Keith McNally on meeting Rose Gray, problem-solving at Balthazar, and SNL parties

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.

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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. I'd been wanting to read Keith McNally's memoir, I Regret Almost Everything, for some time because I know Keith and I love him. It also has the best title ever. But the first chapter nearly finished me off. In the very first sentence, Keith writes about his attempted suicide in Martha's Vineyard.

1:29It's painful to absorb as a reader, but for a friend it was monumental. It took me some time to return to the book. But I'm glad I did because this is a brilliant book. It's funny, it's moving, and deeply honest. When arriving in New York City, I go straight to Minetta Tavern before anyone knows I'm there. Quite simply, it's my favorite restaurant. I know and I love people who work there, and I love the food. Mostly I go because it's a connection with Keith. From the moment Rose Gray and I, two inexperienced women 38 years ago, thought about doing the River Cafe, Rose made it very clear that everything she knew she had learned from Keith McNally.

2:18And over the last 38 years, Keith has been our mentor, our model, and a hero of restaurants, the Odeon, Pastith, Balthazar, Lucky Strike, to name a few. Keith is here with me today to talk about friends and family, writing a book, and most of all, regretting almost everything. I always say that we make very few decisions. Yeah, I agree with that. Do you hear that? Yeah. What do we decide? Nothing. Nothing, nothing. In the end, nothing. Yeah, I think so. And so when did you, what was your first restaurant? My first restaurant working was actually a place called Serendipity. Serendipity? I used to go, really good ice creams.

3:02Really good. Oh, my God, when I was a little kid, my dad used to take me to Serendipity. Is it still there? Do they still have those ice creams? Yeah, yeah. Well, that was like on the, you could tell our listeners, it was a little place on the Upper East Side. It's still there. It's still there. Is it a kind of basement, maybe? Yeah, it makes it live. Wow. We'd go down for the fourth test. That must be like one of the oldest, longest restaurants in New York, because I probably went there in the late... So you worked at Serendipity. We used to busboy. But the first place I really enjoyed working at was a place not there now called One Fist.

3:38Oh, yeah, yeah. And that's when I make the lawn and the microns, actually, because Saturday night live, if it's just open, if it was three months earlier, They always have the parties, after show parties. Yeah, they still do. They were days, people like John Blucher, John Nyckwood, Trevor Chase, and Wither and Brown. So it was quite bizarre, because I was in charge of the parties. So I got to meet all these fancy people. So you were in charge of parties at 1-5th. Good job. I was also a waiter. And then eventually I became a GM. And then you decided to do... Well, you didn't decide, but then how did...

4:20Because starting a restaurant's a big deal. Yes, it is. But then I left the one place, got a green card there, because I was quite illegal. These days I was... Don't say those words. Now you've been sent to... Beated, depleted, mad. So I was legal for four years. And then once I got my green card, my brother Brian and my girlfriend Lynn decided to look for the place because we really got fed up with working for the other people. Did you think there was also a kind of restaurant that you missed that you wanted? I don't know. First of all, I wanted just a sandwich shop. But one day, we found Towers Caterpiteria in Tribeca.

5:10And we loved it. It was a vast place. This was a large restaurant. But I always, like everybody, enjoyed La Capole in Paris. So I had that in my mind. La Capole. Yeah. What did you love about La Capole? Because it was open to all hours, to all kinds of people. I was once sitting outside La Capole with Richard, and we'd been to a movie, and it must have been about 12.30. Yeah. And we were very young. We were just doing the Pompidou. and there was a couple and it was like, it really was almost one in the morning and they came and the man was on his cane and they looked kind of elderly and frail and they looked at the menu and then they talked to each other and then they went inside and I said, that's how I want to get old.

5:59I don't want to live in the country. I don't want to retire. I want to be deciding at 1 o 'clock in the morning whether I should go to La Coupole or not. I was so excited. But it's essential for me, too. I don't have to eat the two-week-old in the morning, but New York, you can do it if you love the one. Yeah, exactly. That's why I left London. Yeah. I didn't know the reason. But when I first arrived in New York, that's one of the main things I really enjoy. And I don't necessarily really want to go every night. It's just the idea. Just knowing it's there. I can do it. You can, yeah. And so Odeon, why did you call it Odeon?

6:39My brother Brian came up with the name because of the cinema. The Odeon Cinemas, which are a chain of cinemas in London. It's a great name. Was it difficult opening it? No, but it cost under$150 ,000. No, it's a same miracle now. This one cost us£30 ,000. Rose used to drive up to, like, miles away to find some broken-down fridge we could put in here. Lovely. by necessity. Yeah. Once you've got money, you fix the problems with money. If we don't have money, we must fix the problems creatively. Yeah. If you have money, you fix it with money. If you don't have money, you fix it creatively. Yeah, interesting.

