September 21, 2021 • 23 mins
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home.
On Ruthie's Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers.
Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks.
Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation.
For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/
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Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to River Cafe Table for a production of iHeart
Radio and Adam I Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I mean, you've had quite a series of performers. I'm
honored even to be on your podcast. The sample tape
I get is Ray Fines doing the chocolate Nemesis. I'm like,
you know what, I just I'm going to give up now, you.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Know, never never, never, no, do the best. Michael Caine
was very, very sweet. It was very did I play
his actually anywhere in the world? And they have a
desserved which is my favorite?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
That is so good. That is good recipe you want
to make. Michael Caine is so rude. Oh no, now
you just played me, Michael Kine. How am I supposed
to this is?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Like?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
How the hell am I supposed to do this? This is.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
But you got to I'm notta sauce.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Maybe I should do an intro to it. Okay, I'll
do this. Then I'm Jake Jillenhall, and there is truly
nothing like Ruthie's slow cooked tomato sauce. So I'm going
to do my best here to give you a recipe
that will hopefully change your life and the life of
(01:22):
many people that you love. So here's slow cooked tomato
sauce very fast. Heat one to two tablespoons of the
olive oil in a large saucepan and fry the garlic
until it is soft but not brown. Add the tomatoes
with some sea salt and black pepper, and cook fiercely,
stirring constantly to prevent the tomatoes from sticking as they
(01:46):
break up. As they cook, the tomatoes will release their
juices when this liquid has evaporated. Add the remaining olive oil,
the basil or regino, and more seasoning if necessary. Serve hot.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
So Jake, I think you were the first person that
I called when I had the idea of doing a recipe,
reading a recipe from the River Cafe cookbook. Twenty five
years of cookbooks and eleven books and so many recipes
that you could have chosen. You chose tomato sauce. I
know why, but maybe you could tell everyone else why
(02:25):
you chose.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Tomato sauce, because I think simple is the most difficult.
When you take just a few ingredients and you try
and cook with them, what comes through is the person
cooking them. Also, if you have the best ingredients, like
the ones that you showed me, how to make this
tomato sauce with or tomato sauce with, then you can't
(02:48):
mess it up.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I remember there was a time when Ruby, my granddaughter,
was I think about seven, and you made a little
She taught you how to make it. And food is
a connection, and it is a connection, and I think
that probably this pasta makes us feel close.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I always think of that moment whenever I'm taking the
two knives and a calendar and I'm slicing the can tomatoes.
It almost was her favorite part when she was instructing me.
And I always think of that moment because it's it's
essential to the recipe. It's really when you empty those
tomatoes into the calendar and you have to slice them
(03:27):
to get the first sort of first juices out of them.
And then over time, as they sawte they really do
turn into like a sugary glaze. And then how they
stick on to that pasta is like nothing else.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
I was trying to think how we first met, and
I think that I met your sister, Maggie, maybe before
I met you, I can't remember, but I remember that
you have a brother and a sister who love food.
Where your parents obsessed with food, did they make sure
that you always ate. Did you have meals at the table?
What was it wasn't growing up with food in your house?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I would say rather honestly, that food was and meals
were the only thing that really worked in my family.
And by that I mean the only thing really without
a sort of drama or tumult, though it was full
of wonderful drama. And you know, us being all sort
(04:25):
of competitive and partial control freaks, you know, as it
is in a kitchen, you know, there's a lot of
nudging and bumping around and you know, don't do it
like this like that. But the dinner table, and particularly
the I would say the market, which my parents, since
I was a very young age, took us to, and
you know, that was an experience in itself. And I
(04:49):
remember my mom, you know, holding my hand and taking
me to the woman at the Hollywood Farmer's Market where
I grew up in Los Angeles, and she was the
one who grew Japanese tomatoes and Japanese cucumbers, and we'd
always get sheis so, and then we'd move over to
the lettuce that she loved, and then citrus, and we
were always tasting things and in America in particular, that
(05:11):
is not so common, you know that experience. But so
from there, from the market and buying it from local
farmers and then knowing, you know, the beautiful thing you've bought,
and then cooking it in the kitchen. You know that
was the process. And then sitting down to the table,
you know that those are the things. You know they were.
