0:00

Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a

0:02

production of iHeartRadio and Adami's

0:04

Studios.

0:11

For years, I've wanted

0:13

to sit at his table and talk to Nick Allett,

0:16

one of our most favorite regulars at the River

0:18

Cafe, who when he walks in, absolutely

0:20

lights up the restaurant with his deep

0:22

voice and his deep warmth. I

0:25

imagine we would talk about the musicals he's

0:27

produced, Lay Miss Katz, Carousel,

0:29

Hamilton, but he's doing now, his

0:31

political battle to save theaters during

0:33

the pandemic, and the great love

0:35

he had for his best friend, the late brilliant

0:38

restaurant critic Adrian gil and

0:40

of course about the food he's going to order. But

0:43

then I remember the line in the classic

0:45

movie Casablanca when Ingrid

0:47

Bergmann asked the manager of the Cafe American

0:50

for Rick, her long ago lover Humphrey

0:53

Bogart, to join her. Madam.

0:55

He responds, Rick never sits

0:57

with the customers, never the

1:00

same with me. So I say hello

1:02

and then leave to have whoever it is,

1:04

be with the person they're dining with. But

1:06

today Nick all it is not a

1:08

guest in the River Cafe, but a guest on

1:10

Ruthie's Table four. And we are here

1:13

to talk. He's just come from the kitchen

1:15

where he baked a lemon tart with the pastry chefs.

1:17

He'll tell us how he made it, and then we will

1:20

discuss the food he grew up with when

1:22

he cooks at home, theater and food,

1:24

food and friendship. I think even

1:26

Rick would approve and appreciate how lucky

1:29

I am to have Nick with me a

1:31

man I adore and for a while

1:33

online.

1:34

Ruthie, what a joy to be here, thank you.

1:37

So I've just come from making

1:40

the River Cafe lemon tart. So

1:42

this is how you do it. You take one quantity

1:45

of sweet pastry baked, then

1:48

for the filling you take a finely grated

1:50

zest and juice of seven lemons. And that

1:53

is quite a sure in itself. If you've got a soux

1:55

chef in your kitchen, you can do that work for you. That

1:57

makes life much much better. And indeed I

2:00

once had Adrian Anthony

2:02

Gill as my shoe chef grating the lemons

2:04

for me. Not very well. I hastened to

2:06

adding three

2:08

fifty grams of caster sugar, six

2:11

whole eggs, nine egg

2:13

yolks, three hundred grams

2:15

of unsalted butter, which are softened.

2:18

You preheat the grill to high, and

2:21

then you make your filling. Put all of the

2:23

ingredients except the eggs in a large salcepan

2:26

over a very low heat, stirring

2:29

until dissolved. Combine

2:31

the mixture with the eggs, return

2:34

to the salcepan, and cook on a low

2:36

heat until thick. That

2:38

getting it together so it doesn't curdle

2:41

is a real, real school. You have to do

2:43

it very, very slowly.

2:44

My name's got a tubs on the head, Pastry Chepherd

2:46

there of a cafe, so we're

2:49

nearly there. So

2:54

if I had a spoon, it would definitely be coating

2:57

the back of a spoon. Right now, you can kind of see

2:59

it round the edge starting to

3:01

tick again.

3:01

When it says that and you draw a line through

3:04

it, should it hold completely.

3:06

Orders well

3:08

with this in particular, because we're about to put

3:10

it under the grill. If you think about

3:13

it, the grill's going to add a whole

3:15

another layer of heat, so you

3:17

don't What you really want to do with the lemon

3:19

curd before it goes into the tart filling

3:22

is actually do it slightly under

3:24

have it quite a have be quite a thin

3:27

curd, so that again

3:29

we're very particular about the spots that

3:31

we get under the grill. Well,

3:34

you can really tell when

3:36

something's been overcooked. The spots are absolutely

3:38

tiny. As with something that's

3:41

been perfectly cooked. It

3:44

looks much more like a sort of giraffe print,

3:47

and you want that kind of beautiful mouffling

3:49

over the whole thing. We

3:51

grate the pastry into the tartshell and

3:54

then we press it around the edges, and

3:56

then we go around with a knife, and

3:59

then our trick is we freeze.

4:02

The top shells.

4:04

We have a whole stack once it's made,

4:08

and then we can throw it in the oven without bacon

4:10

beans and it doesn't side stone

4:13

shrink, so very much like a pizza.

4:16

We're just going to slowly rotate.

4:18

It doesn't matter if

4:20

there's a slight wobble to it at this point,

4:23

because it will will eventually settle.

4:26

What ideally is the temperature you serve.

4:28

Then if

4:31

you.

4:34

Put it in the fridge, the pastry goes sob You

4:36

want it to be lovely and Chris.

4:38

How beautiful will there? You go?

4:40

Choose to eat it for lunch, might

4:43

be.

4:47

Or just in one slice.

4:51

Yeah, I know, It's definitely one of my favorite puddings. Here.

4:55

As you say that you choose a dessert, do you like.

4:59

I love cooking. I came to cooking

5:01

quite late.

5:02

Well.

5:03

Growing up, food was never a big part of

5:05

my life. I come from an army background. My

5:07

mother was a very competent cook, but

5:09

when living on army bases all over the world,

5:12

in Germany, in Hong Kong and Australia. We

5:14

didn't live in England until I was in my

5:16

teens, and really the ingredients

5:18

that she had available to her were those available

5:21

from the NAFI, you know, the army store.

5:23

She wouldn't go into the local Germany.

5:26

No, you were discouraged basically from

5:28

leaving the base. This was sort of late fifties,

5:30

early sixties, so post war there

5:33

wasn't that much integration still in the NATO

5:35

bases, more so when we moved

5:37

to Australia. But again, we

5:39

had a year or two in Hong Kong when

5:42

I was quite young, and it tended

5:44

to be what you could get from the shop that

5:46

was available. I mean, we never left the bases.

5:49

I went to school, went to army schools or

5:51

my friends were local. When I told

5:54

my friends I'd lived in Germany for I

5:56

think ten out of the first fifteen years of my life.

5:58

They said, do you speak fluent German? Not one word.

6:01

You just didn't integrate. So

6:03

for her with a bit.

