Episode summary
Table 4 at the River Cafe | Bloomberg Businessweek
Bloomberg Businessweek Daily
· · 9 min · Hosts: Carol Massar, Tim Stenovec · Guests: Ruthie Rogers
Summary
Ruthie Rogers described The River Cafe as a restaurant built around hospitality, seasonality, and the idea that guests should leave happier than when they arrived. She said the kitchen writes a new menu for every meal using what is fresh and in season, and emphasized that the open kitchen and shared rhythm of the staff are central to the experience.
She also explained how the restaurant’s famous Table 4 became a symbol of the community around the cafe. The table has hosted people including Michael Caine, Nancy Pelosi, and Michael Bloomberg, but Rogers said the book and the podcast are less about celebrity than about stories told through food. In her view, conversations about what people ate growing up can unlock memories, family ties, and emotional history.
Rogers connected that idea to Ruthie’s Table 4, which began during the pandemic as a way to stay in touch with diners. She said the podcast grew out of evenings she and her husband used to host at home, where performers would entertain for charity, and she found that reading recipes aloud revealed that cooking is part science and part poetry.
Key takeaways
- Ruthie Rogers said The River Cafe is built to make people leave “happier than when they arrived,” with seasonality and hospitality at the center.
- She said Table 4 is both a real seat in the restaurant and a concept for gathering stories from people like Michael Caine, Nancy Pelosi and Michael Bloomberg.
- Rogers argued that food is a democratic way to talk about family, grief, celebration and memory, not just celebrity.
- She said Ruthie’s Table 4 began during the pandemic as a way to reach diners when the restaurant had to stop serving.
- Rogers called a recipe “half science and half poetry,” linking her podcast format to the experience of dining at The River Cafe.
Notable quotes
“we want really people to come to your restaurant and leave I always say quite simply happier than when they arrived”
“Table four is slightly also a pun on the word four. So it's a table number, but it also is a table for Michael Bloomberg, a table for any of the other people who are in the book”
“if you went into every table in this restaurant, everyone has a story. Everyone has a story”
“it's not about famous people. It's not about celebrities. It's about people who have stories that we all want to know about you know and so”
“I always say a recipe is half science and half poetry, right”
How the episode opens
Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts radio news. — You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenc on Bloomberg Radio. While she is an award-winning chef, co-founder of a Michelin starred restaurant, author of 13 cookbooks, a native New Yorker, has a podcast where she talks with the likes of Paul McCartney, Tina Fay, David Beckham, Mel Brooks, Martha Stewart, Francis Ford Copala, Mark Carney, Bob Iger, Johnny IV, whose comfort food, by the way, is peas.
Okay, I like that.
Who would have known? She has also, full disclosure, talked with Michael Bloomberg, of course, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. She has talked with many, many folks.
All of it comes together in uh a great book. It's also comes together like a great meal with amazing company. Her new book is entitled Table Four at the River Cafe, which as we understand is a highly coveted physical table located near the restaurant's open kitchen.
Here to tell us about it and more is Ruthie Rogers, co-founder of The River Cafe in London, host of her podcast Ruthie's Table 4. She joins us from London. We are so delighted to have you.
We know it's a little bit later there in London. Um, congratulations on the new book and we were thinking about where should we begin and if you had to pick one single thing, Ruthie, um, as to where you are today, why you got there, uh, your restaurant, iconic, wellknown in London, award-winning, you've got now a 5-year-old podcast. What might that thing be?
I think that, you know, from the very beginning, we started with the values of a restaurant. What is a restaurant? Why do people go to restaurants? what you look for in a restaurant. And I was just downstairs just now and I see that the way people are greeted, the way people are made to feel welcome.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- food interviews
- global economy
- technology
- politics
- economics
Companies and tickers mentioned
- The River Cafe
- Ruthie's Table 4
Watch the episode
Watch “Table 4 at the River Cafe | Bloomberg Businessweek” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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