Elton John and David Furnish

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0:47What's a song with food? A song with food? Sugar. Sugar, sugar, sugar. I am a sugar freak. You are my candy girl, and you got me wanting you. What about I am my thrill? Oh, on Blueberry Hill. Oh, on Blueberry Hill. Oh, do not forsake me, oh my darling. Oh, do not forsake me, oh my darling. On this our wedding day.

1:18An open kitchen in the River Cafe gives me the chance to watch people having dinner with their children. David and Elton uniquely engage with theirs, focused, listening, laughing, all four in their own private world. In between texts with David about plans for getting together, there are photographs. Zachary on a boat with a huge sea bass he's just caught. Elijah kicking a football, all of them in the south of France, around a table. Recently, sitting next to Elton at a dinner in the River Cafe, we had no small talk. We spoke immediately about Elton John AIDS Foundation, the polarized world we seem to be living in, and what we need to do as citizens.

2:00David and Elton are activists. They registered their civil partnership in 2005. On the first day, it was legal in the UK, leading the way for others to follow with confidence and with pride. Do you remember your first meal you had together? I do. Did you meet in a restaurant? No, we met here. Our first meal was at this table. Where were you sitting? I was sitting there. Okay, facing the wall. I was opposite. And I was a plus. Was it a date? No, it was a last-minute invitation with a group of, well, Elton had come back from touring. He was single, and he had his friend staying with him, and he said, I don't want to sit around the house like a widow.

2:44Let's just have a dinner party and invite some people down because a lot of your friends. I was in AA, so I hadn't really met anybody except AA people for three years. So his friend rang my friend, Malcolm. Is that part of AA that you don't meet? I know you can't drink, but it was just so encompassing. No, I just threw myself into getting well as much as I threw myself into getting unwell. So I did what I was told, and I had a great time. But eventually all I knew was AA people. I didn't know any other gay people or lost touch with them or whatever. And it wasn't certainly a sexual thing when I brought him down.

3:16So he rang, Elton's friend rang my friend Malcolm, and I was going to Malcolm's house for dinner that night. He was having a dinner party. And Elton's friend said, why don't you bring your dinner party down to Windsor? So Elton didn't know me. I had no connection at all. It was very random. And I was vegetarian then. And I came through the door and you were having, I think, spaghetti bolognese. That was what everybody was eating. So this is your menu for the first night you laid eyes on each other. And I didn't have spaghetti bolognese. So Elton's housekeeper made me like a pasta bake, I think, with cheese, which was fine.

3:49But to be honest with you, I was so kind of overwhelmed with meeting Elton John that I didn't really think very much about the food. Then the next night, so he asked for my number that evening. And then he called me the next morning and said, I'm coming into London. And would you want to come around and have dinner with me at my house in London? And I said, that would be lovely. And he said, we'll have a Chinese takeaway. And I was like, oh, it sounds like I love Chinese food. So I arrive at the house, and there's four giant cardboard boxes on the kitchen counter, and the table's set for two. And I said, who else is coming?

4:27What's all this food for? And it was for Mr. Chow's, and Elton didn't know what I liked, so he ordered the entire menu. I'd marry a man like that. I mean, I'd marry you the minute somebody did that. I mean, I would say, this is the man for the rest of the house. I think that's a great story. And I'd never been to Mr. Chow's. I hadn't had high-end Chinese food before. We had great Chinese food in Canada, but it was not Mr. Chow's. But it was a really delicious meal. And we talked and talked for hours and hours and hours. We really connected. We're here in your beautiful, beautiful house. But you were saying you have lived here for how many years?

5:03I've lived here for next year, which will be 2024. I've lived here 50 years. 50 years. And you've never been tempted to move. Why would you, right? No. I mean, this is the hub of all the properties we own. This is the hub where the children were brought up and go to school locally. So it's always lovely to come back. It's the only traditional house we own, but you couldn't really do anything else to it. And I love the fact that it is traditional because I love the garden. And, in fact, everything was decimated in 1989 when I knocked the house down practically for two years to have it made into a proper home instead of a pop star's house.

