WEBVTT - David Chipperfield 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.680 You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair. 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:09.080 An open kitchen in the River Cafe means we as 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:11.719 chefs are able to talk to our guests dining in 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.720 the restaurant, sharing how we cook their food, where the 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:18.439 ingredients come from, as well as hints and advice for 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.760 cooking the recipes in the books. And now we're bringing 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.320 that same ethos to our podcast, a question and answer 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:29.160 episode with me and our two executive chefs, Sean Winnowen 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.200 and Joseph Travelli. All we need is to hear from 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.000 you about what you would like to know. Send a 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:39.120 voice note with your question to Questions at Rivercafe dot 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.640 co dot uk and you might just be our next 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:53.720 great guest on Ruthie's Table four. David Chipperfield and I 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.400 have been friends for so long that this morning I 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.200 had to ask him when we met. He reminded me 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.120 it was in Paris, Richard was building the Pompadou and 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:05.640 David was a student. The light has shone bright since 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:08.960 then for this Pritzker and Sterling Prize winner, the Noise 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:12.960 Museum in Berlin, Hepworth Wakefield and many others. A few 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.040 months ago, David asked me to see the work his 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.480 foundation is doing on the food Marcus in Galicia, their 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:22.880 crucial world sustainability, the economy and culture. And so here 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:25.840 I am in northwest Spain about to talk to him 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.440 in front of an audience for a special live event. 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.679 David's introduction to Calicia was thirty three years ago on 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:36.319 a visit to Corbado, a small seaside village where he 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:40.080 and his wife Evelyn created a home. Now they have 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:43.120 a small bar in the middle of the village. David 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.920 is as passionate about Alicia's farm to table culture as 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:50.240 he is about its people. For him, it's all part 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:54.480 of the same conversation, conversation that I am so excited 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:58.080 and grateful to be having here with him in Casarea. 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.600 David and Evelyn think that I went to have my 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:09.680 hair done today, but really what I was doing is 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.120 looking for an apartment to live here, because in the 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:17.720 last forty eight hours, having never been here before, I've 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:21.840 been in bars in eleven o'clock at night. I've eaten 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:25.480 a pig's nose and a pig's tail and a pig's ear. 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:32.840 I've met ambassadors and artists and fashion designers. And I've seen, really, 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.480 what I've seen here in the last forty eight hours 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:40.040 is the connection here in casarea. It could be in 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.520 the market, it could be meeting someone who is going 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:48.000 to tell us their fish. It's just a constant, constant 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:53.440 flow of connection and engagement and empathy and fun and 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:58.480 interest in the people who live here. And I'm in 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:02.600 awe of what they do. I feel so lucky and happy, 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:04.680 and the only emotion I feel right now is that 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:05.640 I don't want to go home. 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:11.680 Thank you, Ruthie, and thank you everybody for coming. It's 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:16.000 a really impressive group of people tonight, So thank you 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:24.160 for coming. Ruthie has been instrumental in changing the food 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:28.960 culture of London, your interest in where food comes from 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.280 and sourcing food, because you talk a lot about that. 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:34.360 When I hear you talking a lot about where you 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:39.280 get your tomatoes from. Galicia has this food culture, it 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:42.480 has this food production culture, it has this small scale production. 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:46.480 We've got many here and we at the same time, 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:50.600 we've seen the enormous migration of young people from the 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:55.520 rural because it's a hard life. The parents want them 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.560 to go away and go to university. Doesn't matter what 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:04.520 they study, and there isn't enough development of those agricultural 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:08.760 industries into the modern world. So we've got no new model. 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.480 We've only got the old model, the antique model of 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:17.359 small scale farming. And that is tough. And this is 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:20.280 a topic that we're interested in the way how do 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:25.120 you keep young people interested and how does the administration 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.880 in a way put confidence in that. 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.560 I'm encouraged by a lot of really good you know, 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:36.440 thinking about food, about small farms, about farmers, about young people. 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:40.000 I think the exciting thing is also that I was 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:43.359 talking to We buy our tomato and jars for the 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.839 winter cook tomato sauce in Pulia, and he was telling 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:50.000 me today that a lot of the people from Pulia 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:52.640 young people, because how do you keep young people wanting 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.840 to stay in the communities where they grew up And 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:57.880 of course you want them to go explore the world, 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:02.160 but you also know how important the culture is. And 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:04.600 he was saying that people in ployee have gone young 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.800 people have gone to Milan to become bankers or you know, 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.120 work in industry or work in tech, and at starting 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:16.880 to come back because what draws them back is the quality, 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:19.160 you know, the quality of food that they can do. 