Elton John and David Furnish

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What's the song with food?

Song with food? Sugar sugar shug? I am a sugar free my candle girl.

What about my thrill on Blueberry Hill?

Or do not, Oh my darling, do not? On this our wedding day.

An open kitchen in the River Cafe gives me the chance to watch people having dinner with their children. David and Elton uniquely engage with theirs, focused listening laughing, all for in.

Their own private world.

In between texts with David about plans for getting together, there are photographs Sachari on a boat with a huge seabassies just caught Elijah kicking a football, all of them in the South of France around a table. Recently, sitting next to Elton at a dinner in the River Cafe, we had no small talk. We spoke immediately about Elton John Aids Foundation, the polarized world we seem to be living in and what we need to do as citizens.

First may our first mill was at this table and I was sitting there, okay, and.

I was a pleasant a date.

Oh no, it was a lot less imitation with a group of well. Elton had come back from touring. He was single and he had his friend staying with him, and he said, I don't want to sit around the house like a widow. Let's just have a dinner party in write some people down because a lot of your friends.

I was in AA, so I hadn't really met anybody except a people for three years.

So his friend rang, my friend.

Is that part of AA that you don't meet? I know, you can't think. It just was so uncompassed.

I just I threw myself into getting well as much as I threw myself into getting unwell. So I did what I was told, and I had a great time. But eventually all I knew was a people. I didn't know any other gay people or I lost touch with them or whatever, and it wasn't certainly a sexual thing. So he rang.

Elton's friend rang my friend Malcolm, and I was going to Malcolm's house for dinner that night. He was having a dinner party, and Elton's friend said, why didn't you bring your dinner party down to Windsor. So Alton didn't know me. I had no connection at all. It was very random. And I was vegetarian then, and I came through the door and you were having I think spaghetti bolonese. It was what everybody was eating. And so that's this.

Is your menu for the first night. You laid eyes on each other I didn't.

Have spaghetti bolonies, so Elton's housekeeper made me like a pasta bake I think with cheese, which was which was fine. But to be honest with you, I was so kind of overwhelmed with meeting Elton John that I didn't really think very much about the food then the next night, so he asked for my number that evening, and then he called me the next morning and said, I'm coming into London and would you want to come around and

I marry a man like that. I mean, I'd marry you. The minute somebody did that. I would say, this is the man for the rest.

I think that's nice.

I've never been to mister Chows. I didn't you know, I hadn't had high end Chinese food before. We had great Chinese food in Canada, but it was not mister Choles. But it was a really delicious meal. And we talked and talked for hours and hours and hours. We really connected.

We're here in your beautiful, beautiful hou. Would you were saying you have lived here for how many years?

I've lived here for next year, which will be twenty twenty five, lived here for fifty years?

Fifty years? And you've never been tempted to move? Why would you no?

I mean this is the hub of all the properties behind. This is the hub where the children were brought up and go to school locally, so it's always lovely to come back. It's the only traditional house we own, but

The god, what a pup star's house looks like?

We had a lot of gold records a lot of awards, and also I collected Gallet lamps, Tiffany lamps, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Mazurel furniture, and there was so much of it. It was just all on the floor and I just actually run out of room to put anything. As you can see, I'm not a minimalist.

But we could get for it what it has. It's not a minimalists, but it has a quality of real rigor. It does, so you're not saying you're not a minimalist.

Yeah. So I decided how do I get rid of all this stuff? So I decided to say all basically apart from a few four cars, some paintings and a bit of jewelry. And so I had a souther of his cell which was at the VNA for a week. I'm luckily we'd sold everything before the crash in nineteen eighty nine, or I sold it because I hadn't met

But that is full of a collection. You might not have the deco furniture and the same art. But you have collected when you collect. We suppose to be talking about food, but do do you have a rhythm and a kind of consistency for the kind of what you collect?

Do you think, well, I've never collected ceramics before I became a mice and fanatic, and I became Staffordshire fanatic. I just wanted to put things that seemed right in that country home. I love silver well. I never come back from a place without something.

And it doesn't have a memory.

You can look at something and remember, do you, David, You remember where you were when you bought it?

Absolutely?

But I must have met. I have a hard time keeping up because Elton is such an enthusiastic collector. And you know, he grew up and the things in his room when he was a little boy were his friends. So he's always had a great love of objects. Objects he feels have feelings, don't you.

