Ruthie's Table 4

Bella Mackie and her family have been close friends for 30 or so years. And when you're close to a family, you're close to their food. We all spent summers footsteps away from each other's homes in the Val d’Orcia, swimming, walking and attempting to read novels between long lunches, late dinners, Negronis in the piazza piena Montepulciano Bella is no longer just the daughter of our friends. She is my friend. When she and her husband Greg come to the River Cafe, they know the food they want to eat, the wine they wish to drink, and they always request a quiet table. Ask any young person working in the restaurant about Bella's books, and they'll tell you that Jog On helped them through a crisis or How to Kill Your Family was one of those books they could just not put down. Welcome to Table 4, Bella. Please rate & review the podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to: Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/Instagram: www.instagram.com/ruthiestable4Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For any podcast enquires please contact: willem.olenski@atomizedstudios.tv For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favourite shows.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When I phoned Frank Gehry to ask him to do this podcast, he immediately said yes. And I’m not the only one Frank has said yes to. Ask around and the stories are the same—Frank giving a million dollars for an arts education in underserved communities along the Los Angeles River, or overseeing a program for mentoring children in underperforming elementary schools. His philanthropy is based on personal relationships, and I think his architecture is, too. Every time a new Frank Gehry building opened, Richard and I would make a pilgrimage to visit them—the Disney center in Los Angeles, the Louis Vuitton building in Paris, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. But one summer, in 2008, all we had to do was walk 10 minutes from our house to Hyde Park, because he had built a temporary pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery. He designed the timber-and-glass structure with his son Sammy. For those few months, we met there almost daily, to watch the sunset, to listen to people play music, to eat, and drink. This brave and beautiful structure made the park a better park and, for the summer, London a better city. Today, I have traveled from London to Los Angeles, not to see a Frank Gehry building but to see my dear friend, Frank. Will we have a good time? As always with Frank Gehry, the answer is yes.  Please rate & review the podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to: Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/Instagram: www.instagram.com/ruthiestable4Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For any podcast enquires please contact: willem.olenski@atomizedstudios.tv For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favourite shows.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Food is key to life. And today, more than ever, journalism is also key to life. Our guests, Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel are two brilliant, inspiring journalists who bring us news, analyse news, and present news, helping us determine our lives and the choices we make. They're smart, they're warm, they're funny, and they tell me they are always hungry. These two journalists crave food. This chef craves journalism. Join us on today’s episode to hear us talk about food, memories and more.   Please rate & review the podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to: Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/Instagram: www.instagram.com/ruthiestable4Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For any podcast enquires please contact: willem.olenski@atomizedstudios.tv For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favourite shows.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yotam Ottolenghi and I were introduced years ago by a mutual friend, Ari Sharpio. “Ruthie,” he said, “you’ve got to meet this guy. You think the same way.” Yotam and I believe in the people we work with, valuing them and their creativity. We also share a food geography. Mine, an Italian landscape of the Renaissance, his farther east, a beautiful Biblical landscape of desert and sea. We both live and work in London—a city far from where we were born. As a chef, cookbook author, and restaurateur, Yotam has pioneered a new approach to Middle Eastern cooking, while changing the way we shop and eat with his inviting gourmet markets. Sitting here in The River Cafe today, we will talk about separation and connection, Eastern and Western, food, family,  friends and thinking the same way. Listen to Ruthie’s Table 4: Yotam Ottolenghi today. Please rate & review the podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to: Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/Instagram: www.instagram.com/ruthiestable4Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For any podcast enquires please contact: willem.olenski@atomizedstudios.tv For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favourite shows.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I first met Olivia over food one night in the river Cafe, she was with Maggie Gyllenhaal, and they had just wrapped filming for their movie the Lost Daughter in Greece. It is not an exaggeration to say they pretty much ordered everything on the menu. We immediately got into talking about feeding our kids, cooking, and inflicted distance from family when working. This was a conversation that could have lasted for hours, but I had to go back to the kitchen and she needed to finish her lemon pasta before it cooled down. Today we are here in the River Café and she is the one cooking the lemon pasta - we are going to pick up where we left off a conversation with a woman, I admire respect and adore. Lucky me.  