(05:31):
My parents were always trying to tell stories of different
kinds and really beautiful artists in their own ways. And
then you know, my sister and I were performing at
a very young age, and I mean that also like
as actors and then personalities. But the thing that was pure,
the thing that was clear, at least to me, was
(05:53):
always the meal.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Was it your mother in the kitchen or your father?
Did you have someone cooked?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Did you both both? My mother was more of a
salads not much transference of heat. She was more of
a kind of antipasti cold kind of more person. Lettuces
and salads were specialty. And then my dad was more
of a sort of burn it roasted kind of guy. Yeah,
(06:22):
so he would always get lots of root vegetables and
carrots and potatoes and rosemary mushrooms. He was very close
to the mushroom man at the market. Yeah, I'd be
very close to him. I always remember going to the
mushroom inn and getting all these sort of funky little
mushrooms and he would then roast them with olive oil
(06:45):
and salt and you know, different nerves and things. But
they both cooked, and they both loved food. And they
always said to me, you know, if you and when
you make your own money, you know, if you're going
to spend money, anything should be a great meal. Yeah.
It was good advice, but not great advice. I would
(07:16):
probably say if you were to ask people closest to me,
I'm not always the most fun to be with in
the kitchen because I was. I did have my stent
in kitchens, you know, and I learned from professionals, and
it's a very tough place, a kitchen, you know. It
requires a particular type of focus and a sense of geography,
you know, like knowing small spaces and moving hot things.
(07:41):
And I think I might take it all a bit
too seriously. It's a general note for myself, but I
think that my sister likes it when I cook for her,
my nieces like it when I cook for them. I
love cooking for my nieces. I love asking them what
it is that everything that they want that to me,
like what is your favorite? What do you want me
(08:02):
to coming over? I'm going to bring you anything that
you want. We're going to cook it, you know, And
just the satisfaction of that is there's nothing like that too.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I always tell people work me, just say yes, no
somebody and we can and then at least you say yes,
and then I'll say no. But I thought it was
interesting you said you just had a stint. When did
you work in the kitchen? I should do that? What
kitchens did you work in?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Well? I worked in a few restaurants as a bus
boy for a while, and then I went and when
I was around sixteen seventeen, I started working as a
Sioux chef, like very prep chef really for Marco Knora.
He runs a hearth and Broto is another. He had
(08:48):
a restaurant in Martha's Vineyard and Edgar Town there and
I was for a while really a prep chef for
him and did a buckets of lemon comfee for months.
That was quite an experience. And then I did my
one of my oldest best friends from childhood cooked in
New York for a number of years, and I actually
(09:11):
at times would join him in the kitchen when they
needed sort of extra hands here or there. They don't
have any You guys don't have any time. You know,
it's just all taken up. It's you know, from ten
am until midnight. You know, sometimes two in the morning,
you're all working, and so it's hard to have a
certain type of friendship and separate days off. So we
(09:34):
would spend our time. Sometimes i'd just joined the line,
and that was more in college.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
But it's interesting because you also, I always think that
there is something well links between the theater with where
you were just describing the geography of the kitchen, and
I don't know what it's like to be on the stage,
but there is very definitely a geography of the kitchen.
And I remember we have an open kitchen, as you know,
when we opened the kitchen completely, there were no walls
at all. Richard Air, director came and said, I said,
(10:05):
isn't this theatrical origin? And he said, well, I've been
watching you, and actually I think it's more like ballet
because everybody's just moving. But I think that maybe the
reason a lot of actors like to work in restaurants.
Is there are parallels between theater and a restaurant. You know,
everybody has to know their lines, and everybody has to
(10:27):
have made the part of the sauce. And if the
scenery has to be painted and the floor has to
be washed, and the curtain goes up, the curtain goes
up in a theater, and the curtain goes up in
a restaurant.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I think you could ask a lot of actors. They
would say a lot of times they started, you know,
in a restaurant. But I do think that there is
a theater to a restaurant. And I think what I
love so much about the theater is going to the
same place nightly, sometimes daily when you have a matinee,
you know, if you have lunch service, it's the same thing.
It's going to a matinee, you know. And I love
(11:02):
the preparatory sort of experience before that. I mean, well,
you know, you arrive. For me. What I love is
you arrive at the front of the back of the theater.
