Guy Ritchie

You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair. Around forty years ago, when a Rogers my stepson was twelve, he asked of a school friend his best friend could join us for lunch. I know you're going to love him. And three hours later we were in the company of one of the greatest kids ever, cheeky, funny, bright.

Hi. My name's Guy Richie. I am a chef and that's my day job, and my second job is a film director. And here we are. We've been cooking outside on the Gentleman's table, the Wild table, a rather thick realvi steak.

Now, when you ask Guy Richie to do a podcast, you don't just get Guy Today. He's been in the garden at the River Cafe with the chefs, setting up his wild kitchen to cook a ribby steak for us all to try.

We just bring us with you.

Yeah, one does exactly go.

Around to this is great. It's fabulous. Now if you want, you're gonna have the whole thing like that. But I would I would just let that nibble away a bit at its center. Now, the next time it comes off, I think you'll be done.

I've been in contact over the years, with Guy in and out, eating in his pub The Lord of the Land, drinking the beer from his brewery, the Gritchy Company, having him and Jackie, his children and his friends and his family in the River Cafe, and most of all, watching his movies from lock Stock to Smoking Barrels and his most recent The Covenant with two friends and actually guests of the podcast, Jake Chill and All and Josh Bruger.

Now you've already got se it on. But because it's such a thick piece of me, right, we got hack through that. You hack through it because I've got to get on with its beautiful. It's got to go. It's got to go. We got the rest of it to go. Here we go, here comes.

So, Guy, do you want to talk about before we go into your movies and food and food and life? Do you want to talk about grilling a steak? What do you like about a ribby?

I like the fat and I like the crispiness of the fat. It seems to be the right ratio of fat and meat for me. But that's that's usually what I eat is a ribbi five or six days a week. And I'll play with other things. But in the end, it's it's easy for me to cook, and I don't really want anything on it other than salt and recently pepper, But I have a feeling pepper's a crush and it won't last for very long and I'll just creep back into salt.

And you and I like it the same way, which I I hate going to a restaurant and telling the way to how I like something cooked, and so I rarely do that. But when I have a steak, or if I have a piece of the only other thing is salmon, is I like a really dark crust and then a quite medium rare inside rare.

Yeah, well, I'm with you on that. To me, everything's about the patina of the meat. So and you can only really get that patina if you've got the fat. That's I think you and I are probably an agreement on this. I want the combination of that fat just before it's become completely incinerated, but I want it to be crispy and then I'm in heaven and it never gets never gets boring.

Okay, So going from the beginning, at the beginning, we would talk about growing up in the Richie house before you went to boarding school. Well you at home was your your parents. Your father was a friend of a friend of mine, John somerl And they said he loved food and wine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, my father liked wine more than you like food. But yes, he was a good friend. And John Summer used to live on the same street, so he was about five dolls now, but they were Yeah, he was a big foodie. We were like the only middle class family and apart from John in the streets. So when we moved in, it was an old fashioned in theory. It wasn't a sort of Cottney community, but

Yeah, there you go. So you grew up in the house that loved food.

And then my mum was very go cook.

Where did she cook?

My favorite was watercress soup. Really it was quite exotic, so Rabert carriers an idea, but she was a very good cook. I used to like baked eggs and watercrest soup and.

Would you sit down to dinner like most nights as a fam Who's in your family, your.

Brothers and one sister, a sister and a.

Mother, and so would you sit down to me with the kind of family supper.

I heard something earlier on that I'm not can't remember which generation we are, but we are still the sort of the I suppose maybe the last generation that lived more outdoors than we did indoors. So I knew all the other kids in the street, so you were never indoors. You were always out with your mates. And we were on bicycles. I remember used to cycle to quite far Afield and we were on biscles when we were six.

So I went to local school.

Local, I went to thirteen school. I went thirteen thirteen.

Okay, yeah, local school or no school could cope with no educating.

