RIVER CAFE, LONDON

I live about three blocks from the River Cafe, and an ex-boyfriend used the place like his canteen, so I've been there a few times.  The food is suberb, BUT do not expect reallly fancy dishes or unusual "new-wave" combinations of ingrediants and flavour, lke you get in Californian cooking.  The restaurant prides itself on obtaining the very best fresh, and authentic, ingrediants (they even have polenta flour specialy flown in from a certain place in Italy), and then preparing them very simply.

I went there on a first date, and had a plate of mixed wild mushrooms with some good country bread, sea bass baked in a salt and herb crust, and a plate of mixed berries with a spoonful of mascarpone.  Sounds pretty simple, but it ranks among the best meal I've ever had, and I've eaten at most of the Michelin starred restaurants in Southern England.

If you want to try their food, you could try their book; oddly enough called "The River Cafe Cook Book", which is published in England by Ebury House/Random House.  Otherwise the restaurant is expensive.  The meal above, with wine, coffee and service, cost about £100 per head.  The restaurant is not very big, a rectangle with the open kitchens all along the back wall.  The front wall is all glass, looking out onto a paved area and the river wall.  At high tide you can just get a glimpse of the river Thames.  Inside the restaurant is plain white and the only decoration is the outline of a large clock face projetced onto one wall.

One of the cooks, Ruth Rodgers, is married to one of England's foremost architects, and the restaurant is in the ground floor of his offices.  It started as the staff canteen!

Hope this tells you all you need to know!  If you want to know anything else about restaurants in England, e-mail me.

Fiona Radford Parker

Varda N. wrote in article
...
> In an interview in the December 27, 1996, Los Angeles Times, famed
> chef Wolfgang Puck says that Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray of the
> River Cafe in London "cook Italian food better than most Italians."
>
> Has anyone eaten there?  Any comments about the food and the prices?
>
> Varda
>

Someone wrote:
: I live about three blocks from the River Cafe, and an ex-boyfriend used the : place like his canteen, so I've been there a few times.  The food is : suberb, BUT do not expect reallly fancy dishes or unusual "new-wave" : combinations of ingrediants and flavour, lke you get in Californian : cooking.  The restaurant prides itself on obtaining the very best fresh, : and authentic, ingrediants (they even have polenta flour specialy flown in : from a certain place in Italy), and then preparing them very simply.

That's precisely what Wolfgang Puck said: "All they do is go to Italy, buy their own olive oil and wine and everything else they need.  And then they just cook it the way they do in Italy.  They don't try to make their food French-influenced or Asian-influenced or American-influenced."

Varda