7:25And was Odeon an immediate success? By the third night. By the third night. Because working downtown for so long, we need to go to know lots of people. And the thing they got, off the ground was really Norman Michael also also thrive back in the early 80s, that was 1980, was the centre of the art world Do you remember Jack's Kansas City? Max's Kansas City do you remember? That was kind of cool because my older sister was a painter and a lot of those artists painting alone all day is lonely. You don't see anybody. And then they used to go out at night and then everybody would meet up at night. A lot of the painters, like Jackson Pocket, was alcoholics.

8:21How did you deal with that? Was drinking a different thing then? Yes. Because we were the same age, basically. It wasn't anything different. Yeah. I think it's interesting how it's changed Do you think it was more forgiving then? Do you think we were more... Yes. My happiest time there was actually with the staff after work at the Odeon. Yeah. Because they treated me as one of the staff. I was thinking there with the staff and drinking beers. Yeah. And then after Odeon? After Odeon, Catherine Luxembourg. Yes. That was way uptown. I remember. It had white tiles on the floor, does it? Yeah. I remember that.

9:05Luxembourg is still there. I've been there for 45 years. Catherine Luxembourg, 41 years. After that, Nels, and after that, Lucky Strike. Lucky Strike. I remember Lucky Strike. Can we have just a word before we say about Balthazar? Because Balthazar is completely... You've changed cities. I mean, you've changed New York. You have. you've made restaurants that people want to go to, to have fun, to think about themselves, the changes, the whole dynamic. Didn't you find when COVID happened and there were no restaurants here, restaurants closed, and then when they opened, people were so happy. It was supposed to be a bousersar.

9:50Before COVID, I didn't really understand what restaurant makes for people in the city. After COVID, I did. But when we opened Balthazar, which was late, March 22, March 1, the people at the first night was crazy. The dance, it's like VEAE day. I agree. I used to say that if you asked me what makes a city great, it would be museums and parks and hospitals and theatres. We realized that restaurants are right up. People cried when they came back here, having been away. And you realize that you go to a restaurant, you bump into people you might not have seen. Especially these days, with people online so much.

10:44Just tell us about Balthazar. What was the idea of Balthazar? I was in Paris, and then I saw a postcard, a bar from 100 years ago. It was a huge bar, and somehow I liked it. so much, I bought the photo and carried the photographs away from me every day for five years and one day I saw a space, because the bomb was so high with lovely bomb that's when I got the idea for photos of, but there needs to be high scenery relatively so what a space I saw a hello scenery, but when I saw this warehouse and the spring soon. And then I'd be able to burn. And what a great restaurant it is. Do you go there a lot?

11:36I do, but I like to be alone there. I'll be on my feet. I also do the music at night. Does everybody start dancing? Yeah, maybe some of the nights. I see that. Do you think as owning nightclubs and restaurants, you are slightly watching? Yeah, yeah, yeah. People think I'm incredibly out there and very open, but actually I'm quite shy. No, no. I'm quite shy. And so in a way, it's a good way to see people, have people, but you don't actually have to engage that much. But we'd like to watch other people, not participate. Yeah, yeah, I agree. When I have a big party at our house, I always stand at the door and everybody thinks, oh, Ruthie's so polite because I see every single person who comes in.

12:29I say hello to every person, but I don't have to mingle. And it's the same thing. I identify them. Yeah, very similar. There's a great, you know the movie Casablanca? Yeah, of course. Well, that's my favorite line when people ask me to sit down. I always say that in Casablanca, Ingrid Bergman comes back looking for Rick, and she had an affair with him, and they left in Paris in a very romantic way and it's during the war. And she says, please tell Rick, I want him to come and sit with us. And the line, Rick never sits. Never sits, yeah, Rick, yeah. I remember that line. Rick never sits with the customers, you know.

13:07And so sometimes I say that. They say, oh, Rick, come and sit down. I say, Rick never sits with the customers. I use the loud lines too. And your children, your son George is on the ball. Yeah, he's a great one. Have the other kids worked in your restaurants? Barely. but luckily they're not in George's George's, yeah, he's a lovely, lovely guy no, my kids don't, haven't taken up, Rose's son, Ozzy worked in the wine and managed us and but my, again, my family have all worked here as waiters, it's nice having your kids around. One thing I love about what you do here, the waiters have to do the prep, I love them do you?

