Bonus: Making A Menu

0:00Speaker 1:Ruthie's Table for presented by Sky.

0:09Speaker 2:There's always some sort of nuance of writing the menu and then obviously paying attention to the kind of house rules and the house style. And you know, I couldn't do like a sort of Asian salad with the soul, for example, it has to be within the brief. And then peas. We've got peas on with a salad with the longer stems, with a crab on polenta, and then slow cooked with the monkfish with panchetta, because peas are like slap banging season now. And then got the first of the years Dattini tomatoes that have just come up from Italy, so that's with boga. And then we've got that also with I did the salad that we had a miland I remember we had the salad in Milan that which is just mash leaves and Datterini tomatoes, and we thought it was a carrot salad. Remember we were like, oh, let's have a carrot salad, but it turned out with botaga on top. Yeah, and that so that's a really nice, super fresh And then.

1:06Speaker 3:Where do the wettes fergus come from?

1:08Speaker 2:France? Okay, Yeah, it's just like it's spurgus in peak season now as well, so the English stuff is beautiful, and then the French stuff is also.

1:18Speaker 3:We're like still in the springtime. So it's pretty interesting. Each time I go to a restaurant, I keep saying, like the dottery need tomatoes and I haven't seen them anything.

1:26Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's exciting. And then we've got nettles that have been and they're just starting to finish now. And then when I've written the menu, and then because we've got a set menu that's running alongside that today, and then I have all the chefs that are working, and so I just try and give everyone jobs that are nice for them.

1:45Speaker 1:So the other restaurants, well, traditional maps have somebody who's aren't the salads for a month or the grill from is that the way. I've only worked in one restaurant, and that's this one. So I don't know how the kitchens really do work. But what we do is we say that you come and see who's working. And so you've had how many chefs do you have today? Ten? Ten?

2:04Speaker 4:Yeah, and so we'll say, you know the complex positions of what we.

2:10Speaker 1:Call hots, one which is the wood oven, and we have in every section we have we have the grill, we have the wood oven, we have hots what we call two which is the pastas pizzas, and so we and every section of the has a fish and meat. So we might grill the sea bass and grill the beef, and then we'll do a slow roasted veal, and we'll do maldfish in the oven, and then on the in the roasted.

2:39Speaker 4:And then in the wood oven we'll have game.

2:42Speaker 1:We always put the game a whole bird, if it's pigeon or grouse or partridge or PHAs, that.

2:48Speaker 4:Will be done in the wood oven.

2:52Speaker 1:And then the fish we usually do dover sole in the wood oven. Sometimes we grill them mostly there, so you have everybody has a fish in to meat fishing, because we only have six main courses. And so I think that's the decision. Who are you going to put on these sections?

3:06Speaker 2:I think what's quite cool is the fact that the chefs don't know what sections.

3:10Speaker 4:They don't know. Yeah, that was going to be my question, right when they don't find.

3:12Speaker 2:Out about half past ten, and so the younger chefs, like this guy here, he's doing a trial today, so he's got a really easy job, Like washing asparagus. But then I also gave him ioli to make because I thought, let's see if he can make ioli. It's kind of classic thing. And so he's obviously he's not going to be doing a difficult section because he's not going to make a Yeah, but then everyone else will be playing to their strengths today. But it stops chefs. You know.

3:40Speaker 2:In classic kitchens, people have sections and then they hold kits and make loads of meson plas for like the week and hide it. And none of that can happen. Everything has to be there's no at habits. Yeah, yeah, And I remember when I started here thinking it's impossib Well, you can't cut parsley to order. Of course, you have to cut it for the week.

4:04Speaker 3:You know.

4:04Speaker 2:And then I was burn away and now I can't imagine how you can happen. And that's just how it is here, you know, But I can't imagine how.

4:12Speaker 1:So then so this is so this is hots. We see there's hots one, which is a wood oven. Hearts two is the pasta. Three is roasting in the oven. Four is a sort of news section that we had not terribly, but the idea that person on hots two. Making pastas can get overwhelmed, so we try and put one pasta or risotta on hats four and they'll also do one of the antipasity if you do seared scallops, so we do a lenta with some then mushrooms in the winter. So that's the four, and.

4:44Speaker 4:Then we have the grill six is uh yeah, just doing hearts back here, can you know? It might be a language.

4:54Speaker 1:Steene again just two things or a carnee crudeo. And then we have the cold section and pizzas.

5:02Speaker 3:So you know, and there's a is there a prep team also that's in earlier than well no, we have.

