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Speaker 2: What's the song with food?
Speaker 3: Song with food? Sugar sugar shug? I am a sugar
Speaker 3: free my candle girl.
Speaker 4: What about my thrill on Blueberry Hill?
Speaker 2: Or do not, Oh my darling, do not? On this
Speaker 2: our wedding day.
Speaker 1: An open kitchen in the River Cafe gives me the
Speaker 1: chance to watch people having dinner with their children. David
Speaker 1: and Elton uniquely engage with theirs, focused listening laughing, all
Speaker 1: for in.
Speaker 2: Their own private world.
Speaker 1: In between texts with David about plans for getting together,
Speaker 1: there are photographs Sachari on a boat with a huge
Speaker 1: seabassies just caught Elijah kicking a football, all of them
Speaker 1: in the South of France around a table. Recently, sitting
Speaker 1: next to Elton at a dinner in the River Cafe,
Speaker 1: we had no small talk. We spoke immediately about Elton
Speaker 1: John Aids Foundation, the polarized world we seem to be
Speaker 1: living in and what we need to do as citizens.
Speaker 1: David and Elton are activists. They registered their civil partnership
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five on the first day it
Speaker 1: was legal in the UK, leading the way for others
Speaker 1: to follow with confidence and with pride. Do you remember
Speaker 1: your first meal you had together? Did you meet in
Speaker 1: a restaurant?
Speaker 4: First may our first mill was at this table and
Speaker 4: I was sitting there, okay, and.
Speaker 2: I was a pleasant a date.
Speaker 4: Oh no, it was a lot less imitation with a
Speaker 4: group of well. Elton had come back from touring. He
Speaker 4: was single and he had his friend staying with him,
Speaker 4: and he said, I don't want to sit around the
Speaker 4: house like a widow. Let's just have a dinner party
Speaker 4: in write some people down because a lot of your friends.
Speaker 3: I was in AA, so I hadn't really met anybody
Speaker 3: except a people for three years.
Speaker 4: So his friend rang, my friend.
Speaker 2: Is that part of AA that you don't meet? I know,
Speaker 2: you can't think. It just was so uncompassed.
Speaker 3: I just I threw myself into getting well as much
Speaker 3: as I threw myself into getting unwell. So I did
Speaker 3: what I was told, and I had a great time.
Speaker 3: But eventually all I knew was a people. I didn't
Speaker 3: know any other gay people or I lost touch with
Speaker 3: them or whatever, and it wasn't certainly a sexual thing.
Speaker 3: So he rang.
Speaker 4: Elton's friend rang my friend Malcolm, and I was going
Speaker 4: to Malcolm's house for dinner that night. He was having
Speaker 4: a dinner party, and Elton's friend said, why didn't you
Speaker 4: bring your dinner party down to Windsor. So Alton didn't
Speaker 4: know me. I had no connection at all. It was
Speaker 4: very random. And I was vegetarian then, and I came
Speaker 4: through the door and you were having I think spaghetti bolonese.
Speaker 4: It was what everybody was eating. And so that's this.
Speaker 2: Is your menu for the first night. You laid eyes
Speaker 2: on each other I didn't.
Speaker 4: Have spaghetti bolonies, so Elton's housekeeper made me like a
Speaker 4: pasta bake I think with cheese, which was which was fine.
Speaker 4: But to be honest with you, I was so kind
Speaker 4: of overwhelmed with meeting Elton John that I didn't really
Speaker 4: think very much about the food then the next night,
Speaker 4: so he asked for my number that evening, and then
Speaker 4: he called me the next morning and said, I'm coming
Speaker 4: into London and would you want to come around and
Speaker 4: have dinner with me at my house in London? And
Speaker 4: I said that would be lovely, and he said we'll
Speaker 4: we'll have a Chinese takeaway and I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: it sounds like I love Chinese food. So I arrived
Speaker 4: at the house and there's four giant cardboard boxes on
Speaker 4: the kitchen counter and the table set for two, and
Speaker 4: I said, who else is coming? What's all this food for?
Speaker 4: And it was for mister Chows And Elton didn't know
Speaker 4: what I like, so he ordered the entire menu.
Speaker 1: I marry a man like that. I mean, I'd marry you.
Speaker 1: The minute somebody did that. I would say, this is
Speaker 1: the man for the rest.
Speaker 2: I think that's nice.
Speaker 4: I've never been to mister Chows. I didn't you know,
Speaker 4: I hadn't had high end Chinese food before. We had
Speaker 4: great Chinese food in Canada, but it was not mister Choles.
Speaker 4: But it was a really delicious meal. And we talked
Speaker 4: and talked for hours and hours and hours. We really connected.
Speaker 2: We're here in your beautiful, beautiful hou. Would you were
Speaker 2: saying you have lived here for how many years?
Speaker 3: I've lived here for next year, which will be twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five, lived here for fifty years?
Speaker 2: Fifty years? And you've never been tempted to move? Why
Speaker 2: would you no?