6:04

Of mature had she had a career at all.

6:07

She married quite young. She

6:09

married my father quite young, and actually being

6:12

an army officer's wife is a career

6:15

because you're responsible for so much hr

6:18

and looking after the army officers wives

6:20

and organizing charity

6:23

drives and things like that. That was pretty full on.

6:25

Was your father on the base he.

6:27

Was, No. He was away a lot of the time. He was away on

6:29

maneuvers. He was a cavalry

6:31

officer, which didn't mean he read a halls. It meant

6:33

he drove tanks and things like that, and

6:36

he was away a lot for exercises.

6:39

So did Jim, who cooked in the house.

6:42

My mother cooked. It never occurred to me to actually

6:44

offer to help. I wasn't that interested

6:46

that family. Myself

6:48

and two sisters, and

6:51

you are the I'm the eldest, So

6:53

our relationship with food was not one of It

6:55

was not indifference, but it wasn't

6:57

a key part of my life. I used

7:00

to years and years and years later, more

7:03

recently, up until she died, I used to take

7:05

my mother to really lovely restaurants and she's

7:07

going down and it's really lovely, but I mean it's awful

7:09

lot of money. We could be doing better

7:11

things like going to the theater, and well we can

7:13

do that as well.

7:14

Yeah, So would you

7:16

sit down for family meals every

7:19

we did after school? You'd come home and

7:21

sit down to the family suffer.

7:23

We did by your mother and I would watch

7:25

I'd watch her, you know, prepare

7:28

you have to do a lot of entertaining as an army I do.

7:31

You have to do the other officers wives

7:33

and visiting offices and things like that. As

7:35

you move up through the ranks, you

7:38

then start to get staff. And by

7:40

the time that my

7:42

father died in ninety sixty nine, he

7:45

was a commanding officer at a large base

7:47

in Dorset and we had I think a

7:49

permanent chef and two or three other

7:51

staff.

7:52

So and then what did that change the food

7:55

in the house?

7:57

Not really, it was sort of pretty simple.

8:00

Staff. The army didn't necessarily engage

8:02

in Courdunbleau Andtyle

8:04

sixties. This was late sixties,

8:07

mid to late sixties on

8:09

my relationship with food, As I say, it was

8:11

one of not particular

8:13

interest. Unfortunately it changed

8:16

quite radically because my father tragically

8:19

died in a helicopter crash when I

8:21

was fifteen, and my younger sister

8:23

abroad. No he was He

8:26

was killed in a helicopter, was a passenger

8:29

being flown to a conference

8:32

on the other side of England, and to

8:34

this day no one really knows what happens there

8:36

was it was raised in the house

8:38

and there was an investigation,

8:41

but essentially a lot of helicopters

8:43

were coming in and the helicopter

8:45

flying in in front of his when it took

8:47

off, instead of going out at an

8:49

angle of forty five degrees, went straight up into

8:51

the air, straight into his helicopter

8:53

coming down.

8:54

And both helicopters were everybody,

8:56

All.

8:57

Three, the two pilots and my father were

8:59

both killed and there was an extraordinary

9:02

There were two young soldiers watching

9:04

from a canteen and they saw these I

9:06

saw the helicopters come down. I

9:09

was reading about it recently, and they ran. They

9:11

jumped through the windows of the canteen and

9:14

ran and tried

9:16

to pull the bodies out of the helicopters, and they

9:18

both got very badly burned, and they both

9:21

got decorations for doing it, but

9:23

sadly it was too late.

9:24

It was too late, and you were fifteen. And that

9:26

did you then leave the military?

9:28

Well, yes, the army

9:31

are the army a wonderful

9:33

family to be part of. It's rather like the theater. Actually

9:36

is a very close community. But they're also very

9:38

very practical, and if you lose

9:40

the commanding officer of a base, of a big base,

9:42

then you have to replace him quite quickly. So within

9:45

a couple of weeks of his death, we were dispatched

9:48

as it were, and picked

9:51

up and my mother had to find somewhere else to live.

9:53

They didn't range alternative accommodation. We end

9:56

up living in a little cottage on a friend's farm

9:58

nearby.

9:58

And also did you go to

10:00

boarding school?

10:01

I did. I went to boarding school from

10:04

a quite a young age, and it was

10:06

traditional to send boys away at eight.

10:08

But then I had a wonderful break and that we were

10:10

shipped to Australia. This is obviously while he was still

10:13

alive, and they gave me the choice of

10:15

staying in English boarding school or going to Australia.

10:18

Not our choice to make everything. So

10:20

I had a wonderful time.

10:22

In Australia to explore. Were you allowed?

10:23

Oh yeah, I was at a

10:26

weekly boarding place where you could either

10:28

go home at weekends or stay. But if you stayed,

10:31

the boys that stayed and I chose to would

10:33

go on these incredible expeditions up into the

10:35

mountains and camping in the bush

10:37

and learning to surf and

10:39

things like that. It was everything you would expect

10:42

the Australian outdoor life for a young person

10:44

to be.

10:44

I wonder if the Australian boarding

10:46

schools was any different from British.

10:49

It was very neat, as you

10:51

can imagine. We've made a lot of friends there

10:53

and one of our closest friends was a sheep

10:55

farmer. So my

10:58

mother insisted on rescuing a

11:00

lamb that had lost its mother that

11:02

they were going to kill, and she said, no, you can't do that. Let me

11:04

take it home. And we lived in the middle of a

11:06

little town called Queenscliffe. And

11:08

the farmer said you can't, you can't die actually if I'm

11:11

with you. But she did, and we reared it

11:13

in our garden and it would and it behaved like a dog.

11:16

My mother would take it shopping with her on the end of

11:18

a lead and you could hear

11:20

the local star. Here she comes, here's Mary. He's

11:22

marry with a little lamb, even though he name

11:24

is Shirley. So no, no, that

11:26

was a very joyful, very joyful part of my life.

11:29

Did you were you fussy about food?

11:30

I wasn't. Later in life, after

11:32

my father died, unfortunately, both my sisters

11:35

contracted anorexianaboza, which

11:37

was an illness in

11:39

nineteen sixty nine that nobody.

