Speaker 1: Welcome to River Cafe, Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Adami's Studios.
Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Michael Caine and I'm here with a very
Speaker 2: good friend of mine called Ruthie Rogers.
Speaker 3: I often say that the real reason I have a
Speaker 3: restaurant is that once a week I get to walk
Speaker 3: Michael Caine from Table four through the crowded restaurant to
Speaker 3: his car and say good night to a man I
Speaker 3: admire and I adore.
Speaker 2: Is that me? Oh? Yeah, well, I love the restaurant.
Speaker 3: I always say, what do we always say? Now? We
Speaker 3: both say it the only reason she has a restaurant.
Speaker 3: In each episode, my guest reads a recipe they have
Speaker 3: chosen from one of our cookbooks. I talk about food,
Speaker 3: the food they cook, the food they eat, and most
Speaker 3: of all, the food of their memories.
Speaker 2: The River Cafe have a dessert which is my favorite,
Speaker 2: and it's called Pannacotta with grapper. So what I'm going
Speaker 2: to do is I'm going to give you the recipe
Speaker 2: in cash. You want to make it for yourself, Okay,
Speaker 2: Pour nine hundred milligrams of cream into a pan, Add
Speaker 2: the vanilla pods, add the lemon ride, bring to the boil.
Speaker 2: Simmer and reducee by a third pass through a sieve.
Speaker 2: Then scrape the seeds from inside the vanilla pods back
Speaker 2: into the cream and discard the alter pods. Remove the
Speaker 2: gelatine from the milk. Heat the milk until hot, then
Speaker 2: return the gelatine to the milk and stir until dissolved.
Speaker 2: Pour through a sieve into a hot cream and leave
Speaker 2: to cool, stirring occasionally. Lightly whip the remaining cream with
Speaker 2: the icing sugar, fold into the cold cream mixture and
Speaker 2: then add grapper. It is now ready to be poured
Speaker 2: into six small balls and put into the fridge for
Speaker 2: at least three hours or if you like, overnight.
Speaker 3: So, Michael, here we are Yeh River Cafe. But let's
Speaker 3: go back to the beginning. You were born in London.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was born in Burmasey, which is South London.
Speaker 2: But I'm a company because I was born in a
Speaker 2: part of Burmasey which is opposite bow Bells. And if
Speaker 2: you're born within the sound of bow bells, you're a company.
Speaker 3: What about food? Do you have memories of food?
Speaker 2: Yeah? My memory of food is this. My father was
Speaker 2: a Billies Gape fish market porter and he was a
Speaker 2: big gambler, and so he never bought steak or anything.
Speaker 2: It was too deer. But he used to nick a
Speaker 2: lot of fish. So for fifteen years I ate fish,
Speaker 2: every kind of fish you can imagine, and I realized
Speaker 2: that's a very healthy thing. And also another accidental healthy
Speaker 2: thing for me was the Second World War. You couldn't
Speaker 2: get any sugar. You couldn't get any of those things,
Speaker 2: those drinks that you have now with all this sugar
Speaker 2: in it. Then I was evacuated into the country away
Speaker 2: from the smug which in Bermondsey then was terrible because
Speaker 2: of everyone had cold fires. But I was evacuated to
Speaker 2: the country and I lived on a farm for six years.
Speaker 3: Do you remember the food there.
Speaker 2: Oh, the food was wonderful. I mean some of the
Speaker 2: food I caught myself because I could outrun a rabbit.
Speaker 2: And I used to catch a rabbit with a stick
Speaker 2: and give it to my mother to cook for dinner.
Speaker 2: Pheasant partridge. We remember all those things, and so thinking
Speaker 2: back on it, health wise, I was very lucky. And
Speaker 2: not on top of all that, my mother insisted I
Speaker 2: ate porridge for breakfast. For fifteen years.
Speaker 3: You had fish, you had pheasants, had.
Speaker 2: Porridge, rabbit and everything had fresh vegetables. We lived on
Speaker 2: a farm. We used to go and knick the cabbage.
Speaker 2: And eventually we came back to London and the council
Speaker 2: gave us a prefabricated house which was made of asbestos,
Speaker 2: and they put them up like in two weeks, and
Speaker 2: people were sort of sympathizing with people like me who
Speaker 2: were having to live in these prefabricated houses. And what
Speaker 2: they didn't know was what life was like before because
Speaker 2: in the flat we lived in when I was a
Speaker 2: little boy, there was no toilet. For a start. You
Speaker 2: had to go down to the garden, so I had
Speaker 2: very strong legs, or you bought a pot pop, you know.
