Gossip Girl’s Kelly Rutherford Talks New York, Style & Her Favourite Cafés

8:11Kelly Rutherford:I try to do it there just because it's, so the lighting is good, you know, but sometimes not every elevator has good lighting, as we know.

8:19Tanya Rose:Yeah, absolutely. But no, and also your style is so quiet, luxury, and so beautiful. So it looks elegant. I literally every day go, oh, what's Kelly wearing? And when we first met, I remember you were wearing this amazing pink Essentials Antwerp outfit. And we met at the Sloan Hotel, I think. And after meeting you for tea, I literally ran to Essentials Antwerp and bought that outfit. They had it. Oh, good. They did.

8:44Kelly Rutherford:Oh, good. They did. And then I wore it in Istanbul, actually.

8:47Tanya Rose:Oh, it's perfect. So, yes. And it was so funny. I literally ran. It was so like, now, I saw Kelly Rutherford wearing this. And have you got it? And they said, oh, yes, we have got it. But that's how we do it.

8:57Kelly Rutherford:You know, I mean, look, even with our friends at lunch, you know, like, where'd you get that? What did you, you know, it's the, it's the normal way of sharing, you know?

9:05Tanya Rose:Do you have the app that if someone clicks onto what you're wearing, it takes them straight there?

9:10Kelly Rutherford:I'm doing it now. I'm doing it with a platform now. I was kind of waiting for the right one. So, or the one that felt right for me. So, yeah, I'm doing that now.

9:20Tanya Rose:What is your most overrated or underrated travel experience? Where have you been that you thought was totally overrated or somewhere that you went into? Oh, wow, this is really underrated.

9:29Kelly Rutherford:Gosh, I don't know, because I love every I love I find I mean, I was in I was filming in Canada. In what is it called now? It's a very small town in Canada. It must have been like a TV movie or something. It was and they made a joke that you could watch your dog run away for like two days. It was so flat and there was nothing there. It was just like completely nothing there. But I had so much fun because they had these Indian moccasins. And I made the best of it, right? There was really nothing there. But I don't know. I had fun. And you always look for the best in everything.

10:10Tanya Rose:I found something. I think it's a really hard question, actually, because you don't also want to say that something was bad because it might have been how you were feeling or the fact that it was raining, but it's not meant to be. So you have to always look for the positive in everything, I think. I mean, I love New York. I just think it's such an exciting place, New York. But I like uptown, which is why when I'm watching Gossip Girl, I'm thinking, oh my goodness, these apartments are so amazing. And it shows the cafes that I like going to. What is your favorite cafe in New York?

10:45Kelly Rutherford:Oh gosh, I like St. Ambrose. I do too. I love St. Ambrose. and there's via quadrono which is really good too oh where's that it's um it's not too far from saint ambrose i think it's like 70 in the 70s um and now bill bouquet opened a little cafe that's

11:02Tanya Rose:nice next to the restaurant which is good did you used to live uptown always well yeah yeah for the most part and we used to represent the carlisle many many years ago which i think is the most beautiful hotel and I love Cafe Carlisle. I saw Bobby Short there and Arthur Kitt. It was just amazing. And when my sister was living where I told you in Washington Square, I said, I'm going uptown to stay at the Carlisle. And I literally ran.

11:30Kelly Rutherford:Yeah, no, it is. There's a different feeling up there. Definitely. It feels more homey and, you know, you've got the park, you've got all the museums. It's a bit more relaxed.

11:40Tanya Rose:And actually it was amazing because I used to take my son when he was little and we'd stay at the Carlisle and we would walk over the road and go to the zoo

11:47Kelly Rutherford:which was you know the penguins and all of those it was just so magical yeah right in the center especially if you have kids it's really easy if you have dogs kids you know you're in the park you can hop into a museum did you have your kids when you were living in New York yeah they were

12:02Tanya Rose:little when I was in New York and then did they come back to new to LA as well yeah yeah so that's quite a different place to grow up actually i mean both are amazing places to grow up i think as a

12:13Kelly Rutherford:parent everyone thinks new york is more difficult in a way and it is it's louder there's more people running around but at the same time if you want to stop and get a coffee you have to get two kids out of a car seat into a stroller to go in and get your coffee you know what i mean or you have to like leave them in the car and try to like you know do that whereas new york everything's just there you know and there's lots of places for kids to go and play and play centers and you know hobbies and so it's really a great lots of places in in central park and yeah and i think la you

12:46Tanya Rose:have to have a car don't you yeah i mean you have to drive everywhere still an amazing place to grow up la i mean i grew up partly in la and i loved it but um but it's i think easy in new york funny enough it's probably light London there's everything exactly from all these play places

13:02Kelly Rutherford:and yeah I remember my daughter she must have been like four five and she said mom I want to sew things I want to make things and I sort of googled and two blocks away upstairs there was a kid's place where they could sew and there were fabrics and sewing machines and I mean think who thought of this like I was thinking oh this is going to be how am I going to find something and she was like making pillows, making a skirt at like, I still have, I think the skirt she made me at like four years old, you know, they made patterns. It was incredible, but that's the kind of thing you find in a big city.