11:41

Understood in nineteen ninety

11:43

nine.

11:45

But then two girls, twelve and nine,

11:47

they both they boasted. They never

11:49

they didn't know people that young who had had it, and

11:51

they didn't know any two people in the same family.

11:54

So that was really the only time in my life

11:57

where food became

12:00

a threat. Yeah, meal times were

12:02

a challenge, and

12:05

I can't imagine it because I'm very greedy and I love

12:07

food. But my trying to get my sisters to

12:09

explain, they said, if you imagine putting a bucket

12:11

of slugs in front of you, that's what it's

12:13

like. It doesn't matter what it is, whether it's sweet

12:16

or savory. And of course they've become incredibly

12:18

cunning and they hide things and

12:20

they drink lots of water. And

12:23

I mean how my mother coped.

12:25

I don't know.

12:25

That is a food trauma in

12:28

our life with your father's death, and then

12:30

reacting with further, well.

12:32

She dealt with it. She eventually

12:34

she was told we eventually we find somebody

12:36

who who had an idea about how to cure

12:39

it, because we tried everything from faith healers to things

12:41

called the box, and eventually

12:43

she found a man in Westminster who

12:45

said, look, I think I know how to do this, but you cannot

12:47

have them together. So one

12:50

child was in one hospital and one was in another,

12:53

and my mother sort of drove between the two. And

12:55

her response to try and get me out of

12:58

that rather toxic atmosphere was basically

13:00

to send me away back to Australia, which

13:02

is what I did by yourself. Yeah

13:04

wow, Oh I was

13:06

seventeen, you know, I was old enough. I

13:08

just was just leaving school. I was going on a

13:10

gap here, but I'd never been away on my own. And

13:14

the lovely thing about Australia then, and this is

13:16

sixty nine seventy seventy one, they

13:19

were getting this sort of hippie genre.

13:22

Two or three years after the England so I

13:26

was too young to really book a hippie

13:28

in the UK, but I was perfectly

13:31

so I hit the hippie trail Ruthie and I lived well.

13:34

I lived, I traveled all over, I went to I

13:36

was there at the creation of this extraordinary

13:38

center in Australia which is still there. It was a

13:41

festival that's supposed to start last a week and it's

13:43

still there forty years later. It's called

13:45

Nimbin and it's the center of Australia

13:48

counterculture. It's quite near Barren Bay, which

13:50

is much more famous. And it was a beautiful,

13:52

beautiful experience. They painted the whole town in rainbow

13:55

colors and the locals integrated,

13:57

and an invasion of Australian hippies,

13:59

and in fact people from all over the world

14:01

came.

14:01

And was music.

14:04

There was some music, people

14:06

like Donovan turned up and Dollar Brand, but

14:08

it was more kind of gathering together of faith.

14:11

And I joined the Radha Krishna temple

14:13

for a while. Did you well, only because if you chanted

14:16

for them, they'd feed you at the end of the day.

14:17

What did they feed you back of food?

14:20

No, exactly. It was beautiful sort

14:22

of sweet rice with coconuts and

14:24

sweet vegetables, all serving a banana leaf.

14:28

Then I temporarily joined the Divine Light

14:30

Mission, which gets for the food, No,

14:32

not for the food that one, mainly

14:35

for the girls who were very very girls. But

14:38

so I tried those different things, and very

14:40

sadly eventually moved on. You know, I

14:42

could have stayed there probably and remained

14:45

the rest of my life.

14:45

Yeah, so that was

14:47

what was.

14:48

That was by now I sort of seventy

14:50

one. But then for a year I

14:53

lived almost exclusively on brown

14:55

rice and vegetables because I

14:57

was hitchhiking all over the country

15:00

and through the desert in particular. You had

15:02

to eat what you could carry because they weren't shops

15:04

and cafes along the way. And a

15:06

hippie doctor told me that brown rice was

15:08

a cure all for everything.

15:09

Yeah, I remember the macrobiotics. Mac

15:13

there was a place in London when I came.

15:14

Yes, that's right, there's something in it.

15:16

Because I cut my foot on a coral

15:18

reef, and coral, as you know, is organic and it's

15:21

very very toxic, and my foot

15:23

sold up like a balloon and it started to climb up my

15:25

leg and again we were miles.

15:27

From a proper doctor that's very dangerous.

15:28

Yeah, and he said, look live

15:31

on brown rice for a couple of weeks, which

15:34

I mean didn't cure me, but it seemed

15:36

to stop spreading anyway. I then found

15:38

a doctor who gave me a large shot of penicillin the

15:41

regular food. But now I didn't really

15:43

eat regularly into a regular food

15:46

as we would know it until

15:48

I came back, until I came back to England and went

15:50

to university.

15:52

And so you never did you

15:54

become a vegetarian?

15:55

Well, I was vegetarian,

15:58

not out of a choice, certainess, and

16:02

it didn't really bother me. Again, I

16:04

wasn't really focused on food, and

16:07

it wasn't until I

16:09

dropped out of university with a loud report I shouldn't

16:11

I shouldn't have gone there in the first place. I

16:13

went to Exeter left

16:16

after well, I left after it.

16:18

I like to say my letter to them

16:21

resigning cross for theirs in the post, saying

16:24

I think you're better off elsewhere. I think mine

16:26

hopefully got there a beat before. But they

16:29

had a theatre on the campus there called the North Theater,

16:32

and we did a lot of very good work there. I just knocked on

16:34

the door. No, I

16:36

never did I acted a lot at school.

16:39

I went to Charterhouse in English

16:42

standard public school, and I had a

16:44

very very inspirational teacher

16:46

who I remember to this day called David Summerscale,

16:49

who loved the theater and

16:51

he directed plays. And I stopped doing anything else.

16:53

I stopped doing sport, I stopped playing musical

16:55

instruments. I just wanted to thirteen

16:58

to eighteen to say. And

17:01

when I was leaving, and to

17:03

this day I can picture the conversation, he said to me.