Speaker 2: But when we walked into the prefab the first time,
Speaker 2: my brother Stanley and I, we were stunned. We were
Speaker 2: in a place which for the first time had electric light,
Speaker 2: an indoor toilet, and it had a little garden. It
Speaker 2: was unbelievable in the middle of London and the Elephant Castle.
Speaker 3: Do you remember the kitchen.
Speaker 2: The kitchen was lovely. It was an electric stove and
Speaker 2: a refrigerator, you know, it was a refrigerator. We'd never
Speaker 2: seen a refrigerator and we had a bathroom. I mean
Speaker 2: when we used to have a bath in the kitchen,
Speaker 2: in a bath that my mothers pour hot watering in
Speaker 2: the kettle.
Speaker 3: So you imagine mother and father moving with their children
Speaker 3: to this prefabricated house which it had had a bathroom,
Speaker 3: it had a kitchen, it had a view, it had
Speaker 3: a garden. So how do you think that changed her
Speaker 3: way of being with you and cooking for you.
Speaker 2: It was fabulous for her because it cut out masses
Speaker 2: of work to do things, you know, And she was
Speaker 2: so happy and the food got even better.
Speaker 3: Why do you like the pana cootta?
Speaker 2: Well, the panakotta has little bits of fruit in it,
Speaker 2: and I can eat that without conscience because I'm eating fruit,
Speaker 2: you know. And I said, oh, look it's a BlackBerry.
Speaker 3: Yah.
Speaker 2: It just happened to have a little bit of extra
Speaker 2: panicotta with it because it was quite old and I
Speaker 2: can't stuff down sugar as much as i'd like to,
Speaker 2: and there's quite a lot of sugar in it.
Speaker 3: It's quite a bit. But she just read the have
Speaker 3: you ever made it?
Speaker 2: Oh? No, I never make desserts. I only does and
Speaker 2: veitch because I'm afraid of eating them.
Speaker 3: Oh, okay. And what do you make when you make
Speaker 3: a main course? What do you like to cook?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm the one responsible in the house for Sunday lunch,
Speaker 2: so I do roast beef, roast lam Christmas, I do
Speaker 2: the roast turkey. I do the best, allegedly the best
Speaker 2: roast potatoes anybody who ever came ever eaten. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: very good at that. Well, the trick is, when they're
Speaker 2: cooked is to mash them just a little bit, just
Speaker 2: crack them open, put oil on them, and then bake
Speaker 2: them again, so they always got baked inside. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: but I've never eaten panicotta in any other reund but yours. Okay, Well,
Speaker 2: I always eat it every time I come.
Speaker 3: You do? You come usually on a Wednesday or Thursday.
Speaker 3: You always sit on table for and you always sit
Speaker 3: at the same seat. And I was just wondering how
Speaker 3: you feel about restaurants and food.
Speaker 2: Well, I love restaurants. I've owned a couple. I don't
Speaker 2: use restaurants for occasions. Restaurants are part of my life.
Speaker 3: Because your mom worked in the Lion's Corner house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my mother was a cook in a lion's corner house.
Speaker 2: That was the first sort of brasserie in England that
Speaker 2: I ever saw. There were no braiseries in England, but
Speaker 2: Lion's Corner House was a brasserie. I realized later when
Speaker 2: I went to France and loved the braseries in France,
Speaker 2: and I came back to England and I met Peter
Speaker 2: Langan and we both said there isn't a brasserie in London,
Speaker 2: and we opened Langard's brasseriie together, what was it like
Speaker 2: being involved in a restaurant fabulous?
Speaker 3: What did you like about it?
Speaker 2: Well? I loved the idea right from the start of
Speaker 2: designing the restaurant and didn't getting drunk for nothing.
Speaker 3: How did you design it? What would your design be?
Speaker 2: Of the design there is? I said, how we got
Speaker 2: to design this? Said Peter Langer, my partner. He said,
Speaker 2: We've got masses of walls. It was an enormous restaurant.
Speaker 2: He said, we cover them with pictures, paintings. I said, paintings.
Speaker 2: I said, I'm the money. I said no, he said,
Speaker 2: we'll get wonderful paintings for very little money. Because I
Speaker 2: had the perfect partner, who's going to help me? Choose him?