For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to: Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/Instagram: www.instagram.com/ruthiestable4Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For any podcast enquires please contact: willem.olenski@atomizedstudios.tv For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favourite shows.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In our previous episode, we spoke to Jamie Oliver about childhood, moving to London and getting started in television. On today’s podcast, we'll be talking about his school-meals campaign, but not before we send him back into the River Cafe Kitchen after a 20-year absence to prepare a River Cafe classic.For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to: Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/Instagram: www.instagram.com/ruthiestable4Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For any podcast enquires please contact: willem.olenski@atomizedstudios.tv For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favourite shows.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I can't say how many times when arriving at The River Café in a taxi, the driver will turn around to me and say, ‘Is this the restaurant where Jamie Oliver cooked?’ The other day, one even informed me that The River Café was owned by Jamie, and I thought, why correct him? He is the prodigal son or the brother, who knows when he walks in the restaurant, he is home.For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to: Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/Instagram: www.instagram.com/ruthiestable4Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For any podcast enquires please contact: willem.olenski@atomizedstudios.tv For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favourite shows.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A few months ago, I shared a panel with Vanessa Kingori, celebrating International Women's Day. Listening to Vanessa, it became apparent that it really wasn't necessary for me to be there. It was her views on social justice, women in business, creativity and leadership that everybody wanted to hear. Most of all, me.  Her path towards Chief Business Officer of Condé Nast International is a story of a young girl from Kenya climbing heights in a British world through sheer intelligence, motivation and determination. This we all know. But for me, the revelation was Vanessa talking about the food of her family, her culture, and especially the cooking of her grandmother.  Today we will hear more about memory and food, change and connectivity. As always, I will listen to Vanessa with awe, respect, and admiration. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to: Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/Instagram: www.instagram.com/ruthiestable4Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For any podcast enquires please contact: willem.olenski@atomizedstudios.tv For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favourite shows.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of my most cherished possessions is a River Cafe menu with the word YUM painted on it by Ed Ruscha. Ed is an artist, friend - and cook, but we really bond over words; words as art, words as books, words as recipes, words as love. Our worlds and words converged recently when he had an exhibition at the Tate and The National Gallery - a first for an artist. We celebrated with lunches, dinners and breakfasts together.  Ed has a little garden behind his studio in California, its conditions are dry and dessert like, but he grows the most amazing fruits and vegetables there. He is the first guest on Table 4 to bring his own recipe to read – a cactus omelette. We will discuss art and food, food and YUM. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to: Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/Instagram: www.instagram.com/ruthiestable4Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For any podcast enquires please contact: willem.olenski@atomizedstudios.tv For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favourite shows.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michael Mann and I met through architecture. On a trip to London about 25 years ago, he asked to visit the Lloyd's Building, designed by my husband, Richard Rogers. For us, it was an honour. For if Michael was a fan of Richard's architecture, Richard was a huge fan of Michael's movies. In fact, when watching Ali, Miami Vice or Collateral, my arm would be constantly squeezed. Not due to a dramatic moment of fear or tension or mystery, but at the way the buildings, streets, airports, bridges and interiors, even elevators, were portrayed on screen. Over long dinners, Richard and Michael often compared making a movie to making a building. Michael once said, ‘Well, at least, Richard, in a building, you can say to a client, if you remove a column, the building will fall down. Try saying that about a scene to a producer.’  Of all the movies Michael has made, though, the one that I consider the greatest is 60 seconds long, shot entirely underwater in a swimming pool. Michael and his wife, Summer, with their children, swimmingly, wishing a happy birthday to Richard. No architecture in this movie—just love.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.