On Broadway in particular. You know, I love coming through
the front of the house as I head into the
back of that. I do it because there's that that
(11:24):
feeling of the front of the house with all the
ushers and everybody's preparing, you know, playbills or you know,
whatever the program is for the for the evening, and
then you know, if the theater has a bar, you
know there's they're they're prepping the drinks and making sure
everything's in order and the cash registers in order, and
you know they're you're walking through people who may be
picking up their tickets or ordering tickets first. You know,
(11:47):
you get a sense of the majesty of what the
audience walks through before they sit down, you know. And
I think it gives me, as a performer, an appreciation
for every single night, though for us it may feel
sometimes monotonous and the same if you do two hundred,
two hundred and fifty five hundred performances, that you honor
(12:09):
the audience that arrives that night. That every audience is different,
and you do feel that once you're on stage, that
the energy from them is different. That some are a
wild ride. It is a wild ride. Some are very steady,
some are and they have their own personalities. But it's
something about walking through the front of the house to
(12:30):
the back of the house, oh man, that excitement. Oh
my gosh, nothing like that feeling, and it is it is.
I am so so grateful for it, and I feel
at home. I think that's what you know, home feels like.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Just describing that, I do very often before when we've
all cleaned down and everything is ready, and you know
you're in the past and you have your sauces and
you've done the menu with the team, I often go
out the kitchen door down towards the river and I
walk around and I come in the front door and
I do that, you know, I just come in the
front and thinking about just looking at the place and
(13:10):
feeling where everybody's going to be in about fifteen minutes time.
And it's the same with the audience. I can because
we have an open kitchen. I can look out there
and I could see somebody giving a taste of their
food to their partner, and then you're looking at them
to see whether they're liking it. You can tell, you know,
(13:30):
or you see people having an intense conversation. And then
just the noise, the way the noise builds up. It's
quite quiet in the beginning, and.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You walk through those doors and the River Cafe, and
you feel that type of magic. And I also think
there's the process of going to a restaurant. It's not
even just the restaurant itself. It's the making of a
reservation in the case of your restaurant, months in advance, minutes.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Come on, did you ever book a table?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
But you know you got to you gotta make you
gotta make friends, real friends. But that idea of when
you decide to make a commitment to an experience, you know,
and the anticipation of that experience is part of the experience,
and then you know, I think that this very special
(14:31):
thing about the River Cafe is that when you're there,
your experience is never what you expect because you know
in one thing, one way. The menu always changes. So
you have your consistencies, you have your certain desserts that
you know will always be there, you have certain pieces
you know you can always ask or or look towards.
(14:52):
But then there's the unexpected. And I love that about
the experience and I do feel that way. If you're
going to compare theater to restaurants. In theater, that's what
I love about theaters.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Tell me about the what's that? What do you mean
that unexpectedness?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Well, you bring your life with you to the to
the theater every night, and your life obviously changes on
a daily, hourly, minute by minute basis, and so all
of the things that happen within your day, within your week,
be they joyous, be they tragic, they come to you,
with you to your work, and and there's a way
what I'm grateful for is the ability to express those
(15:28):
things through in a safe, sacred space, you know. And
then also things that happened with the audience. You know,
the last show that I did, you know, I was
an open monologue with the audience, and so they really
had the ability to we at least sort of implied
that they could speak to us, you know, in a way.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
What was that like?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Magical and sometimes disturbing. You know, the piece that I
did was very emotional piece and about birth and death,
and and there was this really amazing moment that would
happen if it happened every night, where I would feel,
as you're speaking to an audience, they would click in
and then they would ride their own imagination and all
(16:14):
of the experiences they had in their own life with
losing someone, or with having a child or or you know,
all the things I was speaking about would begin to
emerge and then they would tell you where they wanted
you to go. It was it was that which Monolague
(16:34):
was that monologue I did called there are two of them.
One was called Seawall and the other one was called
A Life that I did A Life, and Tom Sturge
one factor. Tom Sturge did Seawall, and we did them
as an evening pretty much all of the year before
this worldwide pandemic began, and we spent the year first
of the Public Theater and then we moved it to Broadway.