17:05

Look, just before you go, I'm going to ask

17:07

you something. He said, you

17:09

want to act, don't you? And I said, yes, I do, and

17:11

he said, forgive me, but you're not good

17:14

enough. Oh wow,

17:16

bang arrow to the heart. But

17:19

he said, look, you're quite bright, you get on

17:21

with people. There are many other jobs in the

17:23

theater that you could probably do quite well, and

17:26

why don't you give it a go? And it

17:28

was the best piece of advice probably

17:30

I've ever had. I've got lots and lots

17:33

and lots of actor friends. And

17:35

of course, no matter how good you are, it's an insecure

17:37

profession. And I've been very

17:39

lucky in the almost fifty years I've worked

17:41

in the theater, never had a day out of work and

17:45

worked with the most extraordinary people, had the

17:47

most wonderful time. So it was good.

17:49

It was good and sound advice.

18:01

How do you see the parallel of restaurants

18:03

in the theater.

18:04

First and foremost, I love restaurants

18:06

because it's an extraordinary

18:08

convivial experience. It's about

18:11

being in large groups of people. I

18:13

would be hopeless on my own on a desert

18:15

island. I love being in crowds I

18:17

get at Glastonbury. I love football, I

18:20

love sitting in a theater more than anything, and I love

18:22

being in a big, crowded restaurant. There's something

18:25

chilling about going into a restaurant finding

18:27

you're the only person there. And it's the same

18:29

in the theater. You know, if you have anything

18:31

less than the full house, you feel that you haven't really

18:33

succeeded. And the other

18:36

I would say the big similarity is

18:38

that by and large, with small

18:40

variations, you're serving the same thing

18:43

every night, and we are doing the same thing in

18:45

terms of presenting a play or a musical, but

18:48

the audience react in different ways, and

18:50

you'll get a night when it's absolutely

18:53

buzzing and jumping, and then for some

18:55

reason you'll get another night were you think they're not

18:57

getting this, they're not. And it may

18:59

be the same with the crowd of people where you've got someone who's

19:01

tired or picky or didn't

19:03

like this, or you know, was dragged out to a

19:06

restaurant by their other half who they didn't

19:08

really want to go, and you can sense the vibe,

19:10

which is why you know the difference

19:12

between what you do and what

19:14

I do is you're there nearly

19:16

every night and you're working in the room. I

19:18

mean, you know, we are our great

19:21

mutual friend Jeremy King. You know, watching

19:23

him work in his restaurants is an

19:25

art, and watching you, as you say, you

19:27

can't spend too long at each table, but you spend

19:30

just enough time to sprinkle a little bit of fairy dust.

19:33

Whereas we can't actually do that. I can't walk

19:35

through my audience going come on, cheer

19:37

up, this is a really good bit coming up.

19:41

But what you can do is you can go backstage

19:43

at the mental and go, hey, guys, you know

19:45

you need some kick some butt here. You've got to raise your

19:47

game a little bit.

19:48

And you can and you do that.

19:50

All you have to do because I mean the very

19:52

very big difference between now

19:55

and when I start in the theater is the length of

19:57

run for successful shows. I mean I came

20:00

into London. That's really when my

20:03

career properly started. I'd run small regional

20:05

theaters in the seventies in Liverpool

20:07

and Northampton and places, but I

20:10

happened luckily enough to come to London in

20:12

nineteen eighty one when Kat started,

20:14

and that was the beginning of the extraordinary eighties

20:17

decade where so much change

20:19

was enacted. It was, you know, love or hate

20:22

Margaret Thatcher. There was massive change

20:24

that came out of that, and

20:26

culturally it was a really exciting time, you.

20:28

Know it was. And for restaurants, yeah, yeah,

20:30

no, exact same time exactly. This

20:32

is going on. Jereby started the IVY

20:34

and.

20:35

My first real experience of being a regular

20:38

anywhere was when Jeremy was matred

20:40

at Joe Allen.

20:41

Actually he said that to me this morning, that he

20:43

met you at Joel What year was

20:45

that that?

20:45

There was nineteen eighty one.

20:47

And did you when you say regularly were.

20:49

Well, we would go. Well, the thing is,

20:51

you know, you're working in the theater. Your social

20:54

life doesn't really start until the end of the curtain.

20:57

So at about ten thirty, every single

20:59

life a trot down to Joe Allen's.

21:01

I asked that the actors. I asked that a very

21:03

You know, the actors, when do

21:06

they before the theater, during the

21:08

theater, after the theater? And of course some

21:10

people Emily blunt ate the

21:12

whole time. Yeah, she was really adorable.

21:14

She would say that she'd have a hamburger before,

21:17

then something in the intermission, and something at the end.

21:19

Judy Dench, everybody had a different way.

21:22

She'd have a snack. But most of the

21:25

people that I know in theater are friends of mine

21:27

who in a place. They meet me after the

21:29

play and we'll go out and need Is that right?

21:31

Why is that?

21:32

It's? I think really because they are then suddenly

21:34

off duty, they can relax. You can't

21:37

help but keep your performance in the back of your

21:39

head beforehand. You know what's going to

21:41

happen to night. Am I going to be all right? Looking after yourself?

21:43

You know, you need to really look after yourself. I

21:46

always remember Jonathan Price is a

21:48

very good friend. When he stopped

21:50

temporarily being a great classical actor and became

21:52

a musical actor when he did Miss Sagon for US,

21:55

and he did Desert Island discs and he talked to

21:57

Sue Lawley and she said, tell me, what's the

21:59

difference between being a classical actor and a

22:01

musical actor. And he said, rashly,

22:05

being a musical actor is a doddle compared

22:07

to being a classical actor. And the following week he

22:09

lost his voice, and he lost his voice

22:11

for quite a long time, and

22:13

he said it was the most incredible lesson to learn

22:16

that as a singer, you really have to

22:18

look after yourself. And I watched him

22:20

because he's done a lot of shows for us and talking

22:22

to people like Martine McCutcheon and things like

22:24

that, and he said, look, you have to learn that your

22:27

voice is you

22:29

know, it's responsible for everything

22:32

as far as the audience is concerned. And therefore

22:34

you don't talk. You know, you wake up in the

22:36

morning, you do not talk to anyone until lunchtime.

22:38

And so that goes back to eating and about food,

22:41

about how you take care of your body. Is that what you're

22:43

saying an actor.

