Ruth Rogers I REMEMBER...

New York-born Ruth Rogers (75) launched the River Cafe in Hammersmith, West London with her late cochef partner Rose Gray in 1987.

- Rob Crossan

It went on to become one of the most renowned restaurants in Britain and has retained its Michelin star status for the last 26 years. Ruth, the widow of the late architect Richard Rogers, designer of the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Lloyds Building in London among other projects, has also written a wide array of cookbooks and has been awarded both an MBE and CBE for services to the culinary arts and charity. She currently hosts a celebrity interview food podcast called Ruthie's Table 4

ONE OF MY EARLIEST FOOD MEMORIES IS MY FATHER TAKING ME INTO NEW YORK CITY FOR AN AFTERNOON TRIP. He’d take me out to lunch, usually to not-so-fancy places. But once he did take me to the Russian Tea Rooms where I remember how gorgeous the space looked while eating borscht and blinis. Afterwards he’d always take me to a show like West Side Story and then we’d buy the soundtrack album from a record shop called Sam Goody. To this day, I think I know the words to pretty much every single song from every single Broadway musical from that era.

WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER IN THE EARLY SIXTIES, I WORKED AS A WAITRESS IN A LITTLE CAFE CALLED THE BEAR IN WOODSTOCK, NEW YORK. I was terrible at it and only lasted a few weeks but, before I worked there, my friend and I would go there after school to do our homework. One day, there was a band rehearsing in the back room and the singer sent a note out to our table to ask if we wanted to come inside and watch them play. We said no, because we had a test the next day. It turns out that the singer who sent that note was Bob Dylan! I think we honestly thought that we could just go meet him anytime and the chance would come again. Obviously, it never did.