(16:56):
But in that in that space, that's what was is
really really incredible. You know, people weeping sometimes, people getting
up and walking out, got walking out, you know, and
because you can see those things, because you were facing
the audience, it was unlike any other experience I've ever
had in my work.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
It's interesting how when we opened the River Cafe after
the first lockdown, people came and cried, you know, people
were very emotional just being in a restaurant, being with
people again. And if you ask waiters, it's interesting that
they will tell you that people do cry and in
the restaurant, you know that there as you're saying, what
(17:37):
do you do in a restaurant? What do you do
opening up? And it is quite emotional, and I think
we really have missed that contact of people being together
(17:59):
someone who loves food so much. Have you had to diet?
I mean, have you had to lose weight for a part? Oh?
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah, I have. I have done that, and you know,
it depends. Sometimes I find that you're satisfied in different ways.
You know, for instance, you know, if you have a
goal for a movie and you know that that goal
is going to be a part of telling the story,
you know, you constantly have that to go back to.
I did this film Nightcrawler. I lost to you know,
(18:27):
close to thirty pounds or so, and then doing it,
I supplemented certain things sometimes with running, you know, I'd
run a lot, and then I learned different safer processes
of eating and being able to to lose weight, like
you know, giving yourself proteins and it's possible too. You know,
(18:48):
I was kind of like I was doing it safely,
but you know, I didn't really have all the knowledge.
I've learned that over the years, though, I think more
and more for someone who loves food, your take making
not only the food out of your life. You're taking
the experience of being with people because you know you
can go and I would at times I would when
I was preparing for that film in particular, I would
(19:12):
go to dinner with friends and I would, you know,
drink a glass of water something like that. But you
realize that oftentimes you'd say you can't go to dinner,
and you're missing out on that more than anything. What
I realize is not just really the food, it's really
the connection with the people that I'm missing out on.
(19:33):
And and it helped from the character at the time
because he was he was a very lonely man, and
all those things I could use knowing that I had
a space to use them in. And if it's for
something that you know, you you really do believe in that,
it's for sort of the the expression of something that
I'm now very proud of. You know that that was worthwhile.
(19:56):
I think it becomes confusing when it's other things.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
And then thing I just wanted to ask you is
when because for me, when I go to a city,
I always head for the market. You know, if I
saw you and as you said, you've been to Spain,
I probably would have said, oh, you know, did you
did you go to the product? Did you go?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
What did you eat?
Speaker 3 (20:16):
You know, we might say what we pretend to first,
to ask what museums or what you don't do, but
really what we want to know is the story, because
we love stories, don't we. We love a story. And
you might tell me how you found a restaurant in
some dark alley, or you met somebody and they took
you to a you know, a place by the beach.
Is your curiosity for restaurants wherever you are or food
(20:38):
wherever you are? Do you want to know the food?
Speaker 2 (20:40):
The only thing that matters to me. It is the
only thing that that day I didn't have no other interests.
It's like when I when I think of going to
a city, that's the first thing I always and you know,
you know, as insufferable as my friends can say that
(21:04):
I am, the one thing they cannot deny is that
they will always go to a great meal with me
in whatever city we're in.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
That that's that's that's good.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah, I mean, And it's also not like I'm not
that Like I actually had a dream the other night
about that, about just being in an unknown small town
sort of in the middle of nowhere and going to
the market, and you went to the market to the
marketing my dream. And when you said that, I was like,
it made me think, that's really where you you learn
the most about where you are now.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
It is if you're in Venice, you go to the fish.
If you're in a small town, you go to a
little place and there might be only four little stalls
in Venice.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
There's this incredible I'm sure maybe you know that that
black Redicio Tagletaliti that at this small restaurant. Yeah. Never,
I'm in Venice. I like that's where I go. I've
had a few films that I've gotten into the Venice
Film Festival. And as exciting as that is, it's not
(22:04):
as exciting as knowing I'll be able to go get
that that.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I'm really here for many reasons. You might think I'm here,
but I'm.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Really Sadly, I've just admitted that my deepest truth. Yeah,
that is it. Well, it's good, it's not sad at all.
