. You're sitting down at the table or at home with your children. Yeah. And so how is that working in Sex and the City and doing, was that from you? I always loved food scenes. I think it was initially in place, I think, probably from either Candace's original source material or Darren Starr wrote that first coffee shop scene, which I think was just a great meeting place to sort of talk about the themes of each episode, like get the headline out. And then each person, those kind of archetypal characters would share points of view. So we knew where everybody stood and it allowed for controversial conversation or titillating conversation.

5:49But I will say this, that Cynthia Nixon, who is a dear friend of mine, and we've been working together since we were little girls. We've known each other since we were 11 or 10. Where did you meet? She was a child actor also, and we would always audition together. She often got the part. But we played siblings when I was very young. We played sisters on records. They used to do records of stories. And we played Laura and Mary Ingalls. And then we played siblings of, we played children of Vanessa Redgrave in a movie. But Cynthia and I in those coffee shop scenes, we always eat. Yeah. We always eat, and we always need to, like, re-prop our plate.

6:35And then when we finally wrap, they always said to Cynthia, me and Cynthia, do you guys want to take it to go again today? And we're like, yes, we do. So we really like those scenes, and we very much go back and forth about, they'll send the menu in advance now, now that we all have the phones and things, because they want you to order in advance for props to have everything ready and multiples of it. So we'll go back and forth. What did you order? Are you going to order? I'll order that so you order that and we can share. So the food is, the lines are blurred. It's kind of a joy of food, though, wasn't it?

7:11Yes, absolutely. It was a way of women eating. Yes. It was something that we are all thinking about, how we combine food. And I think it's changed. You find that your daughters are different now in terms of their attitude. Yeah, I mean, I never was very disciplined about it. I just wasn't. I think I'm not really good at denying myself something. And I think also I was a dancer for so long and running around, so I was able to be that way. It's certainly not the same now. But I also just, when I had girls, I just was so, I didn't want them to have a relationship with food that was antagonistic or they felt like this was their enemy and that they were going to have to sort of like stake out a position with food.

8:05So when I was growing up, we weren't allowed sugar in the house and we were allowed cookies and we weren't allowed chocolate. And of course, all we did the minute we moved out was buy Entenmann's cakes and cookies. And, you know, and I didn't want that. So in our house, we have cookies, we have cake, we have everything. And I think as a result, you kind of have a healthier relationship. And my daughters will have the figures they have, and hopefully they'll be healthy. And they're athletes and they enjoy food and they have different palates. And you can't make someone like something they don't like or want.

8:36And I hope that they can maintain their affection for the experience and their delight in taste and find their own ways to have that be healthy for them. And your son. He's absolutely mad for food. It was fantastic to meet. All three of them were just, you know, involved in the food and talking about the food and asking questions about food on Sunday. Who knows? Matthew Cook? Matthew Cook's, we both cook every single day. Every day? Every single day. Every day. We probably eat dinner as a family every night. If I'm shooting or he's doing a play, obviously that shifts around. We always have dinner Sunday night.

9:24But one of us, if we're home, cooks every single day. The film director, Guy Ritchie, loves food and he loves wine and has his own unique way of doing things. When he came to the River Cafe, he didn't go into the kitchen. He set up his own outdoor kitchen in the garden and cooked a steak for our chefs. But that's not the only reason I like Guy. He's a childhood friend of my stepson Abe, and I've known him for decades. We began this conversation talking about his early food memories growing up with his family in London. when we moved in it was an old-fashioned in theory it wasn't a sort of cottony community but it was an old-fashioned english community there so this is in 60 they bought that house in 69 in philom yeah and they were like foodies yeah and boozies yeah then which is quite early doors so you grew up with in a house that loved food and then my mom was very good cook what did she cook my favorite was watercress soup oh really yeah it was quite exotic yeah it's very robert carrier isn't it i have no idea but she was a very good cook i used to like baked eggs and uh watercress soup yeah and would you sit down to dinner like most nights as a fact who's in your family your brothers and sisters no one sister uh a sister and a mother and so would you sit down to a meal with a kind of family supper i heard something earlier on that um i've not can't remember which generation we are but we are still the sort of the i spoke maybe the last generation that lived more outdoors than we did indoors so i knew all the other kids in the street yeah so you were never indoors you were always out with your mates yeah and we were on bicycles i I remember you used to cycle to quite far afield, and we were on bicycles when we were six.

