Training | 2010.02.28
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall: How I shared a stove with Rose Gray
The River Café was the most talked-about restaurant in London. I knew that Rose and Ruth were giving me a chance because I (like them) was completely untrained
Rose Gray, chef and co-founder of River Café, dies aged 71
Obituary: Rose Gray
Tributes to Rose Gray, from Jamie Oliver and others
The day I walked into the River Café for the first time, in 1989, my life changed forever. I\'d been tipped off by a friend who was a waitress there that there might be a space in the kitchen. They were indeed short staffed. "Can you work right now?" Rose asked, and she put me on cold starters that very lunch, with Sam Clarke (who went on to open Moro in Exmouth market) showing me the ropes.
I survived lunch, and afterwards she asked if I could make any desserts. I said I could do a lemon tart and she asked me to get on with it. She tasted it as soon as it came quivering out of the oven, and as the spoon went in her mouth my heart was in mine. "I prefer the one we do here", she said, "but this is good enough to go on the menu tonight. So, Hugh, do you want to come back tomorrow?" she asked.
It wasn\'t a hard question to answer. The River Café was the most talked-about restaurant in London at the time. A complete sensation. I knew that Rose and her best friend and inseparable kitchen partner, Ruthie Rogers, were giving me a chance because I (like them) was completely untrained. Their approach was to completely understand a dish from first principles and cook it as they felt it demanded to be cooked. This usually meant as a Tuscan farmer\'s wife would do it, rather than some ladle-wielding maniac in a tall white hat.
Over the next eight months I learned more from Rose than from anyone I have ever cooked with.
And I suspect most chefs who\'ve done a stint at the River Cafe would say that. She had a n amazing knack for simply explaining exactly how she felt a particular dish should be made, or a particular ingredient handled. You only had to hear it once and you understood.
I remember the first time I tasted her papa pomodoro (a tomato and bread soup). I was stunned at how so simple a dish (stale bread, tomatoes, olive oil, garlic) could be so divine. It was a matter of perfect judgment: "It should be so thick", she explained, "that you want to eat it with a knife and fork". And once when I managed to burn a tomato sauce – I was on the verge of tears – she swooped in and explained how to rescue it: "Don\'t scrape it and don\'t let it rest – just pour it straightway into another pan and all the burned bit will be left on the pan." I do that whenever I burn a sauce, a soup or a stew (which is often) and I always think of Rose.
When it came to encouraging and teaching her cooks, Rose always called it how she saw it (or tasted it), but she was also unfailingly generous with her time and her praise. She wanted us to enjoy our cooking as much as our River Cafe guests, and once she felt we\'d broken the back of the shift she\'d open a bottle of Prosecco and pour everyone a glass.
She will be remembered by everyone who ever ate the wonderful Italian food cooked by her and Ruthie, and appreciated for years to come by all who have wowed their friends with recipes from the five amazing River Cafe cookbooks.
Impossible to quantify, though, is the impact on British cooking of the dozens of young cooks who shared the stove with her over the last 20 years and went on to pass just a little of her passion and understanding to others. I feel ridiculously lucky to be one of them.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2[...]ay-hugh-fearnley-whittingstall
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