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.919 It's exciting. They can make you know, jar tomatoes and 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:27.680 beautiful jars with beautiful graphics and make them you know, interesting, 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:30.520 and then they can experiment. In Mexico, you know, we 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:33.520 have so many friends who are making you know, their 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.840 parents with traditional made mescal or tequila, and they're doing 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:39.240 it in a different way. The wine producers that we 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:43.560 work with in Italy, their parents their you know, Renzo's generation. 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:47.040 They were farmers who made wine. And now these young 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.880 you know, they're now in their forties or fifties, decided 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.480 when they inherited, they go to La you know, California 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.440 and France and Bordeaux and see how to make wine 0:05:56.480 --> 0:06:00.679 in a different way. Came back and changed the production 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.240 of you know, great into great wines. And so I 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:07.560 think if we can encourage people to work because food 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:13.159 and farming, agriculture and production is so exciting. 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.560 One might say, very superficially here that the margins get 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:22.719 very small now and therefore the condition hospitality is very 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:27.760 tough because bars and restaurants can't afford to pay their 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.640 stuff that much. Yeah, yeah, and I think they pay 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.560 them very fairly and reasonably, you know, in the general, 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.120 but it's a very long day. It's a very hard business. 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:39.119 You know, it's tough. 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.320 We glamorize being a chef, you know, we think, oh, 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:44.640 it's you know, passion to be a chef and work 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:46.839 in a restaurant. But for a lot of people, it 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.440 was either going in the army or going to be 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.320 a chef. And then and then if you became a chef, 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.440 it was so hard because you had to be there 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:56.839 at four in the morning, you had to soak the fire, 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.279 you had to be bullied by somebody who told you 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:02.520 what to do. And then everybody woke up and said, 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:04.320 wait a minute, we don't have to be like this. 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:06.800 You can come into work at nine, you can work 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:09.720 five days a week. You can be fed, you can 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:12.680 use good ingredients, you can be taught. You're not allowed 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.280 to be you know, if somebody bullies you, go to 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:17.080 the police. You know, there was a whole way of 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:21.640 making actually working in food in a restaurant something that 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:23.880 people wanted to do. And I think it could be 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.680 the same with farming. It can be with. 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.480 Its easily because do they want to work and I 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:30.040 hope they do. 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:32.360 Yeah, you know, it's been you know, we have had 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:37.040 people do you have about one hundred and twenty. But 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:39.840 we have a shop, we have a cafe, cafe, and 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:43.320 we do off site, you know, we do you know, 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.720 we do events and that. But I think whether you 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:49.640 have twelve or whether you have one hundred, it's the 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.960 way your culture. Getting back to the culture, what makes 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:54.960 somebody want to be an architect, you know, what makes 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.080 somebody want to be a fashion designer? You know what 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.880 draws you? And I think far is a real struggle. 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.360 You know, it can rain when you need sun, and 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:06.720 it can have sun when you need rain, and it 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.600 can be nobody buys corn anymore. It's very hard. You're 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.880 working in the wine is wine is like farming. They 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.280 have a bad rain and then a hail and then 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:18.680 you know, we know that. So how do you make 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.400 it though part of something that you want to do. 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.080 A few people say, we're just not willing to pay 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:27.640 enough for our food, and that's one of the problems. 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.880 A lot of the restaurants here. They are very fixed 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:35.120 in prices, you know, and it's a much flatter society here. 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:39.600 It's much more difficult to leave ridge money out of food. 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:44.480 The margins are quite tight. But at the same time, 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.080 I would say the qualities are very yeah, really hard. 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.840 I've eaten so well here, you know, really from the 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.360 lunch we had, I can name all the meals we've had, 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:56.240 you know, and I've only been here a short time. 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.280 We've had a piece lunch, and you've had about. 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:01.400 The fish we had the first you getting off the 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:04.319 plane and having that fish and then sitting in nearby 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.920 that night. And the pig, yes, the pig. But the 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.240 breakfast and the tortilla, and what David and Evelyn and 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.000 so Leicester you're doing here. I mean, the kitchen here is. 