Well they were the when I grow up. My parents argued all the time, so my olddicts were kept in pristine condition and they didn't shout at me. So I loved them and I've suddenly subsequently followed that on through the rest of my life. I do love objicts and they comfort me while I'm on the road. My dress room is full of and stuff like that. It's just very heartwarming for me to see it.

All. It's about the curation and the celebration of them and displaying them lovingly and appreciating them. That brings you so much joy, and it gives the house of real sense of order too.

It does. And also there's a lot of white, isn't there. I was thinking they give a.

Lot of lightness these, you know, if you look at there is a lot of white and happiness. And it's maybe safety, you know, maybe as you were describing your room, maybe it's safe to have, you know, something that you can look at, the standing guard safety in the emotional way.

Let's talk about food. So we thought we would do this.

We would have our guests read a recipe and you're going to read it, David.

So it's risotto with porcini and giol and this recipe served six. One kilogram of fresh porcini and giole, one garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped, one teaspoon of fresh time, one leader of chicken stock, one hundred grams of unsold butter, a red onion finely chopped, three hundred grams of risotto rice, two hundred and fifty millilters of extra dry white vermouth, and two hundred grams of parmesan freshly grated. Want the instructions as well?

How are we going to make it otherwise?

Okay, all right? Clean the mushrooms by brushing them lightly clean the caps of the porcini. Tear any large mushroom into small pieces. In a frying pan, heat three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Add half of the mushrooms, chopped, garlic and thyme in season. Fry until cooked and the liquid has evaporated. Heat the chicken stock. Melt the butter with the remaining olive oil. Add the chopped onion, and cook on a gentle heat until the onion is soft.

Let me have some.

Yeah, let's make it. We got in the kitchen. But I heard or I read that you like risotto so much you actually asked one of your cooks to go gently to learn how to make it risotto? Might that be the actually yesterday?

That was?

When was that?

Well?

That was in the nineties when Johnny Versaci was a big part of our lives, and we used to go

It was, you know, it's just it was just so luscious and also as David said, the presentation went a long way with it because he got me into collecting china, porcelain and tablecloths. It was his fault. Tablecloths, tablecloths, tablecloth. We're huge on table cloths, napkin. Johnny introduced us to the tablecloth in Venice, which was Originallyesum, which is now closed.

And so you asked one of your cooks to learn how to make a resulto properly?

Did that work? Did he learntually?

Yeah?

It was it was good. Yeah.

Have either of you ever worked in a restaurant? Did you?

Did I have work?

No?

I mentioned wine merchants, but not a restaurant, did you.

I waited on tables. I was a last boy, I was a dishwasher, I was a sooux chef. I worked in a kitchen of a golf and tennis club, and I did serve dinners to banquets for five hundred people. I served breakfast to golfers, used to do short order stuff in the kitchen to you know, do the toast and sometimes the bacon and the eggs for people getting ready to go play their golf game. I loved that.

Did that teach you?

It taught me a lot about the importance of kindness because particularly for weight staff, because they are under pressure from the chef, the under pressure from the management, and then the under pressure from the people they're serving. They get it from all directions. And so I always go out of my way anyone that serves me to make sure I'm incredibly grateful and reasonable and polite and always leave a nice tip, because it's really hard work and

Great experience, and that's why I like the restaurants that I go to because I like this stuff and I hate people who are route to serving staff. And I know a lot of people in my business that are and talk down to them. I just that's one thing I hate the most. No, it's the seductiveness is part of it. It's like Daivo right in Venice, which is the simplest restaurant, and.

It's it's beautiful because the major d comes to the table of every meal we've we've never looked at the physical menu. He comes to the table with this little chart board.

Eva is a restaurant Inventers that you get to it's quite hard to find, is there's that little light outside.

It's really the most beautiful way is to ride by boat, isn't it? Is that how you get there? Do you ever go by boat?

Yes, that's the only way we go anywhere we go.

Come in through the side windows. But they arrive with the chartboard on the on the beautiful gilded column, and they give you all of the specials and everything that's being made for the day, and never the same meal twice.

And the simplicity of it is so sexy and so fun that I hate pretentious restaurants. I can't. That's why the River Cafe is always her door enjoyable because you come in and it's like the greatest canteen in the world where you mix with a lot of people you know, and where people just seem to be having the best time. The service is great, the atmosphere is fantastic, whether you're inside with you're outside, and there's not an ounce of potential.

And I would say that you'll.

Go back to a restaurant if you didn't have a great meal, But if you were treated as if you weren't good enough to eat there, then why would you go back? The River Cafe Cafe are all day space and just steps away from the restaurant is now open in the morning an Italian breakfast with cornetti, ciambella and crostada from our pastry kitchen. In the afternoon, ice creamed

Come in the evening for.