5:39And I started the garden. Tell me what a pop star's house looks like. Well, he had a lot of gold records, a lot of awards. And also I collected galley lamps, Tiffany lamps, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Majorelle, furniture. And there was so much of it, it was just all on the floor. And I just basically ran out of room to put anything. As you can see, I'm not a minimalist. No, you're saying maybe the difference. No, certainly not. But we could go for it. But you know what? It's not minimalist, but it has a quality of real rigor. It does. So you're not a minimalist. So I decided, how do I get rid of all this stuff?

6:16So I decided to say, oh, basically, apart from a few, four cars, some paintings, and a bit of jewellery. And so I had a Sotheby's sale, which was at the V &A for a week. Luckily, we'd sold everything before the crash in 1989. Or I sold it because I hadn't met David by that time. And then I converted it after two years. I rented a house in London, which I subsequently bought. and then I came back here two years later in 1991. But that is full of a collection. You might not have the decal furniture and the same art, but you have collected. When you collect, we should be talking about food, but do you have a rhythm and a kind of consistency for the kind of what you collect, do you think?

6:59Well, I'd never collected ceramics before. I became a Meissen fanatic and I became a Staffordshire fanatic. I just wanted to put things that seemed right in that country home. I love Silver World. I never come back from a place without something. So does it have a memory? You can look at something and remember. Do you, David, do you remember where you were when you bought it? Absolutely, but I must admit I have a hard time keeping up. Yeah. Because Elton is such an enthusiastic collector. Yeah. And, you know, he grew up, and the things in his room when he was a little boy were his friends. so he's always had a great love of objects objects he feels have feelings don't you well they were the when i grew up my parents argued all the time so my objects were kept in pristine condition and they didn't shout at me so i loved them and i've suddenly come subsequently followed that on through the rest of my life i do love objects and um they comfort me when i'm on the road my dressing room is full of objects and stuff like that it's just very heartwarming for me to to see it all it's about the curation and the celebration of them and displaying them lovingly and appreciating them that brings you so much joy and it gives the house a real sense of order too it does and also there's a lot of white isn't there i was thinking they give a lot of lightness these you know if you look at there's a lot of white and happiness and and maybe safety you know maybe as you were describing your room maybe it's safe to have you know something that you can look They're standing guard.

8:30They're standing guard. Safety in the emotional way. Let's talk about food. So we thought when we would do this, we would have our guests read a recipe. And you're going to read it, David. So it's a risotto with porcini and giroles. And this recipe serves six. One kilogram of fresh porcini and giroles. One garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped. One teaspoon of fresh thyme. One liter of chicken stock. 100 grams of unsalted butter, a red onion finely chopped, 300 grams of risotto rice, 250 milliliters of extra dry white vermouth, and 200 grams of parmesan freshly grated. Do you want the instructions as well?

9:15Well, how are we going to make it otherwise? Okay. All right. Clean the mushrooms by brushing them lightly. Clean the caps of the porcini. Tear any large mushroom into small pieces. In a frying pan, heat 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Add half of the mushrooms, chopped garlic and thyme and season. Fry until cooked and the liquid has evaporated. Heat the chicken stock. Melt the butter with the remaining olive oil. Add the chopped onion and cook on a gentle heat until the onion is soft. Add the rice and stir. Pour in the vermouth and cook until absorbed. quote, stir in the hot stock, ladle by ladle, and cook until the rice is al dente, usually about 20 minutes.

9:59Add the cooked wild mushrooms, the remaining butter, and the parmesan, and stir. Wow. Happy. Can we have some? Yeah, let's make it. We got it in the kitchen. But I heard, or I read, that you like risotto so much that you actually asked one of your cooks to go ditly to learn how to make a risotto. Might that be the case? That's true, actually. Yes, we did. When was that? Well, that was in the 90s when Gianni Versace was a big part of our lives. And we used to go to Gianni's house in Milan. He lived above the offices on Via Gesù in a beautiful apartment that had been decorated by Mangiardino. Spectacular.

