River duo are tepid towards hot chef Jamie
IT seems there’s little warmth towards Jamie Oliver from the women who gave him his big break as a chef - Ruthie Rogers and Rose Gray of the River Café.
Jamie was 23 and their sous chef when he was talent spotted by the BBC after appearing in a documentary about the fashionable London restaurant. He was given his own TV show The Naked Chef and the rest, as they say, is history. But while he credits his old bosses for inspiring him in his career, Ruthie and Rose are rather cooler in their assessment of him.
“Oh, it’s nothing to do with us any more,” says Rose. She adds, somewhat dismissively: “We were one step on a long path for him.”
Rose and Ruthie made two TV cookery series for C4 but were not tempted to become celebrity chefs like their erstwhile employee.
“