Cool school could cope. And I sort of picked up the reputation that it was because I was naughty, and it wasn't because I was naughty. It was it was just I was remarkably slow in understanding what they were trying to translate, and I had no ability to translate it. So very probiscuous for schools. And I went to about five local schools and then gradually, I mean even the one I went to school with Abe that was which

I've been to my kids' schools, you know, there was Abe or it was you know, my children, And I remember saying the only I don't care if they learned to read when they're eight or six or ten or twelve or fourteen. What you do never want your child to do is to feel stupid, you know, because I said, those are the people that come into the River Cafe, and they was coming and they say, I don't want to sit here. I don't want that, I don't want this, And I almost want to say, did you have a

I'm going to challenge you lenge. I'm going to challenge you that I from the best roses, come from the worst menure. So I think a certain amount of adversity is rather essential, and I don't think it did me much harm being told. You never told you were stupid, it was implicit. Well, you were clear, it was clear that you couldn't follow right, and you were clear that kids that weren't that quick were following quicker than you

You and A became and Richard, my husband, became stronger because of it. But there might be a lot of people around gave up, you know, who didn't fight back. They just made me. It's about I agree with you about a lot of that. I mean, I agree with self esteem. I used to think self esteem was the most important thing. Now I think maybe not. It was a paradox that, Yeah, that's a paradix. Okay, Well, going back then thirteen schools, do you remember any of those thirteen schools having good food?

Yeah, you'll be surprised what kind of food I can enjoy? Yeah, tell me everything. My mum wasn't fussy, and I've never been fussy. The only thing I couldn't eat was rhubarb, and even that I can eat now, and I was.

Out of thirteen schools, which one did you? Did you do something like graduating from school or did you just leave school?

It just left fifteen and it was anticlimactic sort of. I left and then they said, don't bother coming back.

That was at Stanbridge.

That was at stanbridg Yeah.

Nice. Yeah. And did your parents were they Were they worried about you? Yes?

Yeah, yes, because I I had no qualifications at all. I could barely spell my name, but I was. I mean, I was working by the time I was fifteen, not far from here. Actually it some Peter Square in amismthre Yeah. I worked in the island records, which I don't know if it's still there, but I worked as a two boy in records.

Were you living at home? Did your mom still cook for you? Who?

No? I left home early door. So I was from fifteen onwards. I was in and out.

And what were you changed? You remember?

No? There's the answer that no, because then it was it was all work from fifteen to now. It's really all been work, although it has been sort of messy periods along that way. I've been working pretty much since I was fifteen.

We talked about your mother, but what about your father. He was he more into wine? As you said, did he teach you about wine?

I didn't like why until I was forty forty?

How old are you now?

I am fifty four?

Okay? And what changed all that?

Lot?

What didn't you like about wine?

It just meant nothing to me. And you could see the price disparity, and that had no impact on me. I was what, you know, I was happy on two pound fifty as other people were on two hundred and fifty, and I couldn't I did. The nuance was wasted on me. And then at forty a light bulb went off off.

Do you remember where you were?

You know, you think it's your friend Josh Berger had something to do, and I think it was like a weekend away somewhere and someone brought out the big guns and like on the third bottle where I was sort of taking the mick, and then all of a sudden something happened. And once it happened, then I lost a decade to enjoying file mines. And then I did the wine tours.

Where did you go?

Well, I'm a Bordeaux man that's recently recently drifted into Burgundy. I'm on terra firma with the Bordeaus. So the classic obvious ones, which it's boring because they're cliches, but Latour will be my go to if I was going to go for an event of some description. So I'll go over all the obvious, the Moutons, Lafitte, Margo, Lynch Bash, you know, all the well known ones and what about it, super touscans, manisetto and so on.

But do you like them? Do I do? Do you have a wine cellar?

Then I do?

And you go, Do you go down and say that tonight we're going to have this?

Yeah? I mean I'm essentially French, right, So I am prejudiced towards the French in the sense that I think both food wise and wine wise, they're the layers of sophistication that the French developed over however long. I my first love of real food was French, and I was tremendous slee impressed by the layering.

You call layering, you mean the way.

That I felt as though there was every nuance was investigated. There was a place on Pimlico Road that was run by those brothers. Yeah, it was next to the Blipot.