22:45

So well, the thing is acting, by

22:47

and large, is a very physical thing. I mean, we've

22:50

talked about singers looking

22:52

after their voices, dancers looking out for their bodies.

22:54

I mean I noticed through the year that I

22:56

was the theater manager at the New London

22:58

where Cats was on, be in there every

23:01

night watching And there

23:03

were three artists in that one

23:05

year who worked

23:07

out for an hour before every single performance

23:09

an hour. One was Wayne

23:11

Sleep, the other was Bonnie Langford,

23:14

and the third was a very very beautiful

23:16

girl who went to America and became a big star call

23:18

for Nola Hughes. And they were

23:20

the only three who rigorously worked

23:22

out. They were the only three who did not miss

23:24

a performance. It's

23:27

a real, real responsibility.

23:30

But going back to Joe

23:32

Allenson afterwards, of course, Jeremy

23:35

then went on and you know, as we

23:37

all started to do a bit better, you.

23:38

Would go there, what would

23:40

be your day?

23:41

I would well, until I

23:43

really settled into London, because I

23:45

in the Provinces, you tend to do everything and you're

23:48

responsible for everything. I would never do less

23:50

than a twelve or fourteen hour day in

23:52

the Provinces. So I started to do this in London

23:54

until people said, look, this is crazy. You

23:56

need to actually start coming in a bit later. So

24:00

I had a nice little flat in Kensington

24:03

and I'd walk in and my day

24:06

would be talking to the theater

24:08

staff, getting to know, you know, looking

24:10

at the theater bookings. This was the early days

24:12

of theater bookings where everything was manual. You

24:14

know, we didn't take credit cards, we didn't do phone

24:16

bookings. It was all checks or cash, and

24:19

you know, you talk to the box office.

24:22

Cues for these big hits would go to snake

24:24

around the block for hours. People would would

24:26

queue. It was an extraordinary time and

24:28

we were all learning on our feet then. And

24:31

then, of course there was a lot of corruption

24:33

in ticket selling because ticket

24:36

tabs would buy tickets and resell

24:38

them at huge prices and double cell so

24:40

you'd have the very difficult task every night

24:42

of actually facing up to people and going, look, I'm

24:44

terribly sorry, but your tickets are either forgeries

24:47

or they've been double booked, you know, and this is

24:49

for a show that they may have waited a year to see.

24:52

But I mean, that time was incredible

24:54

because you know, I was a boyfriend the Provinces,

24:56

nearly in the army, and every single

24:58

person I'd ever wanted to meet my life was coming

25:00

through Cats, whether it be the entire

25:03

orld family. I mean, I watched Charles and Diana

25:05

dancing around my office just after

25:07

they were married, you know, and watching her drop

25:09

into this perfect split. He said,

25:12

you know, how do these dancers do that? She'd let me

25:14

share you, darling, literally dropped into a

25:16

perfect split.

25:17

But the thing about the restaurants

25:20

and the theater food there

25:22

is that they're both extreme. Think it's

25:24

extremely collaborative jobs. So

25:27

if you don't chop the par so, you can't make the sauce,

25:29

And if you don't probably paint

25:31

the set, you can't you know, put

25:33

on the play. If you don't remember your lines, your

25:36

fellow actors, you know, have a

25:38

problem. Do you think there is a collaboration.

25:39

I think there's a very, very relarity. It's

25:42

absolutely right. I mean, theater is

25:44

an enormously collaborative venture. And

25:46

the great thing is, you know, you go and see

25:48

a big musical at say the theater Aldery

25:50

Lane. When we did Miss Saigon, there

25:53

were two hundred people involved in getting that show

25:55

on, whether it be the lady selling

25:57

the ice creams, the backstage us share, the person

25:59

pulling the ropes, the actors,

26:01

the lighting technicians are SIGND technicians, and then

26:04

you know, going all the way back to the creators of the show

26:06

be the authors. And in musicals

26:09

it's even more so because you have an added layer

26:11

of responsibility. You have orchestrators, you

26:13

have members of the band, you have choreographers,

26:16

you have assistant choreographers, armies and people

26:18

who look after it, all of whom

26:21

are working to that specific moment, which

26:23

is curtain up at seven thirty.

26:24

Yeah, curtain up at seven thirty. That's we have a

26:26

curtain up at seventh. Theory and the flooras

26:29

and you know Hoover and the as I

26:31

said, the chef's aprins and.

26:32

You get into a huddle beforehand, get into

26:34

the huddle.

26:35

Then we go through and then and

26:37

then the same and then nobody eats before

26:39

you know, you just don't really want to eat. If you're about

26:41

to cook, you have a drink. But then, did you do

26:44

work in restaurants, would it always be kind

26:46

of at the end of the meal you'd just go

26:48

and relax, or would you with Cameron

26:50

or your other colleagues.

26:52

And it was very well, you were

26:54

always you were sort of always on the

26:56

job. As you know, I mean, theater is the theater is

26:58

full of gossip when exchanging information and

27:00

stuff, and you know, in the days before social

27:02

media, happy days before social

27:05

media. That's how you got your information. And

27:07

you walk into someone like Joe Allen's and

27:09

there'd be you know, Wayne Sleep on a table

27:11

over there, and there'd be Trevor Nunn with the Royal Shakespeare

27:13

Company, and there would be someone from the National Theater,

27:16

and there would be as always Princess

27:18

Margaret in the corner, and

27:21

so you'd move from the table hopping that went on.

27:23

It was sort of became rather a joke.

27:26

And Jeremy had that wonderful pianist. He'd sit there

27:28

and you know, you would suddenly

27:30

notice seamlessly as you walked in, you walked

27:32

in down those steps into that famous seller and

27:34

he'd see you coming and very sudden he realized

27:37

he's playing someone from Cats or The Miss or

27:39

one of those teens that that you

27:41

did. So yes, I mean restaurants were

27:44

always the good button.

27:45

What what about another cities?

27:47

When you were on Broadway? Would you go to Sardis? I grew

27:50

up thinking that the theater district,

27:52

wass wasn't it

27:55

was?