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:19.080 Amazing Anincdotally it's often said that we're buying more cookbooks 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:23.600 but doing less cooking. Clearly, the idea that people still 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:30.199 cook is pretty fundamental part of the whole food ecology. 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:33.760 I mean, do you have the feeling that people are 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:34.559 still cooking? 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:37.960 I think they are. I think, you know, young people 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.839 who can't I mean, you know, maybe afford to go out, 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:42.680 or they have children at home and don't go out. 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.400 I think that cookbooks are kind of aspirational, you know. 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:50.439 Nor Efron rote a very famous essay for Gourmet, saying 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.800 I get Gourmet magazine every month and I'm looking at 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.120 it from cover to cover, and I've never made a recipe, 0:09:57.200 --> 0:09:59.240 you know. And I think there is that thing of 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.880 looking at a cook book and thinking I will make this, 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:03.920 I will do it, I'll be a better person if 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:06.800 I do, or whatever, and then you put it away 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:08.520 and you go back to making what you do. But 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.280 I do think people like to read. I think the 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.319 internet has changed a lot of people look at recipes online, 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:17.679 which is great, you know, or on YouTube, which is great, 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.760 you know. I think that anything that makes people want 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:22.960 to cook. Do people cook for you? Do your friends 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:23.520 cook for you? 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.080 Yes, there's certainly a sort of London dinner party cooking, 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:31.720 but I suppose I'm talking about you know, every day yeah, 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:32.480 for your kids. 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.720 Yeah. I don't think it's hard. I mean it is 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.480 really hard because now we're all working with the idea 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:43.000 of one of the woman who stayed home and shocked 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.640 and prepared and cooked and food was on the table 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:49.280 when you came home. It has changed. It's just a 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:52.319 lot of pressure because very often those women are going 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:54.440 to do the night shift at Amazon or you know, 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:57.360 they'd rather do homework with their kids and cook a 0:10:57.400 --> 0:10:59.839 meal for them. I'd like to take the value j 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:02.959 out of it. I would like people to think, instead 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.640 of ordering on delivery, I can put a bag of 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.520 pasta in the boiling water and serve it with broccoli 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.560 and you're done. But I think the reality is it's hard. 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:15.040 It's hard to do everything. 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:17.800 As things become more and more expensive even to buy, 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:24.160 then the reliability of process food that you can buy 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:30.760 becomes simpler. Again, slightly anecdotal, but I heard a mother 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:36.280 talking on BBC Radio for saying that she tried, and 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:39.719 you know, she felt morally undistressed to cook every night 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:42.880 for her children and sit down. She said, but I 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.720 can cook reasonably well and I can do it, but 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:48.559 so many of my friends don't know how to cook. 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:53.320 And also that it's a risk because if you can 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:55.720 buy things and you don't cook your supper well for 0:11:55.760 --> 0:12:01.760 your kids, you might have blown your budget and secondly 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:04.959 they might not want to eat it, whereas if you 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:09.280 give them process, you know, a Hamburg or something guaranteed. 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:12.400 And your friend Jamie Oliver, so those of you that 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:17.000 know the chef Jamie Oliver, who had a very has 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:22.319 had really big influence in England, came from your kitchen. 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.600 He was one of your kids. 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:27.920 Yeah, he was, he is still and. 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:35.960 He's been incredibly a good advocate for sort of normal food. 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:40.080 I think Blair pointed him as a sort of ambassador 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:44.040 for school food, so they tried to improve school food. 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:47.280 But how do you see the larger food culture. 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:51.000 Well, your first point about people not cooking at home 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:53.280 and not knowing how to cook, you know, I go 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.920 back to Blair and would say education, education, education, because 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.840 I think if you judge, how do you judge a culture, 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.520 how did you judge a society? You know, it could 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:05.480 take Paris where if you walk, you know, I have 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.600 a photograph of a cole mat Turnell which is a 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:12.040 state school for young children, and they put their menus 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:16.079 on the outside of the of the school and you see, 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.120 you know, they start with Celaria ramalogue and then they 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.600 have a soup, and then they have a fish or 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:25.120 a meat. Then they have a cheese course for four 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:27.160 year olds, and then they had a dessert. And I 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.319 have this photograph and I thought that tells you something. 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:33.800 I think that tells you something about a culture that 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:39.680 prioritizes feeding little children, well you know, for free. This 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:42.480 is not a private school. And I think that the 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:46.240 way a society feeds their children the way they feed 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:48.640 sick children. You know, I could go on and on. 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:50.600 I don't want to get too political, but I really 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.360 do think that the way and I can see it here. 