Yeah, but that's when I was there.

Was a little supermarket. There was next door a little shop and a little French shop, not much bigger than this room. And when I was a van driver, I used to go in there and it was absurdly expensive, but the quality was mind blowing. You've run a career off the quality of your ingredients, though, Avenue.

I would say that about French food and Italian food. You know that I saw nothing I love more than a piece of fish, both blanc and spinach on the bottom, as you say, almost layering the way. But there's something also when you go to Italy and then you have a piece of sea bass and nothing, you know, you just get this bass and maybe, if you're lucky, a

I went fishing for sea bass this week actually as you were Portland anyway. So I caught four very healthy baths. We're actually called fourteen. We returned ten of them. Wet fishing with my ten year old is obsessed and English bass.

We get it is we get all our fish off the coast. We don't bring any two now or anything in. We once had one of my was we had the we you know, we call it the end of service, So at eleven o'clock at night, we know how much bass we've sold, how much you know, turbot we've sold, and we know that the next day we're going to change to the menu. So we never have the menu. It just depends what there is in the fridge and

What do you want? And we took it. How big was it?

I can't remember, maybe I having no eight kill.

And I came back. I came past here one evening with Josh and I had your turbot.

Ye, did you like it?

Yeah?

We do it on the trunch, so you have this thick bone and then you have the thick turbot, and so we put you know, it depends what the chef wants to do. I think last night we did it with zucchuini and zucchini flowers, and today we might do with capers and you know, black olives.

It was a real winner. It was a real winner. Would you buy your nature go sea vass or turbot?

Oh? It depends probably pass. I love pass. But if I have the turbot in the wood oven, it's a very rich fish. It's I love. Yeah. The thing about fish for me is I love it on the bone.

You know.

I always think I know that you don't, you know, And so it's really nice to have a whole agreed. So what happened to the fish that you reeled in? Where are those best? Now?

I et them, all of them? Ye? Yeah. My son's very insistent on eating them as quickly as possible. You've got to wait we find it. We have to wait twenty four hours because you get over the rigging mortis. Yeah. The idea that you can eat fish that she doesn't work.

I know, I know they just that her, but it's the same thing, even dover sold it. I mean so and I kind of what you would think, but the idea.

Took so last forever too. I'll show you passed me that. I'll show you this because my son is now obsessed with fishing, and that means I'm now get all well, this is all on the shore.

Oh, I see you're not on a boat's.

So I don't have the picture of the bass. But I'll tell you. Look at the signs of this brown trout that you caught.

Wow, Wow, look at that.

Wow is amazing. I mean, that's how much of that thing when six and a half pounds? But that will lie. That will feed you know you don't feed feed ten. But most of the photographs they are fish. That's rafa.

That's great. Did you know The River Cafe has a shop. It's full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks, linen napkins, kitchen were toad bags with our signatures, glasses from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can find us right next door to the River Cafe in London or online at shop Therivercafe dot co dot UK.

I'm always in the kitchen.

You always in the kah.

Well, actually I'm not in the kitchen. I mean I'm outside in the kitchen, but the internal kitchen is. I was just explaining to your chefs. I've become increasingly frustrated with because I've got quite nice knives, and people have bought me good knives, and subsequently no one wants to sharpen them because they're frighting of sharpening and they don't want to mess them up. And what I quite like is a cheap knife with a brutal sharpener, and I

We had we had, I remember we used to have somebody just to come and sharpen the knives. We had bel sized grove when it was growing up. So that must have been when I first came to London. Can you imagine this American girl. I didn't know what anything was and they delivered bottles of milk and you didn't lock your door and they and the man came to sharpen the knives and sell onions. They used to sell onions like on the back of their bicycle. This must have been in the seventies.

Well, yeah, it was the seventies. Used to get We used to have a rag and bone man, any old iron they used to see as they were. By then you had the knife man.

The knife man, I definitely remember by the.

Way it's consist of the knife man.

Actually, I know, why do we still and I remember to bring back knife many knife.

Man worked and you had the milk.