27:55

And that's where you traditionally had

27:57

your first night parties. So our

27:59

first that I opened

28:01

over there was Cats and we had a massive

28:03

first night party in I can't

28:06

remember the hotel, but I always remember

28:08

they had police forces in the foyer of the

28:10

theater and they had trucks outside

28:12

with ice full of champagne, and everyone who came

28:14

out. It was the most extraordinary thing. We then

28:16

did Oliver on a slightly smaller scale and went

28:18

to Sardi's and had a traditional Broadway

28:21

opening at Sardi's, and I

28:24

took the director across the room

28:26

to meet our producer and wonderful uncle

28:29

James Niedlando recently died,

28:31

and I said, come on, we should go and chat to Jimmy,

28:34

our producer. And as we got there, an

28:37

aid of Jimmy's came over, leaned over and said,

28:39

the New York Times is out. It's a load of shit.

28:42

Yeah, And that's.

28:44

Like everyone got up and left. Apart

28:46

from the Brits. We were all sitting there going what

28:49

just happened? What just happened? And indeed

28:51

The New York Times was out and it was a terrible

28:54

review.

28:55

It's about to say, you must have known it's going to be

28:57

a hit.

28:58

Well, the audiences were, but

29:01

at that time the New York Times had that they

29:03

could close the show, close the show, and they did.

29:05

We battled on, we spent money on television.

29:07

Four weeks later we were gone.

29:08

Somebody else told me that story about that

29:12

if you were at a party, the after party

29:15

of a play, waiting for the review, then

29:17

everybody would just go. It was it

29:19

was just they would just you just leap.

29:21

It was very very strong. Yeah,

29:23

because the papers would hit the streets about

29:26

halpus leven midnight, you might

29:28

might might get a tip off if

29:30

the critic was friends with the publicist. So occasionally,

29:33

you know, led whispering Cameron's ear, Lemmy's

29:36

is going to be okay nowadays

29:38

that you don't have that kind of romantic The first

29:41

night is more about social

29:43

media and TV and stuff, and the critics have

29:45

all been in the week before. They

29:47

don't come on the first night anymore, And

29:50

I think, to be honest, that's the reflection of the

29:52

fact their role is not as important as it once. Yeah,

29:55

you know, I fear for theater criticism

29:57

just like I fear for food criticism. You

30:00

see, the great restaurant critics

30:02

are sort of slipping.

30:03

Away talking about a

30:05

restaurant critic talking about a restaurant,

30:07

talk about the restaurant critic when we had

30:09

the dinner at the River Cafe to

30:12

celebrate Adrian girl

30:15

to launch the bursary.

30:17

It was the Sunday Times Prize

30:19

for an aspiring food

30:22

writer and they could write about food

30:24

or a restaurant they've had, and it was for someone

30:26

who never been published before.

30:28

I in my opening little speech,

30:30

I read the review that he wrote about

30:33

the River Cafe, which was pretty damn

30:37

very combating first, but then he focused

30:40

on the Nemesis. Do you remember that? And

30:42

how difficult it was to make? It was so Adrian

30:45

and we just, you know, we loved

30:48

mister and when he came into the restaurant

30:50

with Nikola, it was just he was

30:53

one of a kind and he was your closest friend.

30:55

He was, I think generally was my closest

30:57

male friend. We had a pretty difficult

30:59

beginn because I met him

31:01

at a very very smart party and

31:04

the girl I was with at the time, who remains a very

31:06

dear friend, had misread the invitation and

31:09

I turned up in full Venetian

31:12

puff trousers, puff sleeves, great

31:14

comedian at lastin.

31:15

Mile costume party.

31:17

It was for Viennese, not Venetians.

31:20

Everyone else was entails and I

31:24

was on the same table as Adrian, and I

31:26

hadn't met him before I knew who he was. He was going

31:28

through that rather affected stage of wearing a monocle,

31:31

and he looked at me and said, one of us has got a strange

31:33

idea of geography, dear, and I don't think it's meat

31:37

anyway. I rang him the next day and

31:39

said, you're a bastard for making me feel

31:41

so uncomfortable. Said let me take it out to lunch, and we

31:44

did, and we became very very good friends, and

31:47

I loved going out to eat

31:49

with him.

31:50

Like with a food critic, quite

31:53

daunting.

31:53

In the case of Aid. Well, first of all, there was that

31:55

thing, of course, he could never go as a girl. The

31:58

bookings were always in the name of mister Ox, mister

32:00

Cambridge. Yeah, so you'd

32:02

arrive and you say table for for mister Cambridge,

32:05

and you see the colored rain from the matre d's

32:07

cheeks. We'd sit down

32:09

and look. He knew enormous. He was,

32:11

as you know, a very good cook himself. I

32:13

mean I used to read his cookery column

32:15

in Tatler and it was hysterical. He'd go for

32:18

ham and peace suit, get some ham, get some

32:20

peace, cook it, you know, that sort of thing. But

32:22

he was a very good He was a very good cook, and he had enormous

32:25

respect for restaurants,

32:27

restauranteurs, and for particularly

32:30

for front of house staff. He was very He

32:32

admired waiters a lot,

32:34

but they had to know their stuff.

32:37

And why it was daunting was he would challenge

32:39

you just to see how much you knew if you had

32:41

been charged a lot of money. So

32:43

he'd go, so, tell

32:45

me about the venison and they'd go, well,

32:48

it's from a deer, sir, yes,

32:51

yes, I knew that what part

32:53

of the deer? And he'd go either

32:55

way. It would either go, well, you know, it's a haunch

32:58

or bank whatever it is, or they'd go I'll just

33:00

go and find out then come back and say, okay, so

33:02

tell me where's the deer from

33:04

and they go, well, Highlands,

33:06

new forest. And he was testing

33:08

them.

33:09

I mean, he's really testing

33:13

testing the restaurant because that's the job

33:15

of the exactly. That's one of the things

33:17

we do with the River Cafe, the ideas

33:20

that everyone participates in the

33:22

prepping of the food and so

33:24

if you are serving not everything, but if

33:26

you're serving a sal severity you know, because

33:29

you chopped the parson, and you wash the capers and you

33:31

clean the anchovies. There's a kind

33:33

of involvement and then the importance of knowing

33:37

how something has cooked. So he tested

33:39

the restaurant.