You know to me with you are connection, the fact
that you are so endlessly supportive of your friends, and
you are an open heart and have given me confidence
(22:37):
to do things in my life and my work. That
I wouldn't normally have had and you're cooking well, yes,
but just the thing that you gave me some cooked
tomato sauce as a recipe, makes me want to strive
for more. You know, you say, Okay, you can have it,
but you got to earn it now.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
I love you, Thank you, Jake. To visit the online
shop of the River Cafe, go to shop Therivercafe dot
co dot uk.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
Adami Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to River Cafe Table for a production of iHeart
Radio and Adam I Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I mean, you've had quite a series of performers. I'm
honored even to be on your podcast. The sample tape
I get is Ray Fines doing the chocolate Nemesis. I'm like,
you know what, I just I'm going to give up now, you.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Know, never never, never, no, do the best. Michael Caine
was very, very sweet. It was very did I play
his actually anywhere in the world? And they have a
desserved which is my favorite?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
That is so good. That is good recipe you want
to make. Michael Caine is so rude. Oh no, now
you just played me, Michael Kine. How am I supposed
to this is?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Like?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
How the hell am I supposed to do this? This is.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
But you got to I'm notta sauce.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Maybe I should do an intro to it. Okay, I'll
do this. Then I'm Jake Jillenhall, and there is truly
nothing like Ruthie's slow cooked tomato sauce. So I'm going
to do my best here to give you a recipe
that will hopefully change your life and the life of
(01:22):
many people that you love. So here's slow cooked tomato
sauce very fast. Heat one to two tablespoons of the
olive oil in a large saucepan and fry the garlic
until it is soft but not brown. Add the tomatoes
with some sea salt and black pepper, and cook fiercely,
stirring constantly to prevent the tomatoes from sticking as they
(01:46):
break up. As they cook, the tomatoes will release their
juices when this liquid has evaporated. Add the remaining olive oil,
the basil or regino, and more seasoning if necessary. Serve hot.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
So Jake, I think you were the first person that
I called when I had the idea of doing a recipe,
reading a recipe from the River Cafe cookbook. Twenty five
years of cookbooks and eleven books and so many recipes
that you could have chosen. You chose tomato sauce. I
know why, but maybe you could tell everyone else why
(02:25):
you chose.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Tomato sauce, because I think simple is the most difficult.
When you take just a few ingredients and you try
and cook with them, what comes through is the person
cooking them. Also, if you have the best ingredients, like
the ones that you showed me, how to make this
tomato sauce with or tomato sauce with, then you can't
(02:48):
mess it up.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I remember there was a time when Ruby, my granddaughter,
was I think about seven, and you made a little
She taught you how to make it. And food is
a connection, and it is a connection, and I think
that probably this pasta makes us feel close.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I always think of that moment whenever I'm taking the
two knives and a calendar and I'm slicing the can tomatoes.
It almost was her favorite part when she was instructing me.
And I always think of that moment because it's it's
essential to the recipe. It's really when you empty those
tomatoes into the calendar and you have to slice them
(03:27):
to get the first sort of first juices out of them.
And then over time, as they sawte they really do
turn into like a sugary glaze. And then how they
stick on to that pasta is like nothing else.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
I was trying to think how we first met, and
I think that I met your sister, Maggie, maybe before
I met you, I can't remember, but I remember that
you have a brother and a sister who love food.
Where your parents obsessed with food, did they make sure
that you always ate. Did you have meals at the table?
What was it wasn't growing up with food in your house?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I would say rather honestly, that food was and meals
were the only thing that really worked in my family.
And by that I mean the only thing really without
a sort of drama or tumult, though it was full
of wonderful drama. And you know, us being all sort
(04:25):
of competitive and partial control freaks, you know, as it
is in a kitchen, you know, there's a lot of
nudging and bumping around and you know, don't do it
like this like that. But the dinner table, and particularly
the I would say the market, which my parents, since
I was a very young age, took us to, and
you know, that was an experience in itself. And I
(04:49):
remember my mom, you know, holding my hand and taking
me to the woman at the Hollywood Farmer's Market where
I grew up in Los Angeles, and she was the
one who grew Japanese tomatoes and Japanese cucumbers, and we'd
always get sheis so, and then we'd move over to
the lettuce that she loved, and then citrus, and we
were always tasting things and in America in particular, that
(05:11):
is not so common, you know that experience. But so
from there, from the market and buying it from local
farmers and then knowing, you know, the beautiful thing you've bought,
and then cooking it in the kitchen. You know that
was the process. And then sitting down to the table,
you know that those are the things. You know they were.