13:36Kelly Rutherford:In a metropolis like New York. Absolutely.

13:39Tanya Rose:Let's talk about food and drink. It's so much part of travel. It's so much part of life. Where do you like eating? What do you like eating? Do you have a favorite restaurant? Do you have a meal that stands out? But let's just talk about food and drink. Oh, my gosh. I'm not a big foodie.

13:57Kelly Rutherford:I like a good cappuccino and I like ice cream. So when I'm traveling, I love to find a good place that has good ice cream. I love Hotel Cost still and all of their restaurants. I think, you know, when I'm in Paris, I still end up going there. A place that I love that I just discovered is Café Oral. I think that's how you pronounce it.

14:16Tanya Rose:It's a Turkish place and it's across from Harrods. It's amazing. And what sort of things do they have there? The coffee is so good.

14:24Kelly Rutherford:And they have wonderful, like, bagels with eggs and avocado and halloumi. Cheese. Yeah. Well, I live opposite Harrods, so I'm now going to hot-foot it to Cafe Errol.

14:35Tanya Rose:E-R-O-L.

14:36Kelly Rutherford:E-R-O-L. And they have lots of amazing chocolates. Yeah, you'll love it. Delicious. And gifts.

14:45Tanya Rose:We talked about in New York, Sant 'Ambros. And they're now popping up all over the place in New York, aren't they? I mean, I like the original one, which is Upper East Side.

14:55Kelly Rutherford:They just opened a St. Ambrose, I believe, in Palm Beach as well. Oh, did they? Yeah, yeah, which is great. Yeah, so it's definitely. I love Palm Beach. Do you? Yeah. I don't know Palm Beach. Yeah, it's so great. I think you would love it. My parents live in St. Petersburg, Florida, in St. Petersburg, which is a beautiful hotel. I think it's called the Vinoy there. But we go. My mom and I always drive to Palm Beach because we love it so much.

15:19Tanya Rose:Well, the weather's lovely, isn't it? Yeah, the Breakers Hotel. I've got lots of friends who did live in New York who are now moving to Florida. Yeah, a lot of people. So I will go. I'll hot-foot it to West Palm Beach, I think, is where my friend's living, which is obviously near Palm Beach, I think. Yeah. And I've heard you talk about the Café Carlisle, which is one of my favorite places. Did you see Bobby Short or Eartha Kitt or any of those people performing there?

15:50Kelly Rutherford:I'm trying to think if I ever saw them perform there. And I don't know, do they still have performers there? They do. Do they? They do. They have a lot of really good performers there. I don't remember if I saw anybody there. I was always working with little kids. I had two little kids that was working. I'm like, it's kind of a lot of it's a blur. I'm like, did I? Did I go to, was I at that event? I don't know. Was I there?

16:13Tanya Rose:Yes, there's photographic evidence that you are. I know. Okay, I must have been there. Okay, yeah, okay. I must have been there. Tell us a little bit about Monaco, because that's where you live now. Yeah. I only know the craziness of Monaco in the summer when it's so busy and the sort of Grand Prix and that sort of thing. But tell us about it as a place to live.

16:32Kelly Rutherford:It's really quiet. If you want peace and quiet, it's beautiful off-season. I'd love to go there and just relax. And there's wonderful cafes. There's Larvado. where you can walk around and there's great restaurants and hotels obviously there. And then nearby now, you know, in Nice, there's wonderful hotels. Nice is kind of happening now. So there's places nearby too.

16:56Tanya Rose:Yeah, I mean, it's so easy to get to.

16:58Kelly Rutherford:Yeah, and you're three hours from Milan, you know, driving to Milan and you're close to Italy. So it's a great location. And it's very central because Nice Airport, I mean, you can fly anywhere. Do you take a helicopter from the airport to Monaco or do you drive? No, I'm not that fast. No, I did a taxi or a driver.

17:16Tanya Rose:I've done it once and it was very glamorous, but I'm quite frightened by helicopters. I spend two or three weeks every summer at the Colom d 'Or in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Amazing. Such a beautiful place. So beautiful. Do you go there?

17:33Kelly Rutherford:Yeah, I go there. And now they have that foundation. Macht. Yeah.