33:40

He tested them, and then, as

33:43

you know, he could be absolutely excoriating

33:45

if he didn't like the food. And I've met a number

33:47

of restauranteurs since who knew. I knew

33:49

him and said, did you know your friend?

33:52

You know, bankrupted me. And because I think he

33:54

was one of the very very few critics who could

33:56

still had that power.

33:58

He was rather like the New York Times, and

34:00

it's fair, Yeah, I

34:02

think so. If you're going to be paying a lot of money, then

34:04

you know your standards should be exacting. But

34:07

when he loved you as he loved you, and

34:10

he loved Jeremy, and he loved Andrea

34:12

at Reva, you know, he had his favorites,

34:15

the places he would always go back to.

34:16

Did he tell you what to order?

34:18

He would try and make sure we all had something different.

34:21

He'd go, well, that's a bit boring if we do that, And

34:23

then if we did, he then eat off each

34:25

of our places. Yeah, yeah, And what was

34:27

interesting he would take notes. No,

34:29

he didn't. He'd never take notes because,

34:31

as you knew, he was chronically dyslexic and

34:33

he couldn't spell anything anyway. He would

34:35

always at the end of the evening ask for a

34:37

copy of the menu to take away, and that was

34:40

his aide memoir. But we went

34:42

to incredible places. I mean, you know, at the

34:44

time of the great gastronomic explosion

34:46

we had, we went to Heston

34:48

Rumentals for the first time together and he and

34:50

Heston became very good friends. And we

34:53

went to Favigan in Sweden, and we went to all

34:55

bullies, oh we did,

34:57

and Noma pop ups and things, and when it was a real

35:00

it was exciting going to the theater

35:02

internationally, sorry, into a restaurants the

35:05

same thing, to the Oh

35:08

yeah. He was my regular first night date,

35:10

and in fact, quite more often than not he would

35:13

either bring Flora, his wonderful

35:15

daughter, and I'd bring one of my sons and

35:17

they too sit together an aide and I sit together.

35:20

No, he was exactly he was asked.

35:22

In fact, I don't know if anyone knows this. He was asked

35:24

to be the Sunday Times theater

35:26

critic, and he said no, I can't possibly

35:28

because I've got far too many good friends in

35:31

the theater, and I wouldn't have any if

35:33

because I did read a couple a couple of his theater

35:36

reviews in The Boy they

35:38

were singers. No, I miss him. I miss him every day.

35:41

He was literally someone I spoke to every day.

35:44

And what was extraordinary about him, and you probably know this

35:46

again, is is it was only after he died

35:49

that I realized how many people

35:51

he spoke to and where

35:53

did he get the time to do, you know, to do

35:55

that He never ever hung

35:58

up on me. I've had,

36:00

let's just say, I've had a lot of drama in my life

36:02

over the years, in terms of losing close friends

36:04

and losing members of my family and various

36:07

problems and things like that. And I find it really

36:09

difficult to cry. But the only

36:11

thing that I cry like a drain is

36:14

music. Music is my kind of go to emotional

36:16

release. It's a wonderfully cathartic

36:18

thing and it can be a beautiful

36:20

piece of classical music or it can be a

36:23

great bit of rock and roll. And I told

36:26

Bono, who's a regular clan of yours, I

36:28

know that for one

36:30

reason or another, I don't know why. When my first son Tom

36:33

was born thirty five years ago, I came back at four

36:35

o'clock in the morning from the hospital, dizzy

36:37

and confused, and I pulled myself

36:39

a large class of Scotch and danced to his

36:42

song bad. So after that

36:45

that became a tradition. So I got four sons and

36:48

I danced so bad for every one

36:50

of them.

37:01

When do you go to Glastonbury? Do you eat?

37:04

Yeah, but you don't eat well. It's very hard

37:06

to eat well. I mean interestingly, there's

37:09

a lovely local restaurant close

37:11

to us because I live in the West Country most of the time

37:14

in Bruton, called Out the Chapel, and

37:16

Bruton has become a sort of new color in

37:18

the West. Sip At

37:21

the Chapel was the first and they had it's

37:24

just changed hands and they have a pop up restaurant Glastonbury

37:26

now and they came close to getting

37:28

the sort of chapel experience. But when you're catering

37:31

for many hundreds of people, so

37:33

no, it's not really about the food.

37:34

What about cooking at home?

37:36

Cooking at home? I love doing it, Yeah, because.

37:38

You described to me about

37:40

cooking for your family and taking a lot of Asian

37:42

food.

37:43

Well, yes, I love I mean

37:46

both the very very important partners in my life. Neither

37:48

of them could cook. So I sort of cooked

37:50

to survive and I taught myself and

37:52

then rather wonderfully, all four of my

37:54

children have loved cooking.

37:57

And in fact, my elder son Tom has just

37:59

opened his first restaurant. Yeah,

38:01

it's called Outcrops

38:04

Social. It's a pop up

38:06

restaurant in one eighty the strand, is it

38:09

and it's Thai food, and they're

38:11

giving him three months to see if it goes. And

38:14

I can say totally objectively, he'said the most

38:16

incredible reviews and it's delicious.

38:19

Let's go. What's it called?

38:20

Then, out Crop Social?

38:24

Yeah, I'll take you down in September do.

38:27

That, And so what do you cook it? Out?

38:29

So at home? Well, if we're there and it's

38:31

Sunday and it's a great sort of

38:33

traditional Sunday lunch, and then we will all

38:35

do our bits and we all love quite spicy

38:37

food. I love cooking Asian

38:40

food. I love cooking Indian food in particular. I

38:42

love grinding spices and preparing things like that.

38:45

But it is

38:48

a lot of work. But that's why it's good to have all your

38:50

family around you so you can say to someone that you

38:52

do.

38:53

This the collaboration. Yeah, and

38:55

do you go out to restaurants?

38:56

Now I don't go out nearly as well.

38:59

I tend to go out probably mill down in the West Country.

39:01

And also because as I've sort of

39:04

moved away from actively

39:06

being involved in the West End on a daily basis,

39:08

I'm not there as much. In the evening, still

39:10

go and see the theater quite a lot. So I'll go out

39:13

to places and.