The milk definitely, you didn't have that like creamy stuff at the top.

You could have like a when you used to sell everything. Yeah, you used to have everything on there and then he just went from selling everything to not existing.

Yeah. So when we're going to talk about work and food, so when you go to is a set in Spain with you and Jake and Josh and all your people. Do you worry about what they're eating?

Not really, No, no, because everyone's If no one complains, then I don't stick my nose into it. And they don't really complain, so they're sort of happy. You'll find out at some point or another of the caterers aren't winning, but recently doesn't need to be too much complaints. I barbecue every day. I've got I've got a sort of old wooden trailer that we reside in and where we

Yeah, you just invite various people.

There's usually usually ten people in there.

Yeah. Jake's a good eater, isn't he.

Yeah?

He really cares.

About and carries no weight, carries no weight, doesn't drink much, so he's in good nick. He really cares, but he cares about his food, and he rather sadly sends me pictures and I send him pictures of that.

But what about other actors you've worked with?

Had to come acros someone that's not interested in Almost no one I know is not interested in food. But in order sometimes you have to switch off and see, food is fuel, and as soon as food is fuel, you tend to lose weight.

And when you go to is a set like you were in Spain for the Covertant being Afghanistan, do you think about where you're going and the food they're having and what that will be like or do you think wherever you are you're kind of eating what.

You Yeah, I mean, I'll go local. We spent we spent quite a lot of time last two movies I've done, or outside of The Covenant, which is in Spain, we did in Turkey.

I remember that, what was that?

I like Turkey?

What did you like?

I like the Turks? And I can't believe that's the country as large as that that people don't talk about much. And we were just very impressed with it. We love the people and we love the food.

And I was in this temple three weeks ago and I hadn't been there before, and I was blown away for us sitting there. And then the food. We went to all these different restaurants once, some on the pass, for some in the little town, some in the I thought it was a fantastic food culture.

It is, but everything in that part of the world is do you think I do? I mean, you're still sort of you. You're tethered to the med so I don't know. If you've done tel Aviv, You've done tele Aviv. The food culture in Israel is insane. We spent quite a lot of time in the Middle East. We like the Middle We got mates in Bahrain, so we go over a year for the race, a little bit in Saudi, quite a lot in Israel.

And the food wise, do you have one place that you're actually in the Middle Eastern food?

Well, it's Israel's sort of nicking it at the moment. But then Dubai. I don't know if you spend any time by the Dubai, I mean, it's it's a cliche, and it is for a reason, because it's pretty brilliant.

A lot of of our you know, I've been asked top restaurant in Park. I think there must be. I think there's no, But there are quite a lot of Western restaurants here.

I've been with lots of people that have been talking to you about opening places over the years, and you never seen anywhere else.

So I went to look at a site the other day with our friend who does all the architecture for us, you know, and he said, I was sitting in this place near Grove the Square, and I heard this guy going and with you, you know, look at the space. You can have your kitchen here, and you could do this, and you could do that. And he said, I want to say, listen, you know she's not going to do it, but that's not true. I go, I would do it.

You spent spent some time.

Yeah, we went to La But the fact is that it's it's a long answer to a short question. Why don't I do it? I think I still would do it. We could just do another restaurant in London. We don't have to go abroad.

Although you know what will be quite interesting is it would break or break a cliche. You'll I know you're not gonna go to Dubai, which I would quite like you to do, just because it's unpredictable, and I think it's important to be unpredictable, and I think it's important to prove yourself wrong. I'm constantly I'm constantly doing things which against my better judgment, I do because I have

Also, somebody said they were suggesting I, you know, I had this idea for doing sort of fast food kind of thing, and then he said, you know, but I said that I don't think I want to do it because it could fail. And they said, really, everybody's failing these days. This is what you do in silicon value. You start a startup, you start a business, and it fails. It's not a big deal.

You know.

I always think failure is like a big deal, but apparently it's not the biggest.

It's not what it was. Failures not well, this is the upside.

It's the new success.

Well, and people don't seem to notice like they used to. Yeah, yeah, you know, and subsequently go, well, I mean that didn't work very well. But guess what no one's talking about.