11:23You went to local school? I went to 13 schools. Did you walk to school? I went to 13 schools. You went to 13, okay. Yeah. How did that happen? Local schools. Dyslexia. Were you moving or no school could cope with educating you? No school could cope. And I sort of picked up the reputation that it was because I was naughty, and it wasn't because I was naughty. It was just I was remarkably slow. Yeah. in understanding what they were trying to translate, and I had no ability to translate it. So, you know, very promiscuous with schools, and I went to about five local schools, and then gradually, I mean, even the one I went to school with Abe, that was subsequently shut down.

12:02Most of the schools I went to were subsequently shut down because they were all learning disability schools. And they didn't know it. Well, they sort of fumbled around as best they could, and I'm sort of grateful for their efforts, but there was only one person I met that was more dyslexic than me, and that was Abe. I've been to my kids' schools, you know, whether it was Abe or it was my children. And I remember saying the only, I don't care if they learn to read when they're 8 or 6 or 10 or 12 or 14, what you never want your child to do is to feel stupid. Because I said those are the people that come into the River Cafe and they always come in and they say, I don't want to sit here, I don't want that, I don't want this.

12:42And I almost want to say, did you have a hard time in school? you know because it takes i'm going to challenge you okay challenge i'm going to challenge you that i from the the best roses come from the worst manure okay so i think a certain amount of adversity is rather essential and i don't think it did me much harm being told i was you were never told you're stupid it was implicit feel that you were well you were clear it was clear that you couldn't follow right and you were clear that kids that weren't that quick were following quicker than you could follow so you could you knew there was an issue i would argue though that that gave me a sort of a myriad of skills that uh otherwise uh i would never have developed and feeling like you're an outsider of some description feeling diminished at some point man in the end i just don't think that did me any harm i agree with you about a lot of that i mean i agree with sort of self-esteem i used to think self-esteem was the most important I think now I think maybe not.

13:45It's a dual thing. There's a paradox in that, isn't there? Yeah, there is. There's a paradox. Okay. Well, going back then, 13 schools. Do you remember any of those 13 schools having good food? Yeah. You'll be surprised what kind of food I can enjoy. Yeah, tell me. Everything. My mum wasn't fussy, and I've never been fussy. The only thing I couldn't eat was rhubarb, and even that I can eat now. And I was quite interested and enjoy industrial quantities of food. It's not necessarily to consume, but there's a sort of it takes on certain qualities. They used to do like school lasagna. When you're cooking for a few hundred kids, it takes on complex characteristics that are impossible to derive if you're using quality product.

14:34So, yeah, I liked school food. Out of 13 schools, which one did you? Did you do something like graduate from a school or did you just leave school? Yeah, just left. How old were you? 15. Right. And it was anticlimactic sort of. I left and then they said, don't bother coming back. Yeah. And did your parents, were they worried about you? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Because I had no qualifications at all. I can barely spell my name. Yeah. But I was, I mean, I was working by the time I was 15. Not far from here, actually. St. Peter's Square in Hammersmith. Yeah, St. Peter's Square, yeah. Yeah, I worked in the Island Records, which I don't know if it's still there.

15:12But I worked as a two-boy in Iron Records. Were you living at home? Did your mum still cook for you? No. I left home early door. So from 15 onwards, I was in and out. And what were you eating? Do you remember? No, is the answer to that. No, because then it was all work. From 15 to now, it's really all been work. Although there's been sort of messy periods along that way, I've been working pretty much since I was 15. And my first love of real food was French. And I was tremendously impressed by the layering. When you call layering, you mean the way that they... I felt as though there was every nuance was investigated.

15:58There was a place on Pimlico Road that was run by those brothers. Yes, do you remember? Yeah. It was next to Le Poule Pot. Yeah, Poule Pot, that's the one I was thinking about. And there was a little supermarket that was next door, a little shop and a little French shop, not much bigger than this room. and when I was a van driver, I used to go in there and it was absurdly expensive, but the quality was mind-blowing. You've run a career off the quality of your ingredients, though, really, haven't you? I always say that about French food and Italian food, that there's nothing I love more than a piece of fish with beurre blanc and spinach on the bottom.