Speaker 3: I mean this is the hub of all the properties behind.
Speaker 3: This is the hub where the children were brought up
Speaker 3: and go to school locally, so it's always lovely to
Speaker 3: come back. It's the only traditional house we own, but
Speaker 3: you couldn't really do anything else to it. And I
Speaker 3: love the fact that it is traditional because I love
Speaker 3: the garden and in fact everything was decimated in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty nine when I knocked the house down practically for
Speaker 3: two years to have it made into a proper home
Speaker 3: instead of a pop stars house, and I started.
Speaker 2: The god, what a pup star's house looks like?
Speaker 3: We had a lot of gold records a lot of awards,
Speaker 3: and also I collected Gallet lamps, Tiffany lamps, Art Nouveau,
Speaker 3: Art Deco, Mazurel furniture, and there was so much of it.
Speaker 3: It was just all on the floor and I just
Speaker 3: actually run out of room to put anything. As you
Speaker 3: can see, I'm not a minimalist.
Speaker 1: But we could get for it what it has. It's
Speaker 1: not a minimalists, but it has a quality of real rigor.
Speaker 1: It does, so you're not saying you're not a minimalist.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I decided how do I get rid of
Speaker 3: all this stuff? So I decided to say all basically
Speaker 3: apart from a few four cars, some paintings and a
Speaker 3: bit of jewelry. And so I had a souther of
Speaker 3: his cell which was at the VNA for a week.
Speaker 3: I'm luckily we'd sold everything before the crash in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty nine, or I sold it because I hadn't met
Speaker 3: David by that time. And then I converted that after
Speaker 3: two years, I rented a house in London, which I
Speaker 3: subsequently bought, and then I came back here two years
Speaker 3: later in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: But that is full of a collection. You might not
Speaker 1: have the deco furniture and the same art. But you
Speaker 1: have collected when you collect. We suppose to be talking
Speaker 1: about food, but do do you have a rhythm and
Speaker 1: a kind of consistency for the kind of what you collect?
Speaker 3: Do you think, well, I've never collected ceramics before I
Speaker 3: became a mice and fanatic, and I became Staffordshire fanatic.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to put things that seemed right in
Speaker 3: that country home. I love silver well. I never come
Speaker 3: back from a place without something.
Speaker 2: And it doesn't have a memory.
Speaker 1: You can look at something and remember, do you, David,
Speaker 1: You remember where you were when you bought it?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 4: But I must have met. I have a hard time
Speaker 4: keeping up because Elton is such an enthusiastic collector. And
Speaker 4: you know, he grew up and the things in his
Speaker 4: room when he was a little boy were his friends.
Speaker 4: So he's always had a great love of objects. Objects
Speaker 4: he feels have feelings, don't you.
Speaker 3: Well they were the when I grow up. My parents
Speaker 3: argued all the time, so my olddicts were kept in
Speaker 3: pristine condition and they didn't shout at me. So I
Speaker 3: loved them and I've suddenly subsequently followed that on through
Speaker 3: the rest of my life. I do love objicts and
Speaker 3: they comfort me while I'm on the road. My dress
Speaker 3: room is full of and stuff like that. It's just
Speaker 3: very heartwarming for me to see it.
Speaker 4: All. It's about the curation and the celebration of them
Speaker 4: and displaying them lovingly and appreciating them. That brings you
Speaker 4: so much joy, and it gives the house of real
Speaker 4: sense of order too.
Speaker 2: It does. And also there's a lot of white, isn't there.
Speaker 2: I was thinking they give a.
Speaker 1: Lot of lightness these, you know, if you look at
Speaker 1: there is a lot of white and happiness. And it's
Speaker 1: maybe safety, you know, maybe as you were describing your room,
Speaker 1: maybe it's safe to have, you know, something that you
Speaker 1: can look at, the standing guard safety in the emotional way.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about food. So we thought we would do this.
Speaker 1: We would have our guests read a recipe and you're
Speaker 1: going to read it, David.
Speaker 4: So it's risotto with porcini and giol and this recipe
Speaker 4: served six. One kilogram of fresh porcini and giole, one
Speaker 4: garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped, one teaspoon of fresh time,
Speaker 4: one leader of chicken stock, one hundred grams of unsold butter,
Speaker 4: a red onion finely chopped, three hundred grams of risotto rice,
Speaker 4: two hundred and fifty millilters of extra dry white vermouth,
Speaker 4: and two hundred grams of parmesan freshly grated. Want the
Speaker 4: instructions as well?
Speaker 2: How are we going to make it otherwise?
Speaker 4: Okay, all right? Clean the mushrooms by brushing them lightly
Speaker 4: clean the caps of the porcini. Tear any large mushroom
Speaker 4: into small pieces. In a frying pan, heat three tablespoons
Speaker 4: of extra virgin olive oil. Add half of the mushrooms, chopped,
Speaker 4: garlic and thyme in season. Fry until cooked and the
Speaker 4: liquid has evaporated. Heat the chicken stock. Melt the butter
Speaker 4: with the remaining olive oil. Add the chopped onion, and
Speaker 4: cook on a gentle heat until the onion is soft.