10:41And the meals were theater is the only way I can describe it because he had the white coated butlers with the white gloves. the white jackets and you sat down and there was a beautiful piece of antique porcelain and then whoosh it was cleared away and then a plate went down with a starter and then whoosh it was cleared away and then another antique porcelain plate came down to be cleared away for the second course or the primi patty and then taken away again for the main course and the risotto at Gianni's that was do you remember it loving it so much it's like nectar it was you know it's just it was just so luscious.

11:20And also, as David said, the presentation went a long way with it because he got me into collecting china. Oh, did he? Porcelain and tablecloths. It was his fault. Tablecloths? Yeah. Tablecloths. Oh, tablecloths. We're huge on tablecloths. I want to come and see your tablecloth. And napkin rings. So Gianni introduced us to the tablecloths in Venice, which was originally... Jezerum? Jezerum, which is now closed. It's the most Beautiful shop. And then on the island of Burano, we went to Dalla Olga, which is the most incredible shop, which has tablecloths of every size. All linen, white linen. Yeah, and all the hand-done lace.

12:02So I have to say that we went there and spent so much money and one weekend on tablecloths I couldn't believe it. And so you asked one of your cooks to learn how to make a risotto properly. Did that work? Did he learn? Absolutely. Yes, yeah. Who was the cook? It was Gautier. Have either of you ever worked in a restaurant? Did I ever work? No, I worked in a wine merchant's, but not a restaurant. I waited on tables. I was a busboy. I was a dishwasher. I was a sous chef. I worked in a kitchen of a golf and tennis club. And I did serve dinners to banquets for 500 people. I served breakfast to golfers.

12:40Used to do short order stuff in the kitchen to do the toast and sometimes the bacon and the eggs for people getting ready to go play their golf game. I loved that environment. What did that teach you? It taught me a lot about the importance of kindness, particularly for wait staff, because they are under pressure from the chef, they're under pressure from the management, and then they're under pressure from the people they're serving. They get it from all directions. And so I always go out of my way, anyone that serves me, to make sure I'm incredibly grateful and reasonable and polite and always leave a nice tip because it's really hard work and it can be unforgiving work at times.

13:23I don't know, you learn so much about human nature because watching the way people were very particular about their food was quite a learning experience for me when I worked on tables. I think it's a great experience. That's why I like the restaurants that I go to because I like their staff and I hate people who are rude to serving stuff. And I know a lot of people in my business that are and talk down to them. That's one thing I hate the most. No, the seductiveness is a part of it. It's like Da Ivo, right, in Venice, which is the simplest restaurant. But it's beautiful because the maitre d' comes to the table at the beginning of every meal.

14:00We've never looked at the physical menu. He comes to the table with this little chalkboard. Da Ivo is a restaurant in Venice that you get to. It's quite hard to find, isn't it? There's that little light outside. It's really tucked away. But the most beautiful way is to ride by boat, isn't it? Is that how you get there? Do you ever go by boat? Yes. That's the only way we go. It's the only way to go. Yeah. Come in through the side window. Side window. But they arrive with the chalkboard on the beautiful gilded column, and they give you all of the specials and everything that's being made for the day, and never the same meal twice.

14:36And the simplicity of it is so sexy and so fun. I hate pretentious restaurants. I can't bear it. That's why the River Cafe is always so adorable because you come in and it's like the greatest canteen in the world where you mix with a lot of people you know and where people just seem to be having the best time. The service is great. The atmosphere is fantastic, whether you're inside, whether you're outside, and there's not an ounce of pretentious there to it. And if there is, I'm off. I would say that you'll go back to a restaurant if you didn't have a great meal. But if you were treated as if you weren't, you know, good enough to eat there, then why would you go back?