Cocktails with our resident pianist in the bar. No need to book, see you here.

I grew up after the war, so everything about the early life. Yeah, I was born in the council house. I lived with my mother, my grandmother, because my father was away in the Air force. Was your mother's mother, Yes, My grandmother. She was fantastic.

What was she like?

She was wonderful. She could cook anything and make it taste incredible. I mean, basic ingredients were hard to get. After all, we were Russiened and bacon was partly a no no. But she made I never remember a bad meal or going hungry, and everything that was left over she made into something else the next day. And what I loved about her because I have the biggest sweet tooth. Her bread puddings and her apple pies, and her scones or scones and her victorious spongeres very simple. The kitchen

I think that a simple English food.

As you talk about bread pudding and apple pie, those are very They're not easy to make, you know, And it's to do with the ingredients and the method and.

The way you cook.

Yeah, and things like spotted digging calcid. I walk into a restaurant, say in Yorkshire or something like that, and sometimes they have things like that on the menu to go, oh my God, which for me is just a sheer delight. I always sometimes think that you go to some john for instance, they have ecoes cakes, and the echoes cakes are incredible, and they sell it with the cheese and

So growing up, you had a mother and a grandmother in the house, and your father was where he was.

He was in a way in the Air Force in Aiden, and so I didn't really see much of him. So it was a woman's household. My mom's sister, my aunt, was always there as well. So I grew up with a bunch of women who knew how to cook, which was great.

And you all sat down to meal every night together.

Yes, and we toasted our toast by the fire was yours.

Similar in Toronto.

I grew up in Canada. In Toronto, I was one of three boys, and my mom was We were very lucky. She was a stay at home mom. She could make almost anything happen instantly. She had a deep freeze in the basement and sometimes we'd come back from school or a sports match and we'd bring two friends along and she'd say, no problem, and she'd go downstairs and she thought out some pastries, she thought some meat, she thought

So you both had grandmothers that.

I think grandparents are so important.

They are, I agree.

The thing about my grandmother was that because we had a garden, we grew all our own produce because it was so much cheaper, and my grandmother had green fingers, so we always had fresh vegetables. Hardly ever had processed peas. I mean the great advantage in those days that food wasn't really you know, instant you did, no instant whips, no instant there mashed potato. It was all genuinely from the garden, which was delicious. So I mean, I remember

Yeah, but neither of your mother's work. They didn't have to combine a career with cooking.

Your mother. My mother worked all the time and worked really really hard as well. And she in the shop, she worked in a dairy, she worked at the Air Force. She's always but she'd always come home and make dinner. Yeah, she was very hard working woman, but still cooked.

She raised Dalton as a single mom. And so you know his ability to you know, study and take lessons and learn and everything. His mum worked very very hard providing for the family to allow him to do that. That's what got him on.

His path to be who he is today.

Did you ever go to restaurants?

The only time I remember going to a restaurant is when I went to a Chinese restaurant in Harrow. We lived in Pinner and Chinese restaurants suddenly became the raide. Coffee bars were the rage before that, but we went for a Chinese meal was the first restaurant I can ever remember going to and it was just wow, we have bean sprouts and it was just so delicious and it was so exotic, and I remember I was so excited to go to this Chinese restaurant. There weren't many

And did you get to a restaurant It was a very very special treat. Yeah, because again it was expensive and it was a big treat. What we never had was fast food. But my mother was very anti fast food. She just didn't didn't think it was good for us. I think she was ahead of her time with that. There wasn't any falt food when I grew up.

Fast food was boiling the cabb ten minutes.

When I went to school, that suddenly became There was a Wimpy Bar when I was about fifteen. That's the first fast food place I can ever remember.

But you both, what is interesting to talk to you about is that food was important to you, and delicious food was important to you, and you grew up with a sense of that importance in your life.

You know, well, meals were very social. It's when you got together. I mean when I went to school, I had school meals which were vile.

That was a day school that was justful.

Just awful, awful. Then you come home at night and that was the day. That's where you got breakfast was just on the on the run really to get to school. But the meal at night was always important, and of course the weekend, the Sunday lunch was really important.

And when you're both in different stages of your life, left this coon of your grandmother's your food, your mother rustling something up when a friend came for you to talk when each of you, would you tell me when when did you leave home?

When did you How old were you when you suddenly were out on your own and thinking about food in your own way.