(05:31):
My parents were always trying to tell stories of different
kinds and really beautiful artists in their own ways. And
then you know, my sister and I were performing at
a very young age, and I mean that also like
as actors and then personalities. But the thing that was pure,
the thing that was clear, at least to me, was
(05:53):
always the meal.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Was it your mother in the kitchen or your father?
Did you have someone cooked?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Did you both both? My mother was more of a
salads not much transference of heat. She was more of
a kind of antipasti cold kind of more person. Lettuces
and salads were specialty. And then my dad was more
of a sort of burn it roasted kind of guy. Yeah,
(06:22):
so he would always get lots of root vegetables and
carrots and potatoes and rosemary mushrooms. He was very close
to the mushroom man at the market. Yeah, I'd be
very close to him. I always remember going to the
mushroom inn and getting all these sort of funky little
mushrooms and he would then roast them with olive oil
(06:45):
and salt and you know, different nerves and things. But
they both cooked, and they both loved food. And they
always said to me, you know, if you and when
you make your own money, you know, if you're going
to spend money, anything should be a great meal. Yeah.
It was good advice, but not great advice. I would
(07:16):
probably say if you were to ask people closest to me,
I'm not always the most fun to be with in
the kitchen because I was. I did have my stent
in kitchens, you know, and I learned from professionals, and
it's a very tough place, a kitchen, you know. It
requires a particular type of focus and a sense of geography,
you know, like knowing small spaces and moving hot things.
(07:41):
And I think I might take it all a bit
too seriously. It's a general note for myself, but I
think that my sister likes it when I cook for her,
my nieces like it when I cook for them. I
love cooking for my nieces. I love asking them what
it is that everything that they want that to me,
like what is your favorite? What do you want me
(08:02):
to coming over? I'm going to bring you anything that
you want. We're going to cook it, you know, And
just the satisfaction of that is there's nothing like that too.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I always tell people work me, just say yes, no
somebody and we can and then at least you say yes,
and then I'll say no. But I thought it was
interesting you said you just had a stint. When did
you work in the kitchen? I should do that? What
kitchens did you work in?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Well? I worked in a few restaurants as a bus
boy for a while, and then I went and when
I was around sixteen seventeen, I started working as a
Sioux chef, like very prep chef really for Marco Knora.
He runs a hearth and Broto is another. He had
(08:48):
a restaurant in Martha's Vineyard and Edgar Town there and
I was for a while really a prep chef for
him and did a buckets of lemon comfee for months.
That was quite an experience. And then I did my
one of my oldest best friends from childhood cooked in
New York for a number of years, and I actually
(09:11):
at times would join him in the kitchen when they
needed sort of extra hands here or there. They don't
have any You guys don't have any time. You know,
it's just all taken up. It's you know, from ten
am until midnight. You know, sometimes two in the morning,
you're all working, and so it's hard to have a
certain type of friendship and separate days off. So we
(09:34):
would spend our time. Sometimes i'd just joined the line,
and that was more in college.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
But it's interesting because you also, I always think that
there is something well links between the theater with where
you were just describing the geography of the kitchen, and
I don't know what it's like to be on the stage,
but there is very definitely a geography of the kitchen.
And I remember we have an open kitchen, as you know,
when we opened the kitchen completely, there were no walls
at all. Richard Air, director came and said, I said,
(10:05):
isn't this theatrical origin? And he said, well, I've been
watching you, and actually I think it's more like ballet
because everybody's just moving. But I think that maybe the
reason a lot of actors like to work in restaurants.
Is there are parallels between theater and a restaurant. You know,
everybody has to know their lines, and everybody has to
(10:27):
have made the part of the sauce. And if the
scenery has to be painted and the floor has to
be washed, and the curtain goes up, the curtain goes
up in a theater, and the curtain goes up in
a restaurant.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I think you could ask a lot of actors. They
would say a lot of times they started, you know,
in a restaurant. But I do think that there is
a theater to a restaurant. And I think what I
love so much about the theater is going to the
same place nightly, sometimes daily when you have a matinee,
you know, if you have lunch service, it's the same thing.
It's going to a matinee, you know. And I love
(11:02):
the preparatory sort of experience before that. I mean, well,
you know, you arrive. For me. What I love is
you arrive at the front of the back of the theater.