Speaker 2: I said, what's his name? He said, David? Helpney. David
Speaker 2: even did the menu forever. Yeah, so I had a
Speaker 2: great time.
Speaker 3: When you sort of started out acting and being an
Speaker 3: actor on your own. Was food important to you then?
Speaker 3: Would you grab something or did you go back to
Speaker 3: your Now?
Speaker 2: I used to go to the cheapest possible restaurant I
Speaker 2: could find. I mean, I had no money. I found
Speaker 2: an Italian restaurant in Soho that served three course meal
Speaker 2: for half a crown.
Speaker 3: Half a crown and six. I interviewed Paul McCartney the
Speaker 3: other day and he was telling me that the first
Speaker 3: really good meal that he remembers was going with George
Speaker 3: Martin to Latoine and that was an awakening for him
Speaker 3: of what food could be. Do you remember an experience
Speaker 3: going from an expensive, cheap restaurants to actually having your first.
Speaker 2: Well, my first thing was when my dad died. He
Speaker 2: left me a bit of money, about one hundred pounds,
Speaker 2: and I was so sad. I thought, I'm going to
Speaker 2: get on a train and go to Paris. And I
Speaker 2: got on a train on my own and went to Paris.
Speaker 2: And I stayed there for about seven months. And I
Speaker 2: adored the food in Paris. I loved it, but I
Speaker 2: adore English.
Speaker 3: I remember how old you were when you went to Paris.
Speaker 2: I was seventeen seventeen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you took the hundred pounds at the one
Speaker 3: hundred pounds last year seven months.
Speaker 2: No I worked. I used to sell on the street,
Speaker 2: freaked freak for a franc used to get free for
Speaker 2: a franc. I used to sell that. And I had
Speaker 2: a French mate who had a cafe so there. Then
Speaker 2: I had an American friend, another sort of broke like me,
Speaker 2: and he worked in the air terminal, so I used
Speaker 2: to go in there and I could get free food
Speaker 2: from him. And I used to have an empty suitcase.
Speaker 2: I'd sleep on the sofa as I was waiting for
Speaker 2: a plane if I didn't have enough money. But I
Speaker 2: love Paris, and I learned to speak French. I speak
Speaker 2: very good friends, It's good.
Speaker 3: Do you remember, like the first grand meal that you
Speaker 3: had when you had money, which will you take into
Speaker 3: a restaurant and had something amazingly sophisticated to eat and
Speaker 3: that made you interested in food, even food.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The restaurant was the White Elephant, that was Encouragement Street. Yes,
Speaker 2: and we went there. I'm trying to think what the
Speaker 2: hell it was We had. Oh it was to do
Speaker 2: with cavia. Ah, and there was cavia all over the place,
Speaker 2: and I never got over that. I'd never eaten the
Speaker 2: caviar obviously couldn't afford it. But then this whole dish
Speaker 2: was cavire. It was wonderful. I know who it was too.
Speaker 2: Harry Saltzmith had given me the part in Ichris File,
Speaker 2: and he took me to the White Elephant. And of
Speaker 2: course I was under contract. You know, I could have
Speaker 2: anything I liked, and I suddenly realized that's what my
Speaker 2: life is going to be.
Speaker 3: But having great food could be possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, having enough money to have great.
Speaker 3: Food, because I think food is an aspiration, isn't it
Speaker 3: Having great food or something that you can it opens
Speaker 3: you up to a world.
Speaker 2: Is why I come here.
Speaker 3: What about when you went to make the Italian Job
Speaker 3: in Italy? What was that like?
Speaker 2: Oh? I had a wonderful time. It was a great
Speaker 2: restaurant every evening.
Speaker 3: Did they cook on set? Do you eat? No?
Speaker 2: No, we didn't buy that much with lunch because a
Speaker 2: movie is a hard thing to make, you know, especially
Speaker 2: when with all those cars and crowds, like an Italian job.
Speaker 2: So we concentrated on that all day. I mean, you
Speaker 2: wind up having a sandwich or a bowl of spaghetti,
Speaker 2: but then you'd have a great meal in the evening.
Speaker 3: And if you are in a film, do you really
Speaker 3: try and avoid food or do you find it's good
Speaker 3: to sit.