15:16The 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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17:22Was it your mother's mother? Yes, my grandmother. She was fantastic. What was she like? She was wonderful. She could cook anything and make it taste incredible. I mean, basic ingredients were hard to get after all of it. We were rationed, and so bacon was partly a no-no. But she made, I never remember a bad meal or going hungry, and everything that was left over she made into something else the next day. And what I loved about her, because I have the biggest sweet tooth, are her bread puddings and her apple pies and her scones and her Victoria sponges. It was very simple. The kitchen was, again, the coal cellar was in the kitchen.

18:01Can you believe it? The laundry was done on the stove in a boiler, and we had a mangle. It was a very basic upbringing, but I can never remember. the smell of cooking was always wonderful and she could cook anything. I fell in love with very basic simple English food at that point. I think that simple English food, as you talk about bread pudding and apple pie, those are very, they're not easy to make, you know, and it's to do with the ingredients and the method and the way you cook. Yeah. And things like spotted-dicking custard. I always walk into a restaurant, say, in Yorkshire or something like that, and sometimes they have things like that on the menu, and you go, oh, my God, they probably didn't go.

18:46Which for me is just a sheer delight. I always sometimes think that you go to St. John, for instance, they have Eccles cakes, and the Eccles cakes are incredible, and they serve it with the cheese, and it's just like, wow, manna from heaven. Nowadays, unfortunately, I can't eat it because I'm semi-diabetic. But I do like those English stalwarts a lot. I do too. So growing up, you had a mother and a grandmother in the house, and your father was where? He was away in the Air Force in Aden, and so I didn't really see much of him. So it was a woman's household. My mom's sister, my aunt was always there as well.

19:22So I grew up with a bunch of women who knew how to cook, which was great. And you all sat down to meal every night together. Yes, and we toasted our toast by the fire. Was yours similar in Toronto? No, no. I grew up in Canada. Toronto? In Toronto. I was one of three boys, and my mum was, we were very lucky, she was a stay-at-home mum. She could make almost anything happen instantly. She had a deep freeze in the basement, and sometimes we'd come back from school or a sports match, and we'd bring two friends along. And she'd say, no problem. And she'd go downstairs, and she'd thaw out some pastry, she'd thaw out some meat, she'd thaw out a tomato sauce or something then prepared in advance.

20:03Suddenly the dinner could just expand or change. with 30 minutes notice. And meals were important. Although given it was three boys and there was a lot going on, it was a lot of meals on the hop. Three boys. I'm the middle one. The middle one, yeah. The one thing that mum was important to her, because we were always coming and going, but Sunday lunch, Sunday dinner, was the one time she wanted the family to be around the table and have more of a sense of occasion. And that was a traditional English roast. My grandparents on my mother's side were from the north and the south of Ireland, and my grandparents on my father's side were from England and Wales.

20:41So a lot of those traditions came across to Canada, and Sunday roast, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, roast beef, you know, Brussels sprouts, beans, carrots, a really good gravy, and then always a baked pie or cake or sweet for dessert. My British grandmother was an amazing baker. So you both had grandmothers that were a force in your own. I love my grandmother. I think grandparents are so important. They are. I agree. The thing about my grandmother was that because we had a garden, we grew all our own produce because it was so much cheaper. And my grandmother had green fingers, so we always had fresh vegetables.

21:21Hardly ever had processed peas. I mean, the great advantage in those days is that food wasn't really instant. no instant whips, no instant this, mashed potato. It was all genuinely from the garden, which was delicious. So, I mean, I remember shelling the peas every Sunday morning. That was, like David, Sunday roast was very important for the family gathering. So shelling the peas was one thing, peeling the potatoes was another, broad beans was another. So we always had good produce because we couldn't afford to buy them because, you know, times were hard after the war. and the Russian, we had a tiny bottle of orange juice which you diluted and poured the water into.

22:00But I never felt as if we were missing anything. You felt denied. No, no. Yeah, yeah. But neither of your mothers worked. They didn't have to combine a career with cooking. Your mother worked. My mother worked all the time. And she worked really, really hard as well. And she worked in a shop. She worked in a dairy. She worked at the Air Force. She's always, but she'd always come home and make dinner. Yeah, she was a very hard-working woman, but still cooked. She raised Elton as a single mom. And so his ability to study and take lessons and learn and everything, his mom worked very, very hard providing for the family to allow him to do that.