Speaker 4: Add the rice and stir. Pour in the vermouth and
Speaker 4: cook until absorbed. Stir in the hot stok, ladle by ladle,
Speaker 4: and cook until the rice is al dante, usually about
Speaker 4: twenty minutes. Add the crooked wild mushrooms, the remaining butter,
Speaker 4: and the parmesan, and stir. Well.
Speaker 3: Let me have some.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's make it. We got in the kitchen. But
Speaker 2: I heard or I read that you like risotto so
Speaker 2: much you actually asked one of your cooks to go
Speaker 2: gently to learn how to make it risotto? Might that
Speaker 2: be the actually yesterday?
Speaker 3: That was?
Speaker 2: When was that?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: That was in the nineties when Johnny Versaci was a
Speaker 4: big part of our lives, and we used to go
Speaker 4: to Johnny's house in Milan. He lived above the offices
Speaker 4: on Via Jesu in a beautiful apartment that had been
Speaker 4: decorated by Monjardino spectacular, and the meals were theater is
Speaker 4: the only way I can describe it, because he had
Speaker 4: the white coated butlers with the white gloves, the white jackets,
Speaker 4: and you sat down and there was a beautiful piece
Speaker 4: of antique porcelain and then wosh, it was cleared away,
Speaker 4: and then a plate went down with a starter, and
Speaker 4: then we it was cleared away, and then another antiq
Speaker 4: porcelain plate came down to be cleared away for the
Speaker 4: second course or the premier patty, and then taken away
Speaker 4: again for the main course. And the resulto at Johnny's
Speaker 4: that was it's like nectar.
Speaker 3: It was, you know, it's just it was just so
Speaker 3: luscious and also as David said, the presentation went a
Speaker 3: long way with it because he got me into collecting china,
Speaker 3: porcelain and tablecloths. It was his fault. Tablecloths, tablecloths, tablecloth.
Speaker 3: We're huge on table cloths, napkin. Johnny introduced us to
Speaker 3: the tablecloth in Venice, which was Originallyesum, which is now closed.
Speaker 3: It was the most beautiful shop. And then on the
Speaker 3: island of we went to Dalla Olga, which is the
Speaker 3: most incredible shop which has tablecloths of every size, hand
Speaker 3: on lace. So I have to say that we went
Speaker 3: there and spent so much money on one weekend on
Speaker 3: tape gloves. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: And so you asked one of your cooks to learn
Speaker 1: how to make a resulto properly?
Speaker 2: Did that work? Did he learntually?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: It was it was good. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Have either of you ever worked in a restaurant? Did you?
Speaker 3: Did I have work?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: I mentioned wine merchants, but not a restaurant, did you.
Speaker 4: I waited on tables. I was a last boy, I
Speaker 4: was a dishwasher, I was a sooux chef. I worked
Speaker 4: in a kitchen of a golf and tennis club, and
Speaker 4: I did serve dinners to banquets for five hundred people.
Speaker 4: I served breakfast to golfers, used to do short order
Speaker 4: stuff in the kitchen to you know, do the toast
Speaker 4: and sometimes the bacon and the eggs for people getting
Speaker 4: ready to go play their golf game. I loved that.
Speaker 2: Did that teach you?
Speaker 4: It taught me a lot about the importance of kindness
Speaker 4: because particularly for weight staff, because they are under pressure
Speaker 4: from the chef, the under pressure from the management, and
Speaker 4: then the under pressure from the people they're serving. They
Speaker 4: get it from all directions. And so I always go
Speaker 4: out of my way anyone that serves me to make
Speaker 4: sure I'm incredibly grateful and reasonable and polite and always
Speaker 4: leave a nice tip, because it's really hard work and
Speaker 4: it can be unforgiving work at times. I don't know,
Speaker 4: you learn so much about human nature because watching the
Speaker 4: way people were very particular about their food was quite
Speaker 4: quite a learning experience for me when I when I
Speaker 4: worked in.
Speaker 3: Great experience, and that's why I like the restaurants that
Speaker 3: I go to because I like this stuff and I
Speaker 3: hate people who are route to serving staff. And I
Speaker 3: know a lot of people in my business that are
Speaker 3: and talk down to them. I just that's one thing
Speaker 3: I hate the most. No, it's the seductiveness is part
Speaker 3: of it. It's like Daivo right in Venice, which is
Speaker 3: the simplest restaurant, and.
Speaker 4: It's it's beautiful because the major d comes to the
Speaker 4: table of every meal we've we've never looked at the
Speaker 4: physical menu. He comes to the table with this little
Speaker 4: chart board.
Speaker 1: Eva is a restaurant Inventers that you get to it's
Speaker 1: quite hard to find, is there's that little light outside.