16:35As you say, almost layering the way. But there's something also when you go to Italy and then you have a piece of sea bass and nothing. You know, you just get this bass and maybe, if you're lucky, a bit of salsa verde or lemon. And so if you're going to have only two ingredients, a lemon and a sea bass, or sea bass and a bit of wild oregano, the wild oregano has to be wild, and the sea bass has to be incredibly fresh because there's no masking of it. You're not looking at the hollandaise or the bernese or the other stuff. So I think we are, the River Cafe definitely is very ingredient-based. Yeah, we are.

17:10I went fishing for sea bass this week, actually. Did you? Where? Portland. Anyway, so I caught four very healthy bass. Did you? Well, I actually caught 14. We returned 10 of them. I went fishing with my 10-year-old, who's obsessed. Nice. And English bass is a fantastic bass. It is. We get all our fish off the coast. We don't bring any tuna or anything in. They'll all be line caught, your bass, too. Yeah, line caught. We once had, one of my favorites was we had the, you know, we call it the end of service. So at 11 o 'clock at night, we know how much bass we've sold, how much, you know, turbot we've sold.

17:46And we know that the next day we're going to change the menu. So we never have the menu. It just depends what there is in the fridge and what there is in the sea. And then we got a call from the boat and he said, I've just reeled in a turbot. And it's so big that either the River Cafe takes it or we put it back in the sea. What do you want? And we took it. How big was it? I can't remember. Maybe, I don't know, eight kilos. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

18:19The River Cafe Cafe, our all-day space and just steps away from the restaurant, is now open. In the morning, an Italian breakfast with Cornetti, Ciambela and Crostata from our pastry kitchen. In the afternoon, ice cream coupes and River Cafe classic desserts. We have sharing plates, salumi misti, mozzarella, bruschetta, red and yellow peppers, vitello tonado, and more. Come in the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist in the bar. No need to book. See you here.

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19:39Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now, you can shop up to 60 % off store-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Shop now at washablesofas.com. Add a little... to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Parking 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. When Wycliffe Jean came to table four, he had memories to share and songs to sing. But the moment that stays with me most was this story about his childhood.

20:25As a young boy, Wycliffe was left with his grandmother in Haiti while his parents tried to make a new life for the family in America. And then, one day, an immigration officer came looking for them. The immigration unit goes to my mama, the apartment that they're staying in. So while my dad's running, this is a big raid. Like, they're about to... In Brooklyn. This is in Brooklyn. Yes, this is in Brooklyn. Now, immigration officer gets to my mama's apartment. Immigration. Open up the door now, man. And my mom is so scared. The immigration officer has a translator with him that speaks French and Creole.

21:15So the immigration officer says, I'd have knocked on this door four times. they ain't open and I know somebody in there I need you to say it in Crayol and French whatever language that is tell them to open that door and the translator says to my mother in Crayol Fé Sovlé Me Pauvet Potla Translation Do not open that door right now the reason why I say this right is at the end of the day, people get caught up in these situations. And we, the United States of America, like there was a time where we would take heed to this and we would take like cause to this and we would be so sensitive to that. Like where we could say, we'll give you a pass because we know what you're doing here.

22:18You're not breaking the law. You just had a bad day. And these days do not exist. Also, you're making the country better by coming from another country. And I was just given a prize in America. I was asked to be in the academy. I was made a member of this academy of arts and letters. And I wrote the letter and I said, my grandparents came from Russia And I can, in 1917, you know, they were part of that Ellis Island. And I just think in two generations how, you know, if your grandparents were here watching you, did your grandparents know the measure of your success? Did they see? No, my grandparents, my grandma knew my musical abilities at a very young age because I would just like make songs up.

23:11there was these women in the village every Sunday that would sing these church hymns. And I would just get, I would just be part of that. Can you remember one? Yeah, I remember a few of them. Si ça te fait, n 'ai toujours en paix. Moi béni et moi connaîtra. Thank you.