Speaker 2: Down and have no I avoid food. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: want to go to sleep in the afternoon when I
Speaker 2: was supposed to be doing ten pages of dialogue. Food
Speaker 2: makes you go to sleep.
Speaker 3: When you make movies in la Is there a restaurant
Speaker 3: that you go to?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Chasins.
Speaker 3: We ate the Chasin tell us about Chasins.
Speaker 2: Chasins was almost like a club. I used to go
Speaker 2: there every Friday and you look around the room and
Speaker 2: Alfred Hitchcock was always sitting there. Kerry Grant was over there,
Speaker 2: you know, and it was one of those incredible places,
Speaker 2: you know. But everybody only ever went to the same
Speaker 2: restaurant on the same day. If you went to Chasings
Speaker 2: on a Tuesday, would have been crowded, but there'd been
Speaker 2: no stars there. The stars were there Friday night, and
Speaker 2: Spargo was another one Thursday. Everyone was in Spargo. And
Speaker 2: the great thing about that is that there was great
Speaker 2: food and a great atmosphere. But there were stars everywhere,
Speaker 2: just all the movie stars I've been seeing in movies
Speaker 2: all my life. My grandfather knew Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock
Speaker 2: was born in South London. His father had a grocery
Speaker 2: store next door to my great grandfather with Alfred Hitchcock.
Speaker 2: When I went to Universal making a picture Gambit with
Speaker 2: Shirley McLean, was given a dressing room bungalow next door
Speaker 2: to his. His was a permanent one, it was always in.
Speaker 2: Mine was a temporary one. And I've got to know
Speaker 2: him very welcome from both from South London. And I
Speaker 2: said him one day I saw, I said, I saw
Speaker 2: strangers on a train and there wasn't one shot of
Speaker 2: a train in the entire movie, going along a track
Speaker 2: to somewhere. He said, whose viewpoint on the train would
Speaker 2: that have been? And there in one line he summed
Speaker 2: up directing movies. And I remember that you never did
Speaker 2: a movie.
Speaker 3: With his Scot, did you.
Speaker 2: I bet people who did movies and they loved him.
Speaker 2: I never did. I never got that lucky.
Speaker 4: If you sit near the wood of and you get
Speaker 4: a great view of what we're cooking, whether it's dover soles, turbots, pigeons,
Speaker 4: or pieces of beef. Today we're making potatoes eleven oregano,
Speaker 4: parsley and black olive alfuna. The potatoes are in here
Speaker 4: now with all the herbs, good olive, all season twelve.
Speaker 4: You have to incorporate all your.
Speaker 2: Mouthy lemons chopped and chopped garlic a little bit later.
Speaker 4: If I put them into soon, the garlic would probably
Speaker 4: go too quickly, as with the lemon. Now the potatoes
Speaker 4: have had a bit of a head start.
Speaker 2: Then we'll get all the lemon and the garlic in
Speaker 2: that and they will all come together.
Speaker 3: The other thing I think about restaurants, having worked in
Speaker 3: one and having an open kitchen really seeing the people
Speaker 3: who come in, is that people do very private things
Speaker 3: in a public space. So they'll use a restaurant to
Speaker 3: fire someone, or they'll use a restaurant admit an affair,
Speaker 3: or they'll use a restaurant to get divorced. You see
Speaker 3: a lot of tears, but if you talk to my waiters,
Speaker 3: they will tell you about the amazing amount of people
Speaker 3: who'll cry.
Speaker 2: Well, people at my table have cried, but with laughter, wait,
Speaker 2: jokes and stuff.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I consider myself a Duff commits.
Speaker 3: When you've been asked to be in a movie, will
Speaker 3: you have had meetings with you know?
Speaker 2: Oh, in Hollywood you're always with executives and it's quite serious.
Speaker 2: But it's never dinner. It's always lunch. I would never
Speaker 2: discuss business at dinner. You've got to come to lunch
Speaker 2: for that, because I'm not wasting the dinner doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: Do you think that's just you or is it most people?
Speaker 2: You go into Hollywood restaurants at lunch time and it's
Speaker 2: all business. Yeah, it's all business lunches.
Speaker 3: When Richard and I went to New York, the thing
Speaker 3: that I was really interested was we were often taken
Speaker 3: out to lunch by his clients, to the Four Seasons
Speaker 3: and the Secret Building. And the thing I still notice
Speaker 3: is that nobody drinks. No. You know, Richard asked for
Speaker 3: a glass of white wine, and I think they thought
Speaker 3: he was an alcoholic, you know, having and if you
Speaker 3: go around, they're having fantastic food, but with iced tea.