Speaker 2: It's really the most beautiful way is to ride by boat,
Speaker 2: isn't it? Is that how you get there? Do you
Speaker 2: ever go by boat?
Speaker 3: Yes, that's the only way we go anywhere we go.
Speaker 4: Come in through the side windows. But they arrive with
Speaker 4: the chartboard on the on the beautiful gilded column, and
Speaker 4: they give you all of the specials and everything that's
Speaker 4: being made for the day, and never the same meal twice.
Speaker 3: And the simplicity of it is so sexy and so
Speaker 3: fun that I hate pretentious restaurants. I can't. That's why
Speaker 3: the River Cafe is always her door enjoyable because you
Speaker 3: come in and it's like the greatest canteen in the
Speaker 3: world where you mix with a lot of people you know,
Speaker 3: and where people just seem to be having the best time.
Speaker 3: The service is great, the atmosphere is fantastic, whether you're
Speaker 3: inside with you're outside, and there's not an ounce of potential.
Speaker 2: And I would say that you'll.
Speaker 1: Go back to a restaurant if you didn't have a
Speaker 1: great meal, But if you were treated as if you
Speaker 1: weren't good enough to eat there, then why would you
Speaker 1: go back? The River Cafe Cafe are all day space
Speaker 1: and just steps away from the restaurant is now open
Speaker 1: in the morning an Italian breakfast with cornetti, ciambella and
Speaker 1: crostada from our pastry kitchen. In the afternoon, ice creamed
Speaker 1: coops and River Cafe classic desserts. We have sharing plates Salumi, misti, mozzarella, brusquetta,
Speaker 1: red and yellow peppers, Vitello, tonato and more.
Speaker 2: Come in the evening for.
Speaker 1: Cocktails with our resident pianist in the bar. No need
Speaker 1: to book, see you here.
Speaker 3: I grew up after the war, so everything about the
Speaker 3: early life. Yeah, I was born in the council house.
Speaker 3: I lived with my mother, my grandmother, because my father
Speaker 3: was away in the Air force. Was your mother's mother, Yes,
Speaker 3: My grandmother. She was fantastic.
Speaker 2: What was she like?
Speaker 3: She was wonderful. She could cook anything and make it
Speaker 3: taste incredible. I mean, basic ingredients were hard to get.
Speaker 3: After all, we were Russiened and bacon was partly a
Speaker 3: no no. But she made I never remember a bad
Speaker 3: meal or going hungry, and everything that was left over
Speaker 3: she made into something else the next day. And what
Speaker 3: I loved about her because I have the biggest sweet tooth.
Speaker 3: Her bread puddings and her apple pies, and her scones
Speaker 3: or scones and her victorious spongeres very simple. The kitchen
Speaker 3: was again, the coal cellar was in. The kitchen was
Speaker 3: con believe it. The laundry was done on the stove
Speaker 3: in a boiler, and we had a mangle to It
Speaker 3: was a very basic upbringing. But I can never remember
Speaker 3: the smell of cooking was always wonderful, and she could
Speaker 3: cook anything. I fell in love with very basic, simple
Speaker 3: English food at that point.
Speaker 2: I think that a simple English food.
Speaker 1: As you talk about bread pudding and apple pie, those
Speaker 1: are very They're not easy to make, you know, And
Speaker 1: it's to do with the ingredients and the method and.
Speaker 2: The way you cook.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and things like spotted digging calcid. I walk into
Speaker 3: a restaurant, say in Yorkshire or something like that, and
Speaker 3: sometimes they have things like that on the menu to go,
Speaker 3: oh my God, which for me is just a sheer delight.
Speaker 3: I always sometimes think that you go to some john
Speaker 3: for instance, they have ecoes cakes, and the echoes cakes
Speaker 3: are incredible, and they sell it with the cheese and
Speaker 3: it's just like wow, man from heaven. Nowadays, unfortunately I
Speaker 3: can't eat it because I'm semi diabetic, but I do
Speaker 3: like those English stalwarts a lot too well.
Speaker 2: So growing up, you had a mother and a grandmother
Speaker 2: in the house, and your father was where he was.
Speaker 3: He was in a way in the Air Force in Aiden,
Speaker 3: and so I didn't really see much of him. So
Speaker 3: it was a woman's household. My mom's sister, my aunt,
Speaker 3: was always there as well. So I grew up with
Speaker 3: a bunch of women who knew how to cook, which
Speaker 3: was great.
Speaker 2: And you all sat down to meal every night together.
Speaker 3: Yes, and we toasted our toast by the fire was yours.
Speaker 2: Similar in Toronto.
Speaker 4: I grew up in Canada. In Toronto, I was one
Speaker 4: of three boys, and my mom was We were very lucky.