13:44Yeah, it makes them a bit now we have so many people, they do we have preppers as well but that kind of involvement with the food is good. But do you do that today? What time do your waiters come in? So on a busy day we have to prepare them who can do 1 ,000 in covers. That's amazing, amazing, 1 ,000. And more. Amazing. But we have the best job in the world. I think so. Don't you think we do? I do now. Talking to you makes me inspired. It is, we have to keep, yeah, what else, you know, that's what I think. I think we have a great, and the problems are, you know, when we have a problem, you can solve them, you know.

14:28I love the job, I think the job is all about how you solve problems. People say to me, but as I run the barriers, it doesn't run, it almost closes every day, every five minutes of their big major problem. They come up to me and say, Ruthie, we have a, you know, table four is a difficult table. And I think, great. Yeah, yeah. Imagine a state bottled olive oil chosen and bottled for the River Cafe arriving at your door every month. Our subscription is available for six or 12 months with each oil chosen personally by our head chefs and varying with each delivery. It's a perfect way to bring some River Cafe flavor into your home or to show someone you really care for them with a gift.

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16:45I wanted to read you this piece, or you could read it, from your book about Rose because it was so moving. Okay, I'll just read this. This is from Keith's book, I Regret Almost Everything. And this is a piece he wrote about Rose. A month before we opened, Nell recommended, so that was Nell Campbell, and this is Keith talking. recommended an English friend of hers a brilliant home cook, she said, but someone who'd never worked in a restaurant kitchen. While being skeptical of hiring a non-professional, I was intrigued enough to fly to London to meet this woman. Her name was Rose Gray. The meeting started awkwardly because we both knew I was there to discuss food, but we consciously avoided the subject.

17:34Eventually, Rose asked me if I fancied a bite to eat. Her bite was a grilled marinated lamb sandwich. It was one of the most delicious sandwiches I'd eaten in my life. I hired her on the spot. Rose planned to stay for two months, but it ended up being four. She couldn't continue any longer, she said, because she was planning on opening an amateur-sounding place in London with her friend Ruthie Rogers. After she described her café by the Thames, I told her it probably wouldn't work and that she was better off remaining with me at Nell's. Do you remember that? Yeah, I remember. So tell me the story.

18:15On one hand, of course, I wanted to be a professor. And the other one, I was quite jealous. It was very, very tiny. We wanted to be, you know, being Rose. Rose had this incredible air of confidence, you know, and she just, and ambition. And I remember in the early days, she used to get into a taxi, but really early days, and she would just get in the cab and she'd go, the River Cafe. And I'd go, that poor driver, you know, he has no idea what the River Cafe was. And she could sound quite fierce, even though actually she wasn't at all. She was so vulnerable and so gorgeous. But she was a fantastic cook.

18:56Amazing cook. She made me be the best cook I've ever watched. Yeah, she is. She was. She was also a great cook and a great teacher. She loved teaching these kids and coming in. I'd never worked in a restaurant at all. I'd been a waiter when I was 16. And so to come in and start this, the only good thing we had was it was small. And the other good thing, you know, because sometimes restrictions are good for you. We love a restriction, don't we? I agree. How long did it take to realize how good she was? and how to grow the great food was. When did you... I think when we just started work, you know, we sat down, and because, again, we only had a tiny, teeny little kitchen, you know, we had one fryer, one grill, and four hot plates.

19:40What was on your menu? We had two menus. We had a menu that was sandwiches, so people could come in and have a sandwich for£2.50, and then we had a pasta every... We had one pasta and sandwiches. What did pastas change every day? Yeah, the pasta changed every day. So I would do, one day I would do the pastas and Rose would do the sandwiches. And then one day I would do the sandwiches and Rose would do the, we just switched every time. And so I was learning, I'd known Rose because she was Richard's girlfriend. Really? Yeah, before I even knew him. I didn't know that. When they were about 16, they went to some Guilford A-level college or something.

20:21and then we just worked together and we just found we were different we had different approaches we had different ways of cooking but you know what I think in probably 20 we started in 87 and she died in 2010 so what's that, how many years is that? 23 years we never had an argument and it was conscious my brother actually, Michael, said to me I'll give you one piece of advice If you ever work with somebody else, never have an argument. Because you'll always remember the argument. You'll remember the time you turned around and said, well, I never liked the way you'd come out. And mostly it took an effort on my part, because I think Rose was happy to argue anything.

21:05But it was a really good relationship. How do your wishes get along with this kitchen? Well, because we have an open kitchen, first of all, you can't get angry. You just can't. There's a real kind of barrier there. So if you say, I've been waiting for this, I've been waiting for that. And so they all, I think they get along pretty well. And we don't have that chef, waiter, front of house, back of house thing. And I have to say also, I have a friend who has a restaurant, and he often talks about having difficult customers. We don't have difficult, I don't complain about my customers very much. Do you?