17:38Tanya Rose:Do you know, I'm so bad. Every summer I go and I say, right, I'm going to go and see the exhibition, but I only do it when it rains. And it does usually rain one or two days. And it's very outside. Giacometti exhibition last year was extraordinary because it had all of the sculptures in the garden and then it had all of the other members of the family, you know, the China. And it was just so beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's very, very good. Yeah. And Monaco, out of season. So is that sort of from, when does it get busy in Monaco? The summer.

18:13Kelly Rutherford:I mean, kind of when everything gets busy in the summer, you know, everything's crowded, it seems like in that, you know, the south of France, you have Saint-Tropez, which we go to, and I love. But, you know, we go for like a week, but I think we're going to do something different because it's so crowded. Yeah.

18:27Tanya Rose:Do you leave during July and August?

18:29Kelly Rutherford:Yeah. And now maybe we'll go to the mountains or something, you know, the Swiss Alps. Yeah, it's so wonderful. Because it is, it's a lot. And then go kind of either right before summer or right after summer, kind of do a little, because it's so pretty. I mean, it's still fun when it's crowded. I mean, Monaco is so fun during the Grand Prix and, you know, the yacht show. And even they do an equestrian thing there that's so beautiful at the port. And there's always something going on. It's just the summer's always a little extra.

18:56Tanya Rose:I think the mountains in the summer is such a good place to go. I grew up in Switzerland. And I mean, I was very fortunate and very lucky to ski, you know, Christmas and Easter. But my favorite time was the summer.

19:09Kelly Rutherford:Where were you?

19:10Tanya Rose:In Gestad, which is very lovely. Yeah, amazing. So my misspent youth was at the Palace Hotel in the nightclub. I love it. In the gringo. I love it. But it's so fun. So many great people live up there full time. Do you know what? When we lived there, it was amazing. Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Sellers, Oh, gosh. I mean, so many people. Roger Moore, which was hilarious because he was James Bond at the time. And so you saw him skiing as James Bond, and then you actually saw him on the slopes snow plowing,

19:42Kelly Rutherford:and it was like, this doesn't quite match.

19:46Tanya Rose:But it was really fun. It was great.

19:48Kelly Rutherford:And Barbara Sturham lives there now, too. Yes, she does.

19:50Tanya Rose:She does. And actually, I saw her in a gallery when we did an event for the Leading Hotels of the World, and she literally skied down the mountain and came straight into the event. So Barbara, right? She's so cool. She's amazing.

20:04Kelly Rutherford:Yeah, I've known her for years. She's very thoughtful.

20:06Tanya Rose:Yeah, she's done very well. I'm very pleased.

20:08Kelly Rutherford:Barbara, we love you.

20:09Tanya Rose:Yeah, we love you.

20:10Kelly Rutherford:What is your top travel tip? Leave room in your suitcase. Or buy another suitcase when you're there, obviously. But I find that that's the thing. You know, we bring all these things, but it's fun to discover and buy things and bring them home in your suitcase, whether it's a nice coat with a memory, you know mementos I think are so great and whenever you actually wear that or look at it

20:35Tanya Rose:then it reminds you of that trip doesn't it yeah yeah I'm going to Bangkok next week and I'm very excited because somebody's taking me shopping and I know that I need to take either room in my suitcase so take a bigger one or buy one remember have you been to Bangkok I have and they can make things really quick I remember when I was there we had a suit made and they did it like in 24 hours

20:56Kelly Rutherford:I just did it to do it, you know.

20:58Tanya Rose:But it was beautiful.

21:00Kelly Rutherford:You know, this was like a million years ago, but you can have like a jacket, you know, something kind of...

21:04Tanya Rose:Silky? I'm not a big silk person.

21:08Kelly Rutherford:I like sort of cozy. Yeah, it's not cozy enough. I mean, it's beautiful in a scarf or something. I love a silk scarf.

21:15Tanya Rose:What is your most poignant travel memory?

21:18Kelly Rutherford:I think any time I'm traveling with my kids, because I can really see it through their eyes too, and I'm really aware of that. Like, I mean, we took a trip again to Paris, but it was, I just said, you know, I'm going to pick a museum in each kind of part of Paris and we'll go. And I said, you can literally speed walk through the museum. And it was like the Picasso or the Rodin. So it was like smaller museums. We did go to the, you know, the Louis Vuitton Foundation and all that. But I did it in a way where I just said, you don't have to even stop and look at anything just because they were like, mom, we don't want to go to the museums.

21:54and it was so...

21:56Kelly Rutherford:And then we'd go shop around the little area and have lunch in the Marais or have lunch over there by the Wordan. But it was so great to see them go into a museum with no, you know, just... And to see what they were drawn to and what they would stop at and the commentary. And that's such a...