Speaker 4: She was a stay at home mom. She could make
Speaker 4: almost anything happen instantly. She had a deep freeze in
Speaker 4: the basement and sometimes we'd come back from school or
Speaker 4: a sports match and we'd bring two friends along and
Speaker 4: she'd say, no problem, and she'd go downstairs and she
Speaker 4: thought out some pastries, she thought some meat, she thought
Speaker 4: a tomato sauce or something then prepared in advance. Suddenly
Speaker 4: the dinner could just expand or change, you know, with
Speaker 4: thirty minutes notice. And meals were important, although given it
Speaker 4: was three boys and there was a lot going on,
Speaker 4: it was a lot of meals on the hop by
Speaker 4: what you were the I'm the middle one, the middle one. Yeah,
Speaker 4: the one thing that mum was important because we were
Speaker 4: always coming and going. But Sunday lunch, Sunday dinner was
Speaker 4: the one time she wanted the family to be around
Speaker 4: the table and have more of a sense of occasion,
Speaker 4: and that was a traditional English roast. My grandparents on
Speaker 4: my mother's side were from the north and the South
Speaker 4: of Ireland, and my grandparents on my father's side were
Speaker 4: from England and Wales, so a lot of those traditions
Speaker 4: came across to Canada and Sunday roast, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes,
Speaker 4: roast beef, you know, Brussels sprouts, beans, carrots, a really
Speaker 4: good gravy, and then always a baked pie or cake
Speaker 4: or sweet for dessert. My British grandmother was an amazing baker.
Speaker 2: So you both had grandmothers that.
Speaker 3: I think grandparents are so important.
Speaker 2: They are, I agree.
Speaker 3: The thing about my grandmother was that because we had
Speaker 3: a garden, we grew all our own produce because it
Speaker 3: was so much cheaper, and my grandmother had green fingers,
Speaker 3: so we always had fresh vegetables. Hardly ever had processed peas.
Speaker 3: I mean the great advantage in those days that food
Speaker 3: wasn't really you know, instant you did, no instant whips,
Speaker 3: no instant there mashed potato. It was all genuinely from
Speaker 3: the garden, which was delicious. So I mean, I remember
Speaker 3: shelling the peas every Sunday morning. That's that was like David,
Speaker 3: Sunday roase was very important for the family gathering. So
Speaker 3: shelling the peas was one thing. Peeling the potatoes and
Speaker 3: another broad being to another. So we always had good
Speaker 3: produce because we couldn't afford to buy them because you know, teams.
Speaker 3: Times were hard after the war and the ruts, and
Speaker 3: we had a tiny bottle of orange juice which you
Speaker 3: diluted and poured the water into. But I never felt
Speaker 3: as if we were listening any it denied.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but neither of your mother's work. They didn't have
Speaker 1: to combine a career with cooking.
Speaker 3: Your mother. My mother worked all the time and worked
Speaker 3: really really hard as well. And she in the shop,
Speaker 3: she worked in a dairy, she worked at the Air Force.
Speaker 3: She's always but she'd always come home and make dinner. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she was very hard working woman, but still cooked.
Speaker 4: She raised Dalton as a single mom. And so you
Speaker 4: know his ability to you know, study and take lessons
Speaker 4: and learn and everything. His mum worked very very hard
Speaker 4: providing for the family to allow him to do that.
Speaker 4: That's what got him on.
Speaker 3: His path to be who he is today.
Speaker 2: Did you ever go to restaurants?
Speaker 3: The only time I remember going to a restaurant is
Speaker 3: when I went to a Chinese restaurant in Harrow. We
Speaker 3: lived in Pinner and Chinese restaurants suddenly became the raide.
Speaker 3: Coffee bars were the rage before that, but we went
Speaker 3: for a Chinese meal was the first restaurant I can
Speaker 3: ever remember going to and it was just wow, we
Speaker 3: have bean sprouts and it was just so delicious and
Speaker 3: it was so exotic, and I remember I was so
Speaker 3: excited to go to this Chinese restaurant. There weren't many
Speaker 3: in the area. One in Harrow, there wasn't certainly one
Speaker 3: in Pinner, but it was just an incredible occasion. And
Speaker 3: that's the first exotic food I ever really had. How
Speaker 3: old were you, I don't know, eight nine maybe, yeah?
Speaker 4: And did you get to a restaurant It was a
Speaker 4: very very special treat. Yeah, because again it was expensive
Speaker 4: and it was a big treat. What we never had
Speaker 4: was fast food. But my mother was very anti fast food.
Speaker 4: She just didn't didn't think it was good for us.
Speaker 4: I think she was ahead of her time with that.
Speaker 4: There wasn't any falt food when I grew up.
Speaker 2: Fast food was boiling the cabb ten minutes.
Speaker 3: When I went to school, that suddenly became There was
Speaker 3: a Wimpy Bar when I was about fifteen. That's the
Speaker 3: first fast food place I can ever remember.
Speaker 1: But you both, what is interesting to talk to you
Speaker 1: about is that food was important to you, and delicious
Speaker 1: food was important to you, and you grew up with
Speaker 1: a sense of that importance in your life.
Speaker 3: You know, well, meals were very social. It's when you
Speaker 3: got together. I mean when I went to school, I
Speaker 3: had school meals which were vile.