When I was about I met Bernie that was nineteen maybe or twenty and we shared a flat in Islington and did it have a kitchen? But I'm incapable of cooking anything and Bernie is too, so we just.

Right out all the time. Yeah, And would that be would you seek out restaurants or would you just have grabbed something stuff like that.

Keep things because we couldn't afford expensive things. But never The first real exciting restaurant I went to was when Dick James took her to a restaurant off of Tottenham Court Road.

And who was Dick James.

Dick James was my publisher and my manager who you know, published the Beatles, very famous, first person to sign. Yeah, And so I went to this restaurant called Maisonette, and I had a prawn cocktail. I'm never seen anything like. I didn't know what to do, what's this? So that was the first posh in in Bertacomma's restaurant that I ever went to.

Paul McCartney told me that that same experience, said he when he went was taken.

By Brian Epstein, Brian Epstein to.

Again another Maisonette or Montclair or Bontant, and it was suddenly an eye opener. He said, it was the first time he'd only had cheap wine. With John Lennon, they really and they couldn't understand the point of wine because it tasted so terrible because it was so cheap. And then he went and had a good class of wine and realized what life could be. Did you have the same feeling about your.

Prome cocktail exactly? It was like, oh, and the bread was lovely and it was beautiful bread rolled and crispy, and and you thought, well, this is a different this is a step up. I mean, it's not the Aberdeen Steakhouse. This well it's not. This is a proper restaurant. Yeah, sorry, Aberdeen st you. But to me, the Aberdeen Steakhouse was posh.

That was posh.

Yeah.

I remember once I was in New York and my parents used to take us as a special treat to this restaurant. And then I was with a girlfriend who was a friend of mine, and she said her parents were deciding where to go out to eat and they mentioned this restaurant and her parents said, oh, we're not going to a place like that.

And I thought that was our special place.

Yeah, I thought the Aberdeen Steakhouse.

Yeah yeah, yeah. What about you?

When I was working in advertising, you know, you were taking out clients and you were entertaining them. So that was a little bit like being let off the leash to to explore and have and have fun. And you know, you wanted to tat your clients well, and you were able to take them to nice restaurants. In Toronto, where I grew up, has a fantastic it's a great restaurant town. It's very international. So what you get exposed to is

And so back to the apartment you lived in Islington, you ate out, you of grab food and then slowly, with your success, you were able to go and at that point to being able to eat food and other restaurants.

When I became successful, it was a different kettle of fish. I met people who were more sophisticated than I was, who knew the London restaurant scene and everything, and I started going to better places with them. It's just it's just the journey. I've started to play at the venues, I was starting to eat at better restaurants. I was starting to earn more money, I was starting to live in a better place. As you go, as you do things like that, step by step, you know, you get

That was English food, wasn't it called? Yeah? Did you go to Greek or did you discover chow?

I never? I never went abroad at all. Hardly. I went to America, but I never really in France because I never really went to France or Italy or any places that came later on. I was introduced to America in cuisine in inverted commers. I don't really think they have a cuisine unless you're in the South and chicken and the food is incredible in the South. Yeah, oh my god, do you think?

What do you like in the South?

I like all sorts of things that aren't good for me, like fried chicken, fried chicken donuts. If I had a death row meal, it wouldn't contain anything except sweets because I can't eat them now. So I'd have ice cream, donuts, apple pie, rubab crumble blah blah blah.

I get it. Yeah, So you don't need any sugar now at all? Yeah? And do you crave or miss or of you?

Now?

How long has it been since you've eaten sugar for a long time?

I can have an apple, I can eat a bit of melon, but they do not. As long as you're sensible about it, it doesn't shoot your blood sugar up. But while I crave is chocolate and ice cream, I can't have any.

Ice cream sugar, can you?

Yes, it's hardcore, it's very We've just ordered some from Italy, which he kindly bought me back from. Where was it when I was in?

I was in just outside of Pasatana.

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Thank you.

Let's talk about work and eating. So if you know you're having a concert, would you have a meal before or do you go out hungry?

Or do you have Tell me about if.

My show's usually start at eight? Well they used to, because I'm not doing them anymore. But I would eat probably at five point thirty something not too heavy.

What would it be like?

What would it would be? Probably a little steak and some vegetables, not probably yet, just some protein and some vegetables because you can't go on stage when you'll fall out. They just know, very unpleasant thought that would be. It was a ritual, my whole your ritual.

So your ritual is to eat at five thirty by yourself. Did you see people before or not?

Just its just me and yeah, and then you go out and you have water, presumably water, and.