39:14

You still go after yes, yeah,

39:17

yeah.

39:18

I can't bring myself to really have a

39:20

big, big nursery teas we call

39:22

it at five or stays. But you

39:25

know, again I've got the

39:27

go to places like you know, the Ivy Club and

39:29

things and that will stay open and again are very

39:31

convivial. But I worked

39:33

for many, many years with Camera Macintosh,

39:36

who was an absolute food and a brilliant cook

39:38

as well. He was someone else who really inspired me

39:40

to cook, because we all would shut the office

39:43

down in the early days. You know, cats can run itself

39:45

and they can run itself. And we go off to his place

39:47

in Scotland and where you have the most incredible

39:49

produce of seafood and things, and we'd

39:51

all be given a job. And as far as

39:54

he's say, it wasn't cooking unless or at least twenty

39:56

people around their lunch table. So people

39:58

come out of the hills and so that was fun

40:00

learned. I learned a lot at his knee, as it were.

40:02

So we'll always go together. But I mean,

40:05

no, I mean the days of the

40:07

high the high high high end dining

40:09

with Adrian, and it'd been fun. I think probably

40:12

behind and.

40:13

Working in restaurant. Will you meet people from meetings?

40:16

Yeah, the business lunch is sort of past.

40:20

Yeah, I mean in the early days, you know,

40:22

I'd go off and meet our advertising agents and it would

40:24

be you know, and he'd sit down and he goes

40:26

this a two bottle lunch or one bottle lunch. And

40:29

now it's I'll have a glass lunch,

40:32

which is a shame in a way, but probably we get

40:34

we get more done. I

40:37

honestly think it was more

40:39

fun in the eighties and nineties for

40:41

us than it is now because

40:44

it's much more pressure, the challenges

40:46

are much more, the margins are much lower.

40:49

The good thing is the way we look after people

40:51

has changed a lot, and you have to

40:53

do that now, and as you should, and

40:56

as we know, the actor strikes on at the moment about

40:59

getting proper regging and that's

41:01

going right through society. So the way

41:03

we behave has changed. But in terms of

41:05

that feeling of real excitement of

41:08

you know, I can't tell you what it was like opening

41:11

they met it on Broadway, or Phantom on Broadway,

41:13

and you know Psychone,

41:15

which was a massively controversial production

41:18

because of the casting.

41:19

And so I have a letter

41:21

from you, but I don't remember where

41:23

the correspondence, but it says I'll

41:25

read it. I'm going to read your letter

41:27

that you wrote me, Ah Darling.

41:29

I had an emotional evening last night, the

41:32

first night of Carousel. Adrian

41:34

was one of my few friends who really enjoyed

41:36

musicals, and even though we used

41:38

to warble if I loved you from it, he

41:40

never actually seen the show. They

41:43

announced a revival just as he got sick,

41:45

and I made him promise to stay well enough

41:47

to come to the first night with me. Of

41:49

course that didn't happen, so I kept

41:51

an empty seat next to me. I miss

41:53

him badly, and we'll definitely know when

41:55

I'm next seeing you. Much loved Nick, so

41:58

I was wondering because I thought, you

42:01

do have one of the most beautiful speaking voices

42:03

that I know, and I was wondering

42:05

if you might sing if I Loved

42:07

You, And here's the lyrics.

42:10

I'll he should we have a go and

42:12

I'll sing it with you a little bit. You

42:15

know. I grew up on musical so fa.

42:17

I lived in upstate New York. We'd

42:19

go in the car and we'd drive down

42:21

the throughway to New York and we would see

42:24

the big ships, and then we'd see

42:26

the SS France, and we'd see

42:28

in the United States. Then we would go and

42:31

have lunch, and then we would go to musical

42:33

We'd go to by Fair

42:35

Lady, West Side Story. This is I

42:37

guess I was, you know, sort of twelve,

42:39

and so it was late early sixties,

42:41

a late yea early sixties.

42:44

And then we would go to Sam Goodie, a record

42:46

storage, you know, Sam City, and we would

42:49

buy the record and

42:51

then we would drive up back to the country

42:54

and we'd play the record over and over and over

42:56

again. So I know the words basically

42:58

every musical of that era,

43:01

and so I know this song if

43:03

I Loved You, So shall we try? It?

43:05

Is one of my favorites. I know the first two

43:08

lines to more songs until

43:10

then, so I'm going to

43:12

cheat and read yeah, absolutely,

43:15

I love you time

43:19

and again.

43:20

I will try to say, oh,

43:31

Ruthie, well, I'm gone wow

43:35

to Adrian, to.

43:38

Bet, to carousel you

43:41

and to love. So the singing gives

43:43

you. Singing can give

43:45

you comfort, and food

43:48

can give you comfort. So my very very

43:50

last question of talking and listening

43:53

and singing is to ask you, if

43:55

you have a food that you

43:57

need not to eat when

43:59

you're hungry, but to eat when you need comfort.

44:03

What would that be in the gallat?

44:04

If I tell you, you'll be so appalled. No

44:06

I won't, because it was the most

44:09

delicious thing I've everything. I'm going to be down

44:11

or depressed or hungry or wanna And

44:13

it was actually a concocted recipe

44:15

by a friend of mine who wrote it in a play and

44:18

I read it I thought, I can't believe he's actually

44:20

done this, but I'm going to try and put it together. And

44:23

it's basically toast

44:26

with peanut butter, very crispy

44:28

bacon and cheese melted on top.

44:30

I'm that disgusted, I'm interested.

44:33

It was I think food because the food that comforts

44:36

has a story. Well,

44:38

the next time you have one, call me.

44:40

Okay, well there when we go to my

44:42

son's restaurant, was sneak home. Thank

44:46

you very much, Thank

44:48

you, Ruthie, thank you so much.

44:49

Thank you.

44:55

The River Cafe Look Book is now available

44:57

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has a for one hundred recipes, beautifully

45:01

illustrated with photographs from the

45:03

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book has fifty delicious and easy

45:08

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45:10

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45:13

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for Cooks of all ages. Ruthie's

45:25

Table four is a production of iHeartRadio

45:27

and Adamized Studios. For more

45:30

podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the

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iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.