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:55.680 You can see in the market, you can see the 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.320 way somebody offered me. One thing I thought I would 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:00.200 do is buy a piece of cheese today because I 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:03.200 hadn't been able to do that, and she wouldn't take 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:05.560 you know, she gave it to me. And that culture 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:07.400 of sharing, and. 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:09.640 It's not always true. Sometimes they take money. 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:11.959 Well, they didn't take it for me. For their food, 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:13.760 they didn't take it, but they were just it was 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.000 just I don't know, it's a way somebody cuts a 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:18.720 piece of bread. I think it really goes deep into 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:21.480 a culture. How we can fix it, I think it's 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.840 not sure, but I do think if we invest in 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:26.640 people then now. 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:30.800 I mean, Japan had had an anxiety because they shifted 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:35.320 diet a bit. They're eating more Western foods, and they 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:41.080 panicked about child obesity and that they were getting a 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:46.000 large percentage of child to see, so they introduced regulations 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:47.920 into the school. All school food now has to be 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:51.160 produced on the school. It all has to be fresh food. 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:52.880 It has to be cooked in it, and they've got 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:55.280 child to b C down to four percent or something. 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:58.760 So it's as simple as that, surely, isn't it. 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.440 In our schools they have candy machines, don't they The 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:05.640 machine that sells suits, you know, so it's a complex issue. 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:09.280 I think cooking is joyous, you know. I think that 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:12.680 it is fun. It brings people together. I think that 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.080 there are so many ways to do it. And I 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:18.520 think that you know, there are ways to communicate that 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:22.760 and to give that to people, you know, definitely, and 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:24.760 you know, as you say, you need a food culture. 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:29.640 Yeah, and presumably at certain point these things have to 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:35.040 be stimulated or promoted or encouraged by simple regulations or not. 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:37.160 I mean, we saw something in England which I was 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:42.480 quite surprised at. They the last government, conservative government put 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.040 the tax on sugar in drinks. 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.680 Now it's happened in New Mexico. A huge, huge difference. 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:51.800 You must have noticed it, you know that. You know, 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.640 they text Coca Cola and the gcase. People are buying 0:15:54.880 --> 0:16:02.280 huge bottles and that has really helped. Yeah, I agree. 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.880 Imagine a state bottled olive oil chosen and bottled for 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:12.800 the river Cafe arriving at your door every month. Our 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:16.840 subscription is available for six or twelve months, with each 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.400 oil chosen personally by our head chefs and varying with 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:23.720 each delivery. It's a perfect way to bring some River 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.040 Cafe flavor into your home or to show someone you 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:30.520 really care for them with the gift. Visit our website 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.640 shop the Rivercafe dot co UK to place your order. 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:43.800 Now, your whole food thing began in the office. It 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:51.040 was the canteen of Richard Rogers Architects. Why did you 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:53.120 do that? Tell us how it started with Rose Gray 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:55.680 and how did the Oh. 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.120 Sorry because it's a long story, but Richard and I 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:03.320 were living in Paris designing a building and we came 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.119 back to London having lived in Paris for five years, 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.760 and he really it was Richard really thought that he 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:12.840 didn't want to move into a building in the city 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.400 or building, you know, in an office. He wanted to 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:19.560 create a community. And I think living in Paris made 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.640 us very aware of being you know, outsiders and sticking 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:27.400 together quite closely with people we worked with with our family, 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:30.560 and so we came back. He really looked for a 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:32.800 place where there could be a community and we found 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.960 these warehouses on the Thames, which quite in the western 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:41.879 part of London, Harrismith, and they were originally Duckham's Oil, 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:45.280 you know, And so there was noisy, it was dirty, 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:50.720 it was quite industrial. And he and his partners bought 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:54.359 the site and tore down one of the warehouses so 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:57.160 you could see the river. They took a large part 0:17:57.200 --> 0:17:59.360 of the space, but they also there was somebody who 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:03.760 framed payings. There was graphic designers, there was another architect. 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.359 The idea was how to create a community. And the 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:10.639 most important thing for Richard being Italian, having lived in 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:14.280 Frads loving food a mother was a great cook, was 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:18.879 gathering together over food, you know, how could you do that? 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:21.679 And so there was a very small space and we 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:24.280 talked about it. I'd worked in publishing and I worked 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:26.800 in the office doing books, and I was trained as 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:31.000 a graphic designer. And so the idea was we would 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:35.520 interview various restaurants or small cafes that would want to 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:38.800 come into this very small space. And I can actually 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:40.920 remember the night that we were skiing and I turned 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.840 to Richard and said, the only thing worse than not 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:45.600 having a place to eat would be to have a 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.440 mediocre one and these are mediocre. I think I'll do it. 