Speaker 2: With New York, I find a restaurant and live in it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: My restaurant in New York was Elaines. Yeah. Elaine was
Speaker 2: a lady who owned this restaurant named after her, and
Speaker 2: she was one of my closest friends. And she was
Speaker 2: everyone's close, just mine, and you always met people there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it was a very showbiz area. Yeah, very showbiz.
Speaker 3: I know for myself that people will return to a
Speaker 3: restaurant where they're welcomed with warmth, with kindness, and the
Speaker 3: food might not be the top priority, but people will
Speaker 3: come back to a restaurant if their chicken was overcooked
Speaker 3: or their lemon tart was a bit you know, curdly.
Speaker 3: But I certainly will not go back to a restaurant
Speaker 3: where I've been treated badly or I've been people been arrogant,
Speaker 3: or you know, you go. I want people to feel
Speaker 3: safe when they.
Speaker 2: Go on restaurant where I got treated badly. I never
Speaker 2: did because I'm so fussy about restaurants, and yeah, I
Speaker 2: read about them, you know, before I go the first time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I've always been in restaurants all over the world,
Speaker 2: but the River Cafe in particular. Someone took me there
Speaker 2: the first time, and I was stunned by the restaurant.
Speaker 2: I had never seen a restaurant like that. It was
Speaker 2: the highest restaurant I've been in the widest and being
Speaker 2: well known, and people coming asking for autographs. You sit
Speaker 2: so far apart from each other that no one recognizes you,
Speaker 2: especially if like me, got a baseball cap and dark glasses.
Speaker 3: You know that helps.
Speaker 2: And you can see all the staff cooking, and there
Speaker 2: was a big boiler doing pizzas with great big flames
Speaker 2: coming out.
Speaker 3: You would be meaning the wood oven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I had never seen a restaurant like that.
Speaker 2: I mean of the sixties, the big popular restaurants for
Speaker 2: small Italian brasseries which took over from the English restaurant.
Speaker 2: You know, where you had to leave a sort of
Speaker 2: nine o'clock about half past eight. You see the headweight.
Speaker 2: They're looking at his watch. Great, when are the bloody
Speaker 2: people leaving? But what there was also he sees the timing.
Speaker 2: You stay as long as you like. You leave when
Speaker 2: you finished the dinner, not when the waiters have got
Speaker 2: fed up.
Speaker 3: I think that when Rose and I started the River Cafe,
Speaker 3: we were at a point in restaurant world. And it
Speaker 3: wasn't just us. It was Alice Walters in San Francisco
Speaker 3: and Sally Clark in London and Roly in London as well.
Speaker 3: And I think we were at a point where you
Speaker 3: could either go to a very very established, well cooked
Speaker 3: meal formal it was an occasion you would go out,
Speaker 3: you'd dress up, and you'd be humiliated by the wine waiter,
Speaker 3: you know, but you would have a good meal. And
Speaker 3: then there were the kind of like you said, the
Speaker 3: cheap Italians or the Greek or the places where you
Speaker 3: could go and have a great time but maybe not
Speaker 3: eat so well. And we thought, well, why can't you
Speaker 3: combine the two. Why can't you do a place that
Speaker 3: has elegance and it has drama, all the things we
Speaker 3: look for, but also you could have fun.
Speaker 2: From my point of view as an actor, I realized
Speaker 2: that I love writing. I'm writing a book now another one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I loved a garden and I love to cook.
Speaker 2: And if you think that there are three things, you
Speaker 2: do them on your own. My life is spent with
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty people all day, and when I
Speaker 2: go home, I write, cook or garden on my own.
Speaker 2: And that's why I chose those things. I didn't know
Speaker 2: i'd chosen them for that.
Speaker 3: One of the questions that I ask everybody at the
Speaker 3: end of the conversation is we have food when we're hungry.
Speaker 3: We have food when we're celebrating, but sometimes we just
Speaker 3: want food for comfort. What would that be your comfort food?
Speaker 2: Well, years ago, sausage of mesh. Yes, now it's caveo.
Speaker 3: Okay. To visit the online shop of the River Cafe,
Speaker 3: go to shop Therivercafe dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1: River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Adamized Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.