22:14Tanya Rose:It was such a beautiful thing, you know? It's a wonderful way to see something is through their eyes. Yeah. I listened to your interview with Gwyneth Paltrow on Goop, and she was saying that her father, I think it was, used to take her to museums wherever they went. And it's so much part of her life now that she does with her children as well. And she said, you know, my father took me to when I was like, oh, I don't want to see something. I don't want to do it. And now she's so grateful. I know. My mom did the same. We were just like, oh, this is so... But you do. You appreciate it later.

22:48Kelly Rutherford:You know what another museum that's so great is the Louisiana Museum outside of Copenhagen. Have you gone to Louisiana? If you love Colm Dore and all of that, I think you would really love the Louisiana Museum.

23:03Tanya Rose:It's another place. Outside Copenhagen?

23:06Kelly Rutherford:Yeah, you take a train. I believe it's in a more residential area, and it's right on the water. And it's this beautiful place. You can have lunch there. there's like a huge calder you know yeah scott whatever and it's just there's something really really beautiful about it you know if you go to copenhagen it's just a train not too far it's like

23:26Tanya Rose:an hour maybe i actually haven't been to copenhagen for so long i'm definitely due to go yeah that's such a good tip i want to see more of scandinavia too there's you know i was thinking too on the

23:36Kelly Rutherford:way here there's a um a great magazine you probably know it because you're a magazine person like me is uh confect magazine okay so i think it's a part of the monocle oh yes yeah group but it's much more digestible to me you know the monocle is like very dense but it's a really beautiful magazine and they do art you know culture but they take a city and they give you all the beautiful little shops to go to and the hotels and the museums and the it's a really i think you would love it.

24:09Tanya Rose:I definitely would. And it comes out, I think it's only quarterly. We probably have it in the office. I'm going to ask them. My other favorite magazine is Cabana. Do you know Cabana? Yes, of course. So beautiful. They're amazing.

24:22Kelly Rutherford:Amazing.

24:23Tanya Rose:So I asked you to bring a photograph or a few photographs. Can you just tell us about those photographs and what they

24:30Kelly Rutherford:mean to you in the world of travel this this one's from um Tanuta de Merlo in was a road trip I took with my daughter and it was so nice because it was the first time we'd ever really done that together and she was maybe 14 and we started you know in Monaco and drove all the way up to Rome so this is kind of photos from from that trip but one you know if you were from Tanuta de Merlo which is a beautiful place in Umbria.

25:00Tanya Rose:Oh, I don't know.

25:01Kelly Rutherford:Or it's on the border of Umbria, I think. And then there's another beautiful place that we stopped. That is Cy Twombly's place that he used to go outside of Rome. And now it's sort of Soledad Twombly is doing it where it's like an artist's residence. And it's so beautiful. And this, is it Barremo? Barremo? I'm just thinking of the name. But it was another beautiful place that we stopped along the way. How old was your daughter? It was a few years ago. She's 16 now. She must have been turning 14.

25:36Tanya Rose:It was a really nice time. Did your son feel very left out because you did that with her?

25:42Kelly Rutherford:No, he was off with his friends somewhere. And now, you know, we're doing that now. My son and I are traveling a lot together and doing a lot together work-wise and stuff. So it happened naturally. It was so sweet. And she said she wants to do it again.

25:55Tanya Rose:So I was like, oh, that's so nice when they want to travel with you. Yeah. You don't have to bribe them. Exactly. Yeah, it's her idea.

26:02Kelly Rutherford:She's like, let's do that again.

26:05Tanya Rose:So before I let you go, what's next for you? Where are you traveling to and what's next for you in life?

26:11Kelly Rutherford:Oh my goodness. I never know. It's all so spontaneous. Next is we're going to just we're trying to figure out where to spend the holidays really where we sometimes we go to San Moritz, which we love. so we may go there last year we were thinking of ratio but it was so busy it was very crowded and it was was a lot so we were like okay maybe we'll just go straight to skiing and um other than that i'm you know talking in talks about this you know fashion platform and making things more shoppable that i'm doing which is nice and i may do a bit of a tour like a little you know talks oh good like a podcast, but live in person, like with a group and do that in different places.

26:57Tanya Rose:Well, I will watch this space. And if I know where you're doing your lives, I shall come and listen. Thank you. With great anticipation. And I shall still be watching every day on Instagram to see what you're wearing and your wonderful elevator selfies, which I hope you're going to teach me after this podcast how to do it.

27:14Kelly Rutherford:Yes.

27:15Tanya Rose:So easy.

27:16Kelly Rutherford:My daughter taught me, so I'll teach you. Thank you.

27:19Tanya Rose:So lovely to see you. Thank you, Kelly.

27:21Kelly Rutherford:Thank you so much. Thank you.