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:51.280 I honestly said, I think I'll do it. And so 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.520 from that idea we went back to London and Rose Gray, 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:58.720 a magnificent woman who was a friend, a great friend 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:03.280 of Zad's family as well, had come back from New York. 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.639 She'd worked with Keith McNally on setting up Nells, and 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:09.160 she was back in London. She was cooking and I said, 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:12.159 let's go, you know, can we meet for a coffee. 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.080 Neither of us really knew very much about doing a 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:15.760 restaurant but. 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:17.600 The reason you wanted to do it was because you 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:20.160 wanted this to be a sort of social center of. 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:23.119 The place where people could come and have lunch. And 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:26.120 we weren't even allowed to open. We wanted to open 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.560 to the public. We wanted to be the best Italian 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.480 restaurant in London. The idea that we wanted to start 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.639 a canteen for the office wasn't really our idea, but 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.080 we had the restriction of not being allowed to open 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:39.800 to the public, and we could only be open for lunch. 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:41.879 And why Italian, that's. 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:46.440 A good yeah. Richard. Richard's family were in Florence. His connection. 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:49.760 His mother was Italian from Trieste. We spent a lot 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.000 of time in Italy and Rose had actually lived in 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.400 Luca for two years with her children. 0:19:56.960 --> 0:19:59.720 I had the sense that you were also It wasn't 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:02.199 just Italian food, it was the idea that you were 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:04.800 also interested in where the food came from, and you 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:08.680 did all your trips, research trips about where the recipes 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:09.200 came from. 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:12.119 We really wanted to cook the kind of Italian food 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:15.440 that we had eaten in Italy. And if you went 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:19.200 to restaurants, the Italian restaurants in London were mostly run 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.560 and started by managers or waiters, and they brought the 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:24.720 kind of food that they thought people would want to 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:30.040 eat in London. Quite heavy, you know, parmeganni was delicious, 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:34.080 plus spaghetti with meatballs, cheap coianty, and we wanted to 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:36.080 bring the kind of food that we had cooked and 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:40.880 eaten in Italy. Bread, soups, pasta, sauces that were simple. 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:44.920 That all seems fairly obvious now, but thirty five years 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:46.120 ago that must have been. 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:48.639 It was very challenging. We used to bring back We 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:52.399 used to go to Italy and bring back parmesan cheese 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:54.440 we used to go and bring back a proshuto. I 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:58.440 remember carrying a proshuoto. And famously Rose once brought back 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:01.399 a huge pumpkin and she gave the pumpkin a seating 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:04.560 business class and she's at an economy. You know. But 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:06.600 it changed, It did change. 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:10.159 And have you seen that change over these years? 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:13.359 I mean, yeah, radically, yeah, yeah, I mean I think 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:17.200 that as I sometimes say, when cheap lights started happening, 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:19.600 that you could fly to Florence or fly to Naples 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:24.440 for fifteen pounds. More and more people went there, went 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.000 to Italy and thought, wow, I can eat this in Italy. 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:29.600 I'd like to eat in England. In the beginning, people 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:31.960 would we'd serve a Papa pomodoro, which was made of 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:34.960 bread and tomatoes and basil, and people would say, well, 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:37.120 at the time, why should I pay five pounds for this? 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:41.040 People became much more involved, I think in the kind 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:41.960 of food you could. 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:45.520 Eat and what are the changes have you seen over 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:47.080 this period? 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:49.840 I mean, what else is Well, it's been thirty seven years, 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:54.200 so there has been I think people, you know, eating 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:56.959 out more. I think that people go to restaurants, do 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:00.280 want to know about sourcing and then I think for us, 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:04.119 a big radical step was when we became involved with 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.080 the people who produced our wine. And so, you know, 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:09.520 we were very tusk and based in the beginning, but 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:12.679 then we went to Piedmonte to meet the wine producers, 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:17.119 or Sicily to meet the wine producers, or Pulia. It 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:20.200 took us into the world of people who were creating 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:23.800 something and then also people who were then starting to 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:28.439 really think about bringing food from Italy to England. We 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:31.560 brought back seeds, We brought back the seeds for cavalon narrow. 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:33.800 I have to give rosa credit for that, and found 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:37.479 a farmer near Southampton who grew it for us, you know, 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:40.600