Speaker 2: That was a day school that was justful.
Speaker 3: Just awful, awful. Then you come home at night and
Speaker 3: that was the day. That's where you got breakfast was
Speaker 3: just on the on the run really to get to school.
Speaker 3: But the meal at night was always important, and of
Speaker 3: course the weekend, the Sunday lunch was really important.
Speaker 1: And when you're both in different stages of your life,
Speaker 1: left this coon of your grandmother's your food, your mother
Speaker 1: rustling something up when a friend came for you to
Speaker 1: talk when each of you, would you tell me when
Speaker 1: when did you leave home?
Speaker 2: When did you How old were you when you suddenly
Speaker 2: were out on your own and thinking about food in
Speaker 2: your own way.
Speaker 3: When I was about I met Bernie that was nineteen
Speaker 3: maybe or twenty and we shared a flat in Islington
Speaker 3: and did it have a kitchen? But I'm incapable of
Speaker 3: cooking anything and Bernie is too, so we just.
Speaker 2: Right out all the time. Yeah, And would that be
Speaker 2: would you seek out restaurants or would you just have
Speaker 2: grabbed something stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Keep things because we couldn't afford expensive things. But never
Speaker 3: The first real exciting restaurant I went to was when
Speaker 3: Dick James took her to a restaurant off of Tottenham
Speaker 3: Court Road.
Speaker 2: And who was Dick James.
Speaker 3: Dick James was my publisher and my manager who you know,
Speaker 3: published the Beatles, very famous, first person to sign. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And so I went to this restaurant called Maisonette, and
Speaker 3: I had a prawn cocktail. I'm never seen anything like.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what to do, what's this? So that
Speaker 3: was the first posh in in Bertacomma's restaurant that I
Speaker 3: ever went to.
Speaker 2: Paul McCartney told me that that same experience, said he
Speaker 2: when he went was taken.
Speaker 3: By Brian Epstein, Brian Epstein to.
Speaker 1: Again another Maisonette or Montclair or Bontant, and it was
Speaker 1: suddenly an eye opener. He said, it was the first
Speaker 1: time he'd only had cheap wine. With John Lennon, they
Speaker 1: really and they couldn't understand the point of wine because
Speaker 1: it tasted so terrible because it was so cheap. And
Speaker 1: then he went and had a good class of wine
Speaker 1: and realized what life could be. Did you have the
Speaker 1: same feeling about your.
Speaker 3: Prome cocktail exactly? It was like, oh, and the bread
Speaker 3: was lovely and it was beautiful bread rolled and crispy,
Speaker 3: and and you thought, well, this is a different this
Speaker 3: is a step up. I mean, it's not the Aberdeen Steakhouse.
Speaker 3: This well it's not. This is a proper restaurant. Yeah, sorry,
Speaker 3: Aberdeen st you. But to me, the Aberdeen Steakhouse was posh.
Speaker 2: That was posh.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember once I was in New York and my
Speaker 1: parents used to take us as a special treat to
Speaker 1: this restaurant. And then I was with a girlfriend who
Speaker 1: was a friend of mine, and she said her parents
Speaker 1: were deciding where to go out to eat and they
Speaker 1: mentioned this restaurant and her parents said, oh, we're not
Speaker 1: going to a place like that.
Speaker 2: And I thought that was our special place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought the Aberdeen Steakhouse.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah. What about you?
Speaker 4: When I was working in advertising, you know, you were
Speaker 4: taking out clients and you were entertaining them. So that
Speaker 4: was a little bit like being let off the leash
Speaker 4: to to explore and have and have fun. And you know,
Speaker 4: you wanted to tat your clients well, and you were
Speaker 4: able to take them to nice restaurants. In Toronto, where
Speaker 4: I grew up, has a fantastic it's a great restaurant town.
Speaker 4: It's very international. So what you get exposed to is
Speaker 4: was very very sophisticated and very very worldly. And that
Speaker 4: was that was I've never, you know, eaten like that
Speaker 4: in my life. That was really special.
Speaker 1: And so back to the apartment you lived in Islington,
Speaker 1: you ate out, you of grab food and then slowly,
Speaker 1: with your success, you were able to go and at
Speaker 1: that point to being able to eat food and other restaurants.
Speaker 3: When I became successful, it was a different kettle of fish.
Speaker 3: I met people who were more sophisticated than I was,
Speaker 3: who knew the London restaurant scene and everything, and I
Speaker 3: started going to better places with them. It's just it's
Speaker 3: just the journey. I've started to play at the venues,
Speaker 3: I was starting to eat at better restaurants. I was
Speaker 3: starting to earn more money, I was starting to live
Speaker 3: in a better place. As you go, as you do
Speaker 3: things like that, step by step, you know, you get
Speaker 3: introduced to different things. And it was lovely. It was
Speaker 3: a wonderful journey in every respect. I never collected art
Speaker 3: until I suddenly became wealthy enough to buy some prints,
Speaker 3: and the whole journey just went step hand in hand.