22:37That's what got him on his path to be who he is today. Did you ever go to restaurants as a child? No, the only time I remember going to a restaurant is when I went to a Chinese restaurant in Haro. We lived in Pina. And Chinese restaurants suddenly became the rage. Coffee bars were the rage before that. but we went for a Chinese meal. It was the first restaurant I can ever remember going to and it was just, wow, we had bean sprouts and it was just so delicious and it was so exotic and I remember I was so excited to go to this Chinese restaurant. There weren't many in the area, there was one in Haro, there wasn't certainly one in Pina but it was just an incredible occasion and that's the first exotic food I ever really had.

23:17How old were you? I don't know, eight or nine maybe. Yeah, and did you go to restaurants? It was a very, very special treat. Special occasion. Yeah, because, again, it was expensive and it was a big treat. What we never had was fast food. My mother was very anti-fast food. She just didn't think it was good for us. I think she was ahead of her time with that. There wasn't any fast food when I grew up. I'm that old. Fast food was boiling the cabbage for 10 minutes instead of 15. When I went to school, there was a wimpy bar when I was about 15. That's the first fast food place I can ever remember.

23:52But you both, what is interesting to talk to you both is that food was important to you and delicious food was important to you and you grew up with a sense of that importance in your life. Well, meals were very social. It's when you got together. I mean, when I went to school, I had school meals, which were vile. That was a day school. That was just a state school. Just awful, awful, awful. But then you come home at night and that was the day, that's where you got it. Breakfast was just on the run, really, to get to school. But the meal at night was always important. And, of course, the weekend, the Sunday lunch was really important.

24:28And when you both, in different stages of your life, left this cocoon of your grandmothers, your food, your mother rustling something up and a friend came for you to talk, when, each of you, would you tell me when did you leave home? When did you, how old were you when you suddenly were out on your own and thinking about food in your own way? when I was about, when I met Bernie, that was, what was I? 19 maybe or 20. And we shared a flat in Islington. And did it have a kitchen? It did have a kitchen, but I'm incapable of cooking anything. Okay. And Bernie is too. So we just ate out. What did you eat?

25:10You ate out all the time. Yeah. And would that be, would you seek out restaurants or would you just have, grab something? Fish and chips, stuff like that. Cheap things because we couldn't afford expensive things. The first real exciting restaurant I went to was when Dick James took her to a restaurant off of Tottenham Court Road. Who was Dick James? Dick James was my publisher and my manager who published The Beatles. He was very famous. First person to sign up. Yeah. So I went to this restaurant called La Maisonette and I had a prawn cocktail and I'd never seen anything like it. I didn't know what to do.

25:46What's this? So that was the first posh in inverted commas restaurant that I ever went to. Paul McCartney told me that the same experience that he, when he went, was taken by, what did it be, Brian Epstein? Brian Epstein, yeah. To, again, another Ma Maisonette or Montclair or Montante. And it was suddenly an eye-opener. He said it was the first time. He'd only had cheap wine with John Lennon. and they couldn't understand the point of wine because it tasted so terrible because it was so cheap. And then he went and had a good glass of wine and realized what life could be. Did you have the same feeling about your prawn cocktail?

26:27Yeah, exactly. It was like, oh, and the bread was lovely, and it was beautiful bread rolled and crispy. And you thought, well, this is a step up. I mean, it's not the Aberdeen Steakhouse, this one. This is a proper restaurant. I'm sorry, Aberdeen Steakhouse. Yeah, you've just really had a lot of people's feelings there. But to me, the Aberdeen Steakhouse was posh. That was posh, yeah. I remember once I was in New York and my parents used to take us as a special treat to this restaurant. And then I was with a girlfriend who was a friend of mine. And she said her parents were deciding where to go out to eat.