You had a movie that failed.

Now, oh yeah, I've had movies that have not works. Let's put it. Let's put it that way. And it's not the same anymore. And you go. Because the thing is, it's hard to calibrate success. It used to be very easy. Used to open up on a by on a Thursday evening that used to know whether you're it was going to work right within two or three hours, they can pretty much predict what your box office will be at

At lasts, so they can tell that. So well.

Now it's complicated because now is.

A movie that you find, you know, do you have one or does it?

How were going to calibrate success?

Yeah, that's what I'm going to say, the one that you like.

No, I like all of them equally, but you know it's.

It doesn't This is something question saying which is your favorite? It is? Will always say to me, you know, what do you like best to cook? Or what do you like the wind? And you know it depends on the day, the weather.

I forget about my work.

Yeah. Richard uced to say, you know that when you finished the building, it was kind of done, and you're you know, you're now it's done and it's there and you.

And then you kind of oddly discover you rediscover your films because you go to someone's house to know watching it and you sit down and halfway through and then you sort of drift in and drift out your hold on and it feels oddly reminiscent. But you can't remember going through the process, although you were so intimate with the process, you's just forgotten and you go through the process, and I just become the viewer and I'm sitting there and go, oh, that's fun or that's not fun, And

Yeah, there's a lot SI. But Crystal the artist did a fence through southern California. He wanted to get the people of the town to permit it, and they didn't want to do it because they didn't think it was art because it was temporary. You know, Crystal, everything he did just lasted a little while, whether it was a fence or whether it was sheets or umbrellas in central part. And so the argument was, it's not art because it's temporary.

I'm a big fan of things that are ephemeral. I spent a lot of time thinking about what is creativity and what is art, and it being ephemeral is neither here nor there. Art seems about the expression of that which is concealed finds an interesting conduit to become revealed. It's kind of irrelevant what the format is as long as you can see that that which is revealed is

If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you please make sure to rate and review the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. So, when you're working, somebody you wake up in the morning and what do you have for breakfast?

I'm not a breakfast man, so.

You're not a breakfast man, not a lunchment. What do you okay?

So try and I've lost a stone, which I'll quite smug about. I've done quite well in the last six weeks.

I'm that drug.

You No, I'm not in the drug. So what's your It's because I late. So I'll have lunch. I'll get a bit pinchy, quite like coffee. So I'll go on Ice Americanos at about one and then I'll have a little nibble of something and then they do these like sort of healthy bars, which they they do on the front. It's like dates, cashew nuts and something else. But anyway, they've got just enough naughtiness in them to keep you entertained,

There is a little round hill, so we're going to be in expanding.

Now, well, I'm going to be quite good at this, but I've got quite a lunch coming up tomorrows. How I can tell someone's birthday tomorrows, I can tell I might as well warm. Yeah, so yeah, so I eat late, that's right.

You know in Mexico we used to when I lived in Mexico City when Richard was not well. The ideas that Mexicans have a good breakfast at about eleven and then ten.

Eleven's good. I think eleven's good.

Then they eat lunch about five four, but you have like a two hour lunch and then that's it.

On there.

I love that.

Eleven o'clocks for me is quite a good time and you have a little something just to keep you going. And then if you can press on through and you get a bit pinched, and then three four five if you get stuck in, and then that's your life.

You've lost weight. That's since when actually.

I've rather proudly got the photograph on there, so about six weeks.

That's good.

Yeah. And by the way, struggling, it's not being a struggle.

And I with your kids, do you have would you sit down for dinner with your kids? So yeah, they're all quite quite early with you.

Yeah, yeah, and you're watching out eating the kids, as everyone knows, because you soon fall into a bowl of spaghetti and it's hard to get out of it, and they fish fingers. You forget how good they are until I mean, that's a problem with kids food. Kids food's good, and you just don't want to go near the gravitational puol of kids food because once you do, it's hard to get out of it. So we try not sit with the kids for that reason, and then I'll end up eating their food.

Yeah, of course you do. And when but they're going back because when I thought when you were in Spain, you did did you eat cookies?