On Broadway in particular. You know, I love coming through
the front of the house as I head into the
back of that. I do it because there's that that
(11:24):
feeling of the front of the house with all the
ushers and everybody's preparing, you know, playbills or you know,
whatever the program is for the for the evening, and
then you know, if the theater has a bar, you
know there's they're they're prepping the drinks and making sure
everything's in order and the cash registers in order, and
you know they're you're walking through people who may be
picking up their tickets or ordering tickets first. You know,
(11:47):
you get a sense of the majesty of what the
audience walks through before they sit down, you know. And
I think it gives me, as a performer, an appreciation
for every single night, though for us it may feel
sometimes monotonous and the same if you do two hundred,
two hundred and fifty five hundred performances, that you honor
(12:09):
the audience that arrives that night. That every audience is different,
and you do feel that once you're on stage, that
the energy from them is different. That some are a
wild ride. It is a wild ride. Some are very steady,
some are and they have their own personalities. But it's
something about walking through the front of the house to
(12:30):
the back of the house, oh man, that excitement. Oh
my gosh, nothing like that feeling, and it is it is.
I am so so grateful for it, and I feel
at home. I think that's what you know, home feels like.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Just describing that, I do very often before when we've
all cleaned down and everything is ready, and you know
you're in the past and you have your sauces and
you've done the menu with the team, I often go
out the kitchen door down towards the river and I
walk around and I come in the front door and
I do that, you know, I just come in the
front and thinking about just looking at the place and
(13:10):
feeling where everybody's going to be in about fifteen minutes time.
And it's the same with the audience. I can because
we have an open kitchen. I can look out there
and I could see somebody giving a taste of their
food to their partner, and then you're looking at them
to see whether they're liking it. You can tell, you know,
(13:30):
or you see people having an intense conversation. And then
just the noise, the way the noise builds up. It's
quite quiet in the beginning, and.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You walk through those doors and the River Cafe, and
you feel that type of magic. And I also think
there's the process of going to a restaurant. It's not
even just the restaurant itself. It's the making of a
reservation in the case of your restaurant, months in advance, minutes.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Come on, did you ever book a table?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
But you know you got to you gotta make you
gotta make friends, real friends. But that idea of when
you decide to make a commitment to an experience, you know,
and the anticipation of that experience is part of the experience,
and then you know, I think that this very special
(14:31):
thing about the River Cafe is that when you're there,
your experience is never what you expect because you know
in one thing, one way. The menu always changes. So
you have your consistencies, you have your certain desserts that
you know will always be there, you have certain pieces
you know you can always ask or or look towards.
(14:52):
But then there's the unexpected. And I love that about
the experience and I do feel that way. If you're
going to compare theater to restaurants. In theater, that's what
I love about theaters.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Tell me about the what's that? What do you mean
that unexpectedness?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Well, you bring your life with you to the to
the theater every night, and your life obviously changes on
a daily, hourly, minute by minute basis, and so all
of the things that happen within your day, within your week,
be they joyous, be they tragic, they come to you,
with you to your work, and and there's a way
what I'm grateful for is the ability to express those
(15:28):
things through in a safe, sacred space, you know. And
then also things that happened with the audience. You know,
the last show that I did, you know, I was
an open monologue with the audience, and so they really
had the ability to we at least sort of implied
that they could speak to us, you know, in a way.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
What was that like?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Magical and sometimes disturbing. You know, the piece that I
did was very emotional piece and about birth and death,
and and there was this really amazing moment that would
happen if it happened every night, where I would feel,
as you're speaking to an audience, they would click in
and then they would ride their own imagination and all
(16:14):
of the experiences they had in their own life with
losing someone, or with having a child or or you know,
all the things I was speaking about would begin to
emerge and then they would tell you where they wanted
you to go. It was it was that which Monolague
(16:34):
was that monologue I did called there are two of them.
One was called Seawall and the other one was called
A Life that I did A Life, and Tom Sturge
one factor. Tom Sturge did Seawall, and we did them
as an evening pretty much all of the year before
this worldwide pandemic began, and we spent the year first
of the Public Theater and then we moved it to Broadway.