24:23So that was, you know, you could just feel it. But the hymn is saying we're blessed and we should acknowledge that, like basically every day of our life. So, again, that was some of the, I would hear these amazing women, and then so the hymns would just channel through me. And after church, would there be food? Would there be a meal? Would you go home and sit back? We call it Lucky Sunday. What was that? You get that Lucky Sunday, everything come out on that Lucky Sunday, but it doesn't happen often. Lucky Sunday happens on Easter. The meal is big. What is it? The meal is big. The meal is a lot of meat, goat.

25:11Goat. Goat cooked very interesting. It's called tasso. It's fried. Traditionally in Haiti, if you see how they cook, they use the charbon, charbon. Charbon. So it's caught with the charbon because you know the food won't taste different. And then they put the big aluminum pan. And so the goat is fried. they would make poisson grossel. The poisson grossel is the white fish. A little salty, like codfish at times. It sounds like you're saying grossel, but it's that. Grossel means large salt, doesn't it? Yeah, gros, yeah. En français, yeah. En français. Yeah, ça va en français. So in Creole, the word gros means big.

25:55Okay. Yeah, so yeah. And then phonetically, yes. Yes, because Creole and French at times, the words do mean the same thing, yes. And so when your father ran and your mother didn't open the door, so were they safe in the United States for you to come? They were safe. My parents came and got me and my brother. Now they get on a plane. The immigration laws work out. They come and get us from Haiti. So me and my brother go and see my parents for the first time. I was going to say you were five and they'd left when you were able. Yeah, so now I'm like eight, nine, and now my parents are coming to get me.

26:32And I've never seen them. So my grandma gets us dressed. She takes our bags. She brings us to the airport. I never seen an airport before. So when the airplane is landing, you can imagine what that looks like to me, a UFO. So the airplane lands, and I'll never forget, my mother had a yellow outfit. She looked like Jackie O. She had the glasses on. She looked like Miss America. I was like, yo, that's my mama right there. You know what I'm saying? My dad had the long beard looking like he Moses. He comes, and they come, and they hold me and my brother in that hug. I can still feel that hug. They hadn't seen you for how long?

27:19They haven't seen us since we were born. Did they continue cooking the food of Haiti and Brooklyn? My mama had a thing you only can eat in the house. I didn't even know what it was like to go to a fast food restaurant. A lot of what was cooked in Brooklyn was something called legume. Vegetables? Yes. Legume is similar to a gumbo, right? But all in vegetables. So, eggplants, watercress. This was like part of it. And also a lot of yam, sweet potatoes. And this is natural. A lot of fish. In the morning, it was very, very important that you had breakfast. My father, who was also an amazing cook, he used to cook liver for iron, right?

28:13So again, like it would be all, but he would like cook the liver with egg whites. They dipped the liver in the egg whites? They beat the egg whites. Yeah, they beat the egg whites. So it's like a batter around the liver. A batter, yeah, and they batter the liver so it's very, it's not rough. So everything is very tender. So we naturally grew up in an environment where the food wasn't processed. Like they literally, oh, you know what she used to do? Pul ju chicken. So from the chicken, she would always go to the butcher. like they would not if it if the meat wasn't from the butcher they would there's no such thing about she go to the supermarket and get chicken um so everything is from the butcher and it was called pulji and i gotta tell you just thinking about that chicken right now and how they seasoned it and cooked it was pretty amazing did you ever go in the kitchen and cook with your mom my mother She was like, you're going to be real successful.

29:11I said, why? Because she said, every time we cook in, all you do is you come in the kitchen and sing. And you sing and you stay here and you wait. So you're the first one with the first meal out, right? My mom, when she would cook rice, she would have me work with the seasons with her. There's a seasoning called Maggi. You've ever heard of it? I think I have. It's like amazing because it's like a mixed season. Yeah. And it was something like she, it literally works in everything. Like literally. Is it like a little cube? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Like a yellow. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it's like a, it's like a cube of vegetables.

29:50Man, they put Maggie in everything. I remember seeing those yellow, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a stock. So that was one of the things that she was like, yo, give me the two Maggies. So the rice game is crazy in Haiti. and in the kitchen. So she'd be like, okay, put this amount of water, right, in the pot. And when she put the water, she says, okay, put this amount of oil, right? And one of the things she used to have me do was wash the rice. Cleaning was very, very important to her, how she actually cooked the food. So I'd be like, but the rice is already in the pack. No, she says, you got to put the rice in the water.