21:43I generally quite like my customers. I can't say I quite really like them. I do like that. I'm joking. Explain what you mean that you don't. James called him. Yeah. James called him. I wasn't there, but I was at home, and the manager called me and said, James braced his tears because James called him, got angry. I'm sure he's learned his lesson now. Because of the instrument. So for the person who hasn't read Keith McNally's Instagram, and I suggest you follow him because the great way to start the day or end the day is that, especially for somebody who works the way I do, but also I think just for, you know, seeing, you're such a good writer and the way that you, again, their letters, the Instagrams really are about the people who work in your restaurant.

22:35You give them credit, you praise them, you're proud of them, you give them, and, you know. Or fire them. Or you fire them. I haven't seen an Instagram saying you fire. Do you fire people? I'm not scared, but I'm gay. Have you fired people? Yes, of course, but like you, I didn't enjoy it. But I feel guilty if I force somebody else to fire somebody. So often I do fire people, myself. I always had to fire somebody. I knew I would have to because he behaved so badly. I mean, he actually harmed somebody. And he was a great guy, actually, but he kind of had a breakdown. and I called him up the next morning and I said, you've got to come and see me.

23:17And I sat down and I said, you know, what you did last night was crazy. You did this, you did that, and you harmed somebody. And I said, you know, what would you do if you were me? He said, I'd fire me. I said, okay, you're fired. And that was it. You let go. But it's not a nice thing to do. I don't like it. I don't like firing people. and usually you can just move them around or find a place for them, something else to do. But also I often give people second chances. I'm a believer in second chances. So I might find somebody that money and choose to beg them to come back. Do you think that Me Too and all of that has helped restaurants?

24:05Because I do, I think it's better. Maybe. Overall, I agree with Mimi too. But there was one aspect I don't like about it. Some time, one in 20 people might be innocent. I think it's getting better here because there's a process. And I don't know about big people, but here in the River Cafe, now in Britain, I think, if somebody reports anything, you know we used to sit down with them and say hey god you know you can't talk that way you shouldn't do this now there's a process which is that everything stops you bring somebody in and there's a fair trial kind of you know they bring witnesses they do and it's handled in a way that is not personal it just is and i think young people now they say that when you talk to the women or even the guys they say people in their 20s they know they know how to speak to women.

25:03They know how to deal with it. Two months ago, I had a couple caught having sex in the basement with binges doing the service. I got angry. And then 22 and 23. Yeah, that's probably good. Nothing wrong with having sex. It was longer than very poor. In the end, I didn't defy them. I just said, Don't need to do it again. Do it again, something else, but not with the basement. Yeah. But I didn't mention it to HR because my HR person would be... Like if he was a manager and she was a waiter. They'd both have been waiters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think... I mean, that's kind of why we used to go to work.

25:54You know, my... By the way, maybe... Who are we going to meet to have sex with at work? Maybe my two wives are the professionals. Exactly, exactly. But I think for us now it's kind of like, but also you can do all that and still, well, we've always had, I'm sure you too, it's just the same thing. You've never had bullying or, you know, kind of bad stuff, you know. But now I think it's, everybody's just more conscious, everybody's more clear. And, you know, women have had a rough time in restaurants for a long time where it's just expected of you, you know. So I think we're getting there. Are a couple of skips allowed to date with work to them?

26:34Yeah. I mean, I think there's a rule in the handbook that if you're having a deep relationship, you need to report it to HR or something. Just say it so we know. What I wouldn't tolerate is people like to tolerate. I'd be much more upset if they were drinking. Yeah, yeah. You know, I think alcohol and work is not a great thing. You know, we work in an environment where there's alcohol everywhere, throwing drinks. And so that, I kind of have a, you know. Maybe if it's bullied somebody. And bullied, yeah. My favorite part of them. But having sex. I've had your sexes. We'll go for sex. It's all right.

27:14An open kitchen in the River Cafe means we as chefs are able to talk to our guests dining in the restaurant. And now we're bringing that same ethos to our podcast. A question and answer episode with me and our two executive chefs. Send a voice note with your question to questions at rivercafe.co.uk and you might just be our next great guest on Ruthie's Table 4.

27:47Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets, and kids. But with Anabay, you never have to stress about messes again. At washablesofas.com, discover Anabay sofas, the only fully machine washable sofas inside and out, starting at just$699. Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind. Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly. Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth-friendly and built to last.