SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE: DeliverRuth! Rogers' River Cafe where Jamie Oliver started his career launches as a takeaway
by Sebastian Shakespeare for the Daily MailThe fashionable restaurant where Jamie Oliver started his career has joined others across the country and launched a take-out service
And the River Cafe’s regulars, who include Gwyneth Paltrow, Nigella Lawson and Jemima Goldsmith, have already christened it ‘DeliverRuth’ in honour of its illustrious co-founder Ruth Rogers.
She has revealed she’s having scrumptious delicacies from her kitchens delivered to her famous regulars while the doors are closed.
‘We have this phrase: “If you can’t come to the River Cafe, then the River Cafe will come to you,” ’ says Lady Rogers, whose husband is the celebrated architect Lord (Richard) Rogers, designer of the Lloyd’s building and Millennium Dome in London.
‘It was a worrying time when we closed,’ Lady Rogers tells me.
‘Everyone was furloughed except for the team of myself, Sian Owen, Joseph Trivelli and Vashti Armit. Then we decided to start a shop. At first we sold olive oil, tomatoes from Puglia, oregano, borlotti beans, wine.
‘Then we put pesto and tomato sauce on, because that didn’t involve a lot of chefs. Then we had a butcher prepare chicken and lamb. Then a fish person said they had beautiful Dover sole and we had a way to package the fish.’
Products sold through the new website, shoptherivercafe.co.uk, include £45 Ortiz Anchovies, £40 Beefsteak Fiorentina and £35 Devon Blue Lobster. Customers can sign up for a twice-weekly newsletter.
Lady Rogers says the new service has boosted morale among staff at the Hammersmith restaurant she founded in 1987 with the late Rose Gray.
And in an encouraging sign for restaurants as we prepare to leave lockdown, she adds: ‘I’ve been able to un-furlough four chefs out of 30, and two waiters who help with the packaging. We’re working on how we can make the restaurant safe when it reopens. That will probably mean fewer tables inside. I’m so fortunate I have outdoor space.’
She’s not the only one making sure London’s beau monde is well fed.
Robin Birley, who owns the fashionable Mayfair clubs 5 Hertford Street and Oswald’s, is having food and wine sent to his customers.
He says: ‘We aim to deliver a little bit of 5 Hertford Street to our loyal members during this closure.’
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Kaia Gerber takes up art - after a fashion
Top model Kaia Gerber is clearly a woman of many talents.
After dominating the catwalks during fashion week earlier this year, Cindy Crawford’s daughter is now showing off her artistic streak during lockdown.
The 18-year-old shared a photograph of her painting in her garden in California.
Rather than wearing drab overalls, the Marc Jacobs campaign star sported a gingham printed skirt, neon bikini top and straw hat, as well as a cast on her right arm following a recent injury she sustained in a mystery ‘little accident’.
Aside from painting, Kaia is also keeping busy by running an online book club and learning to play the guitar.
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Jodie flips and flops in the pool
Catwalk queen Jodie Kidd might have a lot of experience strutting in high heels, but this is the first time she’s found herself modelling a shoe as big as her.
The 41-year-old shared this picture of her legs wrapped around the top of a £30 purple inflatable flip-flop while taking a dip in her paddling pool.
Jodie, who runs a pub in West Sussex, lives with her boyfriend, former Royal Marine Joseph Bates, and her son Indio, eight.
Posing by the pool, she admits: ‘It took me 20 minutes to get out of it.’
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One of two surviving members of The Beatles, Ringo Starr has already chosen which of their songs he’d like to be played at his funeral: Octopus’s Garden.
‘It’d be nice to have everyone singing along,’ declares the peace-loving percussionist — 80 in July. It was written and sung by him on the Abbey Road album.
The idea for the song came while on Peter Sellers’s yacht, when the captain told him octopuses searched the seabed for shiny stones and tin cans to put in front of their caves like a garden.
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Everything stops for Lady Eliza’s tea
Are you enjoying afternoon tea during lockdown? The Duke of Rutland’s youngest daughter, Lady Eliza Manners, is convinced people are — and has started a business.
Lady Eliza, 22, who lives at Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire, is selling antique tea sets, tablecloths and napkins to people who contact her online.
She says: ‘Afternoon tea has become an essential and this beautiful table setting makes it even more special.’
I’m sure it tastes better at a castle.
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Nicky Henson, who memorably played a guest trying to sneak a woman into his room in Fawlty Towers, left £533,000 in his will.
The distinguished actor, who died last December, aged 74, was first married to Una Stubbs, but that ended after he had an affair with Susan Hampshire.
He left his entire estate to his widow, the former ballerina Marguerite Porter.
In the Sixties, Henson wrote songs for Cliff Richard and The Shadows, and had a pop band with fellow actor Ian Ogilvy on drums.
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Eastender Phil's victory
Screen hardman Steve McFadden has emerged victorious from a dispute with neighbours at his Grade II-listed seaside retreat.
The Londoner, who plays Phil Mitchell in EastEnders, has been allowed to keep a gate and 24 ft-high stairs he built without planning permission.
He smashed a hole in a boundary wall to create a ‘more convenient’ rear entrance and to avoid using a communal pathway.
But he failed to gain consent from the local council, as his £500,000 three-bedroom terraced pad in Cornwall lies in a conservation area.
Neighbours blasted his foam repairs to the wall and fake greenery on an external timber staircase also built without permission, saying they were ‘too soft’.
McFadden applied for retrospective consent to keep the unauthorised development, which was granted.
He has been ordered to replace the gate with a new wooden one 19cm wider and use stonework from the existing wall to finish the wall edges.
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Charles’s death bed visit to John Betjeman
Prince Charles, who warned this week that orchestras and theatres may not survive the coronavirus crisis, has always been devoted to the arts.
He even went so far as to visit Sir John Betjeman on his death bed in 1984, a nurse who cared for the poet laureate has revealed.
Christine Rowbotham nursed Betjeman at Chatsworth, the Derbyshire home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.
‘Prince Charles asked if the patient was comfortable to be left and I said that I was only in the next room,’ she says. ‘They didn’t have long together — John was tiring at that stage. I could see that Charles held John in high regard. It wasn’t just that he was a friend of Debo [then Duchess of Devonshire].
‘Obviously, he is a great fan of John Betjeman, so there was no pretence. He knew about John. He had read up beforehand and he made all of us feel very, very special.’