5:08Speaker 2:Some people who do do prep. They do like the spinach and peel potatoes and chop the chilies and things like that, so that stuff the chefs don't have to do, so they just have to cook.

5:18Speaker 4:Waiters do it too.

5:19Speaker 1:Yeah, and the ways there's always been in tradition that everyone participates. As we've gotten bigger, it's harder because we have the cafe, we have private dining room, and we have a lot more people than we used to have for this kitchen, which was really designed in two thousand and eight, and so the kitchen porters do the scallops. The waiters peel, you know, peel the garlet. They learned how to clean an anchovy, they chop the chili. So in a way, if they're stopped and asked by a customer what's in themselves, avery, they know because they helped prepare.

5:51Speaker 4:But as we've gotten.

5:53Speaker 2:Sort of bigger, we do have people who get a.

5:55Speaker 1:Lot of questions, have questions, Yeah, how do you do that? No?

6:03Speaker 3:I actually, do you sit down with everybody like they all come? Do you sit down and give them their assignments?

6:08Speaker 2:Now, sometimes if I've got like an experienced team, like today, I'll write the menu and then everyone will come and have a chat about this and that, you know, and then I'll say, you know, what do you want to do? You can do anything if you're a good chef. And then Carl Lota, who's one of our you know, top chefs, is making the zucchini sauce and she just said to me, okay, if I do whatever I want sort of thing, and I was like, yeah, because what she's going to make would be amazing. And she knows what I want and how my what style? Like every chef will have their style and she'll know she just is so good and I'll just yeah, you know, for you what really well that sounds really vague, but with people that have worked at the River Cafe for like ten plus years, there's just such good cooks that you you just kind of look at them. They know what you're looking at. Yeah, they know what they're doing, they know the repertoire.

6:53Speaker 1:We don't have line cooks. I think that's a big difference, you know that we've seen. I think you know another kids, you know, where you have maybe just one or two chefs, but then everybody they're brilliant, you know. And that's what how Rose, my partner started, That's how she learned to cook in New York. So she was taught to cook, not by the chef's besties or you know, Keith McNally's restaurants, by the right.

7:22Speaker 4:Yeah.

7:24Speaker 3:So the person's making the ioley and do they have the ability to make it in a modern pestle compared to like using machine, because that's always one of the problems.

7:34Speaker 2:Because I was like ask he said, I was like, how are you going to make ioli? Just to see if he knew what it was. And then he first of all said, well, I'm going to make it in the food prices there. And I said to him, well, I actually said, can you you can make it with a whisk if you like. I didn't say make it in the pest and watch. I thought that he might just walk straight back out. I thought, let's see if you can make it with a whisk as a starting point before we go to the machine and then check it it's good. But we had them. We had just a last minute catastrophe when we found out that the longest things aren't aren't here because they'd be coming by train and the train's delayed. So we've just had to take that whole dish off and then reprint a hundred more menus without it on so that all the people aren't like I was really fancy the longest things stuck in traffic.

8:24Speaker 3:I actually used to do something similar where Lindsay can attest to that. I would just kind of come in and then I remember what was around maybe four We lived like two blocks from the original location, and then I would rewrite the menu every day until started to drive some folks a little about it and then but it lasted for a good first six or so years where we write the menu every day and change chat.

8:50Speaker 2:We do think about it because especially having thinking of the younger chefs that also get to write menus, whether it's better to have just us right menus and they're being more standing. But it is part of the uniqueness that then's going to be a whole nother menu tonight. Yeah, and it is really free because you just think what do I want to cook today? And then you think about all the people that everyone comes here for a different reason, don't they. Some people are having a working lunch, some people are having a celebration, and the menu has to cover all of that. But it's such a you know, I've worked here for twenty six years because it is so every day is different, you know, and that I think is keeps you going exactly. Yeah.

9:32Speaker 3:Even had a Shapenese like if you have the menu and you sit down at one one o'clock for dinner, you had your working in the fireplace of the rotistery, Yeah, by the hearth, you'd have to go on the walk and grab your fore lambs or whole lambs, then break them down there at that time and be ready by you know, five o'clock to give wherever the chef was a tester, a tester and right, yeah, so I always kind of grew up being able to start at that level of not a walking and having something like Cryovector.

10:04Speaker 3:It's all you know what, you see the quality, and then you exactly so no, that's great.

10:11Speaker 4:So it's as simple as that. So that's it's as simple as that.