‘My advice would be to have two dishwashers. Because you can use one as a cupboard. Otherwise, you’re always, always emptying the dishwasher,’ says Ruth Rogers, chef and podcaster. It’s sage counsel from the 75-year-old, who has spent four decades running service at The River Cafe, the Michelin-starred restaurant she co-founded with the late Rose Gray in 1987. Her kitchen at home – one sink, four burners, two ovens, no extractor fan – is otherwise decidedly minimal, encased in floor-to-ceiling stainless steel. ‘When someone walks into The River Cafe, they are surprised we have a kitchen as small as we do to feed so many people. We’ve always worked on a less-is-more idea – this is kind of extreme though,’ she laughs. ‘I do cook here, but the temptation is always to go to the restaurant.’

Located in London’s Chelsea, the strikingly modernist property – a cavernous space that belies its central London postcode – was conceived by her late husband, the Pritzker Prize-winning British architect Richard Rogers. Fresh from designing the Pompidou Centre with Renzo Piano in Paris, the couple moved to London in 1983 when Richard embarked on a two-year reconstruction, which involved knocking down a party wall separating two 19th-century dilapidated townhouses. ‘We knew we wanted to live in a lateral way as that’s how we had lived in Paris – we wanted to live on one floor,’ she recalls. ‘When we saw these two houses for sale, we thought we would be able to combine them together to have the space and light we were looking for.’ Renowned for his ‘inside out’ work, meaning pipework, elevators and structural members are left exposed rather than concealed, Richard went on to create an industrial, architectural feat – somewhere the chef, who goes by Ruthie, a native New Yorker, has called home for the past 40 years. 

Thanks to 13 large windows (‘they can see our Warhol from the street!’ she laughs, referring to a set of nine Andy Warhol Mao works that hang above the sofa), the 21-foot-high open space, which houses the open-plan kitchen, seating and dining area, is continuously flooded with light. ‘It’s a space where you can have 300 people or three people,’ she says of the communal ‘piazza’. ‘We’ve hosted a lot of parties here.’ 

While she’s too discreet to name names, Rogers’ eclectic social network can’t help but come up in conversation – from recording one of her podcasts with ‘my friend Jake Gyllenhaal’ to the time Valentino Garavani called her while she was getting her ears pierced to ask for a reservation. It’s a similar story at The River Cafe, where everyone from Tracey Emin to Kim Kardashian has dined in the Hammersmith institution. Many of the restaurant’s eclectic cast of visitors – a long-standing amalgamation of artists, actors, foodies and media magnates – have become the subject of said podcast, Ruthie’s Table 4, now in its third season. ‘We always have so many guests in town to promote their movie or play or book, so the idea is for them to read a recipe and talk about their life through food, their food memories,’ she explains. The first episode launched with film-maker Wes Anderson, before the likes of Al Gore, David Beckham, Carey Mulligan and Michael Caine (‘he talked about the war, rationing and his love for caviar’) took a seat at Ruthie’s table. ‘What I’ve learned is that most people did not grow up entitled, so their journey with food has been parallel with their working hard,’ she says. ‘If I wanted to talk to Paul McCartney about The Beatles, he wouldn’t do it, but everyone wants to talk about food,’ she says.

Rogers likes to talk food too. Her mouth-watering list of cupboard essentials – a tomato sauce, mozzarella, salted anchovies, olive oil, basil – is reassuringly simple. And exactly what you’d expect from the woman who brought seasonal Italian cooking to London, launching the career of Jamie Oliver along the way. Does she have a go-to dish when guests are over? ‘I have a rule. The more elegant the evening and the more posh the people, the more simple I make the food. I always have tomato sauce, I always have tomato pasta,’ she says.

The restaurant never sits still and neither does Rogers – in the 24 hours since stepping off a transatlantic flight she’s recorded two podcasts, done a photo shoot and will head to the restaurant later (Rogers can be found at the restaurant most days, and refers to her River Cafe team – including the executive chefs Sian Wyn Owen and Joseph Trivelli, and managers Vashti Armit and Charles Pullan – as family). Such scheduling requires militant organisation, not dissimilar to running a kitchen – her neon pink iPhone, which continuously buzzes throughout the day, is never too far from reach.

A quick scan of the clothing rail for our photo shoot quickly eradicates most looks – ‘I don’t wear black’ – before yielding a polite request to phone The Row’s Mayfair store, where she is a regular customer. (Rogers also religiously wears Phoebe Philo and loves Erdem.) Fresh flowers are brought in, knick-knacks are arranged and rearranged, while Rogers pores over each picture, pointing out a small detail here or a wrinkle there. If chefs are known for being obsessive, Roger’s fixation is colour – as well as curating the insides of her kitchen cupboard to look just so, she keeps a bright orange Compton bike downstairs – not because she uses it, but because of how it looks against the navy blue steel beam. In-between photographs she takes multiple calls from HQ to discuss her newest venture – The River Cafe Cafe. The sibling restaurant, set to open in June, will be a stone’s throw from the original location. ‘It’s a place where you can have a pre-dinner drink before coming to the restaurant or, if you don’t want to spend the money at The River Cafe, you can have a little meal over there. It’ll be small plates – bruschetta, mozzarella, fried zucchini flowers in the summer,’ she says proudly, showing me the new logo on her phone. ‘It’s the first thing The River Cafe has done other than be The River Cafe, so it’s exciting. And then there’s the new books,’ she says, referring to two upcoming publications – one related to the podcast and a new edition of The River Cafe Cook Book pegged for 2025.

It’s clear that a sense of community, in both her personal and professional space, is what drives Rogers. Her home and restaurant, both designed by Richard, are extensions of each other, from the open-plan stainless steel kitchen to vivid pops of colour in both. (Book a table for the restaurant’s cobalt blue floor, glossy yellow pass and neon pink wood-fired oven alone – then stay for a slice of its chocolate nemesis cake.) Her open-plan living space is never without some form of activity – whether it’s Rogers’ long-standing housekeeper, Luisa, or the grandchildren popping in. ‘And there’s always someone here fixing something or painting something,’ she says. 

Richard, who passed away in 2021, is never too far from her thoughts, from the personal photographs found throughout the house to the pride in which she speaks about his vision and work that went into creating their home. ‘In this world of chaos and troubling times, I think food and connection and family and the people we work with are the most important.’

Ruthie’s Table 4 is available to listen on Apple Podcasts. rivercafe.co.uk