We were very good to begin with and then yeah, we were on about a thousand calories and we were very good. And then Josh took me to a Spanish gaff where we fell off a cliff and we spectacular.

What did you have? Do you remember?

I actuallygot the pictures. I'm one of those people that rather sadly takes pictures of interesting meals.

Then was just in where you're making.

The movie, it was it was like hole in the wall.

What city were you're near?

You were near we were near Alicante, now I'm sure anyway, whatever, then we fell off a cliff because then we ended up in the Spanish wine world, and I remember sobbing by the time we came to the second meal because of the impact of not having drunk or eaten too much in six weeks. I think we're being very good girls. And then that was it, and then we were very naughty for the remainder of the for the shoot everything I'd lost in the first half and then quickly found

Cot say contract and expand and.

I'm happy with that. My biggest challenge in life is not eating too much, and I will become I will expand to the point of danger if I let my nature loose. So really it's the battle that I suppose everyone has. You've done very well to remain the whippet that you.

Oh I am not kidding, No, you're a whippit.

Now, how hard is it for everyone? I'm shocked that anyone north of forty is not four hundred pounds because the amount of resistance that you need, a restriction, you need in order not to endlessly expand is really kind of admirable.

And it's so delicious, isn't it. So it's such a pleasure.

It's such a pleasure. It's a dilemma. It's a dilemma that we all face it two or three times a day, and everyone does so in proportion to the blessing, as they say, is in proportion to the curse. So food is that thing, right, So as much pleasure it gives you is as much trouble as it can give you. And so I live in this world of desperately trying to create and sometimes I win and sometimes I lose, trying to find balance with food and booz.

Actually, also when you hold back on food, have you been to when you know that? And I know that because I've had it, is that when you sort of sit down and then you know I'm not going to have you know, something fattening or something too much or you know, sugar, you kind of hold back in every way do.

You think you do? But subsequently I can't like it? Subsequently at the time I don't, and then subsequently, yeah, I think.

When we talk about food and this is always you know. My last question, is there food that you would turn.

To for comfort comfort food? It will be either marmite on toast. And I'm actually quite snotty about my toast, so I do like a good sowdough.

Do you have butter or just moremy but also quite like posh buttter too. I like posh.

Bread and posh butter. That's anything that the closer it came from a cow, the poshare it is, as far as I'm concerned. And I went to place called the New in Somerset the other day.

Do you know I haven't been there, but.

Well, anyway did They did a sour though there and a big wedge of local butter, and it's just no point in anything else. So it will probably be I do like Marmie. I do like marmalade. By the way, I can talk about marmalade for sometime now. I'm not going to fall down into the that's episode two. So although my nature is not bread driven, arm I when I do taste good bread and good butter hard to trumpet

But is really nice with anchivies. You know, even Italians have butter and anchovies. Is there something about as salted.

ANCHI yeah, you do a lot of anchovies. You're very well, you're big on anchovies. But hold on, I'm feeling as though, and then I do they're all going to be It's it's okay. Bread.

Bread is comforting.

The question was about what's comforting, so yeah, so it will They're all bread related. I do like pigeon, I know, yeah, yeah, I love pigeon. I'm giving you lots of answers.

So I'll be like it. This is well, there's a difference between liking and something you might turn to when you really thought, you know.

What, where'd your cheddar? Where did you che branson pickle?

Okay?

Own bread?

Yeah?

Yeah, big on that.

So we've had comfort, we've had creativity, we've had and we've had a great piece of meat, didn't we That was a rebby to remember. That was delicious. So yeah, there's not very many people that you interview who bring their own who bring their own grills. So we have a lot more to do more talking, more, cooking, more eating together.

Yeah, fabulous.

That was the little boy that I met when he was twelve years old. You've come a long way. Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.

Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers and it's produced by William Lensky. This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers are Fay Stewart and Zad Rogers. Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore, and our production coordinator is Bella Selini. This episode had additional contributions by Sean Wynn Owen. Thank you to everyone at The River Cafe for your help in making this episode.