Then you know it's I get to the venue at three o'clock. I've got to sleep till five point thirty, and then I have my lunch, dinner. Then I faff around getting ready and then let's it. It's just a ritual that happens all the time. Five thirty is the regular five thirty.

And what about afterwards? Do you eat afterwards?

No, I'm on a plane. It's you might have a sandwich, might have a sandwich, half a sandwich.

When do you have the opportunity to explore a city?

Then if you're giving a concert in a city, do you have a sense of where you are that you can sort of be where you are or do.

It is purely arriving, sleeping, performing, and then it's.

All a blur there it is there's no time to side see and you realize if you're in Powers and you're in Italy, or you're in Denmark or places that you feel if you're in Romania and Bulgoa, it's different because you've never experienced it before. But the places I know, I'm used to. But to be honest to you, it's a routine. No time to stop and enjoy the scenery. You go, arrive at the airport, get into the car, go to the show, relax, eat, do the show, fly off to another place.

But you do travel for pleasure.

So absolutely, you have memories of a restaurant in Florence, you have memories of a restaurant in Venice. Are there other cities that you really other than the two Italian ones?

In France or in well, the south, in the south of France. We have a house in Yes. So we're introduced to a restaurant in nie Cod La Petite Maison, and it was Hubert and Javonci that recommended it to us, because he was someone that welcomed us when we first came down and gave us a few pointers on places to go and people to know, and that became a real ritual for us. Every summer we would go there and be looked after by Nicole at least once a week, once every two weeks.

Character Yeah, one.

Time Richard and I were there and we wanted we won't even let it, and we wanted to leave, and she wouldn't let us go.

She said this, and it was going to be the Gypsy Queens.

This is like, she's a brilliant restaurant for her, she's very passionate. She's not everybody's cup of tea, but the food is worth it, and she's always been listening to us and the boysilers Again, we never see a menu when we go there. They literally Nicole just feeds us. So it's like course after course after corn, a lot of it's a lot of food, which is why we don't go too often, because it's quite rich and there's a lot of butter and a lot of all the oil you eat.

Out much of the South answers.

Mostly, we've had a wonderful chef who's cooked for us for over twenty years and I think because Elton spends so much time traveling on the road, and I travel a lot for work as well. The gray luxury in the world is staying in your own home and eating wonderful.

Food terrorists there, which is just perfect for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner. It's just you can't drag yourself away from the table. It's a conversation table, and the viewer is amazing. So why would you bother to go out?

And all our friends come to visit us, so that's the time we catch up with the people we love, you know, on that beautiful terrorist eating fantastic food, all the local produce. You know, it's like the food basket of the world there and you get fantastic produce and exactly.

Question I saw that fish.

I know Sara was going to ask you, growing up as you did, with the importance of food, points of the table, the importance of that kind of sharing of your time with food.

What about the boys? How do you do it with them?

What will they when I'm interviewing them in fifteen years, what will they tell me about their life?

As they would say they had the best time. I mean, they just you know, they love go to the chef food in the summer and exactly as I say, goes out fishing comes back with a hate. We eat it and it's just like, well, it's such a great feeling, and I think he loves it, the fact that we're eating dinner and he called it because the summer. Really it's not just about it's more about them than us. It's about we want to give them a great memory of summer, so that kids have the friends come and

And meals are sacred, so no phones at the table, no television on in the background. It's all about conversation. It's all about connection. It's where we catch up because we all have busy lives and we hear about each other's days. And during lockdown where we with the boys three meals a day, when we just talked all the time about what was going on in the world and told funny stories or learned about his history or my history. And the food is part of that brings you together.

Food is about sharing time with your children, something that you want to explore, to tell you about another country. It's also comfort, And I was wondering if my last question of a very beautiful interview and thank you is to ask you if you needed comfort from a food.

Is there a food that you would go to?

Comfort food? Bacon sandwich, bacon sandwich.

Probably a really basic pasta, like a simple pasta, like pasta like reat pasta, which I love with a bit of cheese, a lot of even, but even simple pasta with.

Pasta is very very confident.

Yeah, yeah, that's very comforting to me too. But if if I'm here and a bacon sandwich is much easier to prepare, So.

How do you make a bacon sandwich?

Elton John on whole wheat bread with butter and proper English bacon, not Danish, not streaky, but you know Lush's bacon with the fat cut off and cooked quite well, so it's quite crackly.

Okay, I'd like to have one of those. Thank you so much, thank you.

It's very love, thank you, thank you,