(16:56):
But in that in that space, that's what was is
really really incredible. You know, people weeping sometimes, people getting
up and walking out, got walking out, you know, and
because you can see those things, because you were facing
the audience, it was unlike any other experience I've ever
had in my work.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
It's interesting how when we opened the River Cafe after
the first lockdown, people came and cried, you know, people
were very emotional just being in a restaurant, being with
people again. And if you ask waiters, it's interesting that
they will tell you that people do cry and in
the restaurant, you know that there as you're saying, what
(17:37):
do you do in a restaurant? What do you do
opening up? And it is quite emotional, and I think
we really have missed that contact of people being together
(17:59):
someone who loves food so much. Have you had to diet?
I mean, have you had to lose weight for a part? Oh?
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah, I have. I have done that, and you know,
it depends. Sometimes I find that you're satisfied in different ways.
You know, for instance, you know, if you have a
goal for a movie and you know that that goal
is going to be a part of telling the story,
you know, you constantly have that to go back to.
I did this film Nightcrawler. I lost to you know,
(18:27):
close to thirty pounds or so, and then doing it,
I supplemented certain things sometimes with running, you know, I'd
run a lot, and then I learned different safer processes
of eating and being able to to lose weight, like
you know, giving yourself proteins and it's possible too. You know,
(18:48):
I was kind of like I was doing it safely,
but you know, I didn't really have all the knowledge.
I've learned that over the years, though, I think more
and more for someone who loves food, your take making
not only the food out of your life. You're taking
the experience of being with people because you know you
can go and I would at times I would when
I was preparing for that film in particular, I would
(19:12):
go to dinner with friends and I would, you know,
drink a glass of water something like that. But you
realize that oftentimes you'd say you can't go to dinner,
and you're missing out on that more than anything. What
I realize is not just really the food, it's really
the connection with the people that I'm missing out on.
(19:33):
And and it helped from the character at the time
because he was he was a very lonely man, and
all those things I could use knowing that I had
a space to use them in. And if it's for
something that you know, you you really do believe in that,
it's for sort of the the expression of something that
I'm now very proud of. You know that that was worthwhile.
(19:56):
I think it becomes confusing when it's other things.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
And then thing I just wanted to ask you is
when because for me, when I go to a city,
I always head for the market. You know, if I
saw you and as you said, you've been to Spain,
I probably would have said, oh, you know, did you
did you go to the product? Did you go?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
What did you eat?
Speaker 3 (20:16):
You know, we might say what we pretend to first,
to ask what museums or what you don't do, but
really what we want to know is the story, because
we love stories, don't we. We love a story. And
you might tell me how you found a restaurant in
some dark alley, or you met somebody and they took
you to a you know, a place by the beach.
Is your curiosity for restaurants wherever you are or food
(20:38):
wherever you are? Do you want to know the food?
Speaker 2 (20:40):
The only thing that matters to me. It is the
only thing that that day I didn't have no other interests.
It's like when I when I think of going to
a city, that's the first thing I always and you know,
you know, as insufferable as my friends can say that
(21:04):
I am, the one thing they cannot deny is that
they will always go to a great meal with me
in whatever city we're in.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
That that's that's that's good.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah, I mean, And it's also not like I'm not
that Like I actually had a dream the other night
about that, about just being in an unknown small town
sort of in the middle of nowhere and going to
the market, and you went to the market to the
marketing my dream. And when you said that, I was like,
it made me think, that's really where you you learn
the most about where you are now.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
It is if you're in Venice, you go to the fish.
If you're in a small town, you go to a
little place and there might be only four little stalls
in Venice.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
There's this incredible I'm sure maybe you know that that
black Redicio Tagletaliti that at this small restaurant. Yeah. Never,
I'm in Venice. I like that's where I go. I've
had a few films that I've gotten into the Venice
Film Festival. And as exciting as that is, it's not
(22:04):
as exciting as knowing I'll be able to go get
that that.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I'm really here for many reasons. You might think I'm here,
but I'm.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Really Sadly, I've just admitted that my deepest truth. Yeah,
that is it. Well, it's good, it's not sad at all.
You know to me with you are connection, the fact
that you are so endlessly supportive of your friends, and
you are an open heart and have given me confidence
(22:37):
to do things in my life and my work. That
I wouldn't normally have had and you're cooking well, yes,
but just the thing that you gave me some cooked
tomato sauce as a recipe, makes me want to strive
for more. You know, you say, Okay, you can have it,
but you got to earn it now.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
I love you, Thank you, Jake. To visit the online
shop of the River Cafe, go to shop Therivercafe dot
co dot uk.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
Adami Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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