Speaker 3: And yes, I loved I loved going to lovely restaurant.
Speaker 3: I remember when I first met there was two restaurants
Speaker 3: in cavon Garten called the Garden and inego Joants. Remember Jaz,
Speaker 3: I used to go there all the time.
Speaker 2: That was English food, wasn't it called? Yeah? Did you
Speaker 2: go to Greek or did you discover chow?
Speaker 3: I never? I never went abroad at all. Hardly. I
Speaker 3: went to America, but I never really in France because
Speaker 3: I never really went to France or Italy or any
Speaker 3: places that came later on. I was introduced to America
Speaker 3: in cuisine in inverted commers. I don't really think they
Speaker 3: have a cuisine unless you're in the South and chicken
Speaker 3: and the food is incredible in the South. Yeah, oh
Speaker 3: my god, do you think?
Speaker 2: What do you like in the South?
Speaker 3: I like all sorts of things that aren't good for me,
Speaker 3: like fried chicken, fried chicken donuts. If I had a
Speaker 3: death row meal, it wouldn't contain anything except sweets because
Speaker 3: I can't eat them now. So I'd have ice cream, donuts,
Speaker 3: apple pie, rubab crumble blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: I get it. Yeah, So you don't need any sugar
Speaker 2: now at all? Yeah? And do you crave or miss
Speaker 2: or of you?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: How long has it been since you've eaten sugar for
Speaker 2: a long time?
Speaker 3: I can have an apple, I can eat a bit
Speaker 3: of melon, but they do not. As long as you're
Speaker 3: sensible about it, it doesn't shoot your blood sugar up.
Speaker 3: But while I crave is chocolate and ice cream, I
Speaker 3: can't have any.
Speaker 2: Ice cream sugar, can you?
Speaker 3: Yes, it's hardcore, it's very We've just ordered some from Italy,
Speaker 3: which he kindly bought me back from. Where was it
Speaker 3: when I was in?
Speaker 4: I was in just outside of Pasatana.
Speaker 2: If you like.
Speaker 1: Listening to Ruthie's Table four, would you please make sure
Speaker 1: to rate and review the podcast on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about work and eating. So if you know
Speaker 1: you're having a concert, would you have a meal before
Speaker 1: or do you go out hungry?
Speaker 2: Or do you have Tell me about if.
Speaker 3: My show's usually start at eight? Well they used to,
Speaker 3: because I'm not doing them anymore. But I would eat
Speaker 3: probably at five point thirty something not too heavy.
Speaker 2: What would it be like?
Speaker 3: What would it would be? Probably a little steak and
Speaker 3: some vegetables, not probably yet, just some protein and some
Speaker 3: vegetables because you can't go on stage when you'll fall out.
Speaker 3: They just know, very unpleasant thought that would be. It
Speaker 3: was a ritual, my whole your ritual.
Speaker 2: So your ritual is to eat at five thirty by yourself.
Speaker 2: Did you see people before or not?
Speaker 1: Just its just me and yeah, and then you go
Speaker 1: out and you have water, presumably water, and.
Speaker 3: Then you know it's I get to the venue at
Speaker 3: three o'clock. I've got to sleep till five point thirty,
Speaker 3: and then I have my lunch, dinner. Then I faff
Speaker 3: around getting ready and then let's it. It's just a
Speaker 3: ritual that happens all the time. Five thirty is the
Speaker 3: regular five thirty.
Speaker 2: And what about afterwards? Do you eat afterwards?
Speaker 3: No, I'm on a plane. It's you might have a sandwich,
Speaker 3: might have a sandwich, half a sandwich.
Speaker 2: When do you have the opportunity to explore a city?
Speaker 1: Then if you're giving a concert in a city, do
Speaker 1: you have a sense of where you are that you
Speaker 1: can sort of be where you are or do.
Speaker 2: It is purely arriving, sleeping, performing, and then it's.
Speaker 3: All a blur there it is there's no time to
Speaker 3: side see and you realize if you're in Powers and
Speaker 3: you're in Italy, or you're in Denmark or places that
Speaker 3: you feel if you're in Romania and Bulgoa, it's different
Speaker 3: because you've never experienced it before. But the places I know,
Speaker 3: I'm used to. But to be honest to you, it's
Speaker 3: a routine. No time to stop and enjoy the scenery.
Speaker 3: You go, arrive at the airport, get into the car,
Speaker 3: go to the show, relax, eat, do the show, fly
Speaker 3: off to another place.
Speaker 2: But you do travel for pleasure.
Speaker 1: So absolutely, you have memories of a restaurant in Florence,
Speaker 1: you have memories of a restaurant in Venice. Are there
Speaker 1: other cities that you really other than the two Italian ones?
Speaker 4: In France or in well, the south, in the south
Speaker 4: of France. We have a house in Yes. So we're
Speaker 4: introduced to a restaurant in nie Cod La Petite Maison,
Speaker 4: and it was Hubert and Javonci that recommended it to us,
Speaker 4: because he was someone that welcomed us when we first
Speaker 4: came down and gave us a few pointers on places
Speaker 4: to go and people to know, and that became a
Speaker 4: real ritual for us. Every summer we would go there
Speaker 4: and be looked after by Nicole at least once a week,
Speaker 4: once every two weeks.
Speaker 2: Character Yeah, one.
Speaker 1: Time Richard and I were there and we wanted we
Speaker 1: won't even let it, and we wanted to leave, and
Speaker 1: she wouldn't let us go.
Speaker 2: She said this, and it was going to be the
Speaker 2: Gypsy Queens.
Speaker 4: This is like, she's a brilliant restaurant for her, she's
Speaker 4: very passionate. She's not everybody's cup of tea, but the
Speaker 4: food is worth it, and she's always been listening to
Speaker 4: us and the boysilers Again, we never see a menu
Speaker 4: when we go there. They literally Nicole just feeds us.
Speaker 4: So it's like course after course after corn, a lot
Speaker 4: of it's a lot of food, which is why we
Speaker 4: don't go too often, because it's quite rich and there's
Speaker 4: a lot of butter and a lot of all the
Speaker 4: oil you eat.
Speaker 2: Out much of the South answers.
Speaker 4: Mostly, we've had a wonderful chef who's cooked for us
Speaker 4: for over twenty years and I think because Elton spends
Speaker 4: so much time traveling on the road, and I travel
Speaker 4: a lot for work as well. The gray luxury in
Speaker 4: the world is staying in your own home and eating wonderful.
Speaker 3: Food terrorists there, which is just perfect for breakfast, for lunch,
Speaker 3: for dinner. It's just you can't drag yourself away from
Speaker 3: the table. It's a conversation table, and the viewer is amazing.
Speaker 3: So why would you bother to go out?
Speaker 4: And all our friends come to visit us, so that's
Speaker 4: the time we catch up with the people we love,
Speaker 4: you know, on that beautiful terrorist eating fantastic food, all
Speaker 4: the local produce. You know, it's like the food basket
Speaker 4: of the world there and you get fantastic produce and exactly.
Speaker 2: Question I saw that fish.
Speaker 1: I know Sara was going to ask you, growing up
Speaker 1: as you did, with the importance of food, points of
Speaker 1: the table, the importance of that kind of sharing of
Speaker 1: your time with food.
Speaker 2: What about the boys? How do you do it with them?
Speaker 1: What will they when I'm interviewing them in fifteen years,
Speaker 1: what will they tell me about their life?
Speaker 3: As they would say they had the best time. I mean,
Speaker 3: they just you know, they love go to the chef
Speaker 3: food in the summer and exactly as I say, goes
Speaker 3: out fishing comes back with a hate. We eat it
Speaker 3: and it's just like, well, it's such a great feeling,
Speaker 3: and I think he loves it, the fact that we're
Speaker 3: eating dinner and he called it because the summer. Really
Speaker 3: it's not just about it's more about them than us.
Speaker 3: It's about we want to give them a great memory
Speaker 3: of summer, so that kids have the friends come and
Speaker 3: stay with us with their parents. So it's really we
Speaker 3: pay more attention to them than we do to ourselves.
Speaker 4: And meals are sacred, so no phones at the table,
Speaker 4: no television on in the background. It's all about conversation.
Speaker 4: It's all about connection. It's where we catch up because
Speaker 4: we all have busy lives and we hear about each
Speaker 4: other's days. And during lockdown where we with the boys
Speaker 4: three meals a day, when we just talked all the
Speaker 4: time about what was going on in the world and
Speaker 4: told funny stories or learned about his history or my history.
Speaker 4: And the food is part of that brings you together.
Speaker 1: Food is about sharing time with your children, something that
Speaker 1: you want to explore, to tell you about another country.
Speaker 1: It's also comfort, And I was wondering if my last
Speaker 1: question of a very beautiful interview and thank you is
Speaker 1: to ask you if you needed comfort from a food.
Speaker 2: Is there a food that you would go to?
Speaker 3: Comfort food? Bacon sandwich, bacon sandwich.
Speaker 4: Probably a really basic pasta, like a simple pasta, like
Speaker 4: pasta like reat pasta, which I love with a bit
Speaker 4: of cheese, a lot of even, but even simple pasta with.
Speaker 2: Pasta is very very confident.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's very comforting to me too. But if
Speaker 3: if I'm here and a bacon sandwich is much easier
Speaker 3: to prepare, So.
Speaker 2: How do you make a bacon sandwich?
Speaker 3: Elton John on whole wheat bread with butter and proper
Speaker 3: English bacon, not Danish, not streaky, but you know Lush's
Speaker 3: bacon with the fat cut off and cooked quite well,
Speaker 3: so it's quite crackly.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'd like to have one of those. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much, thank you.
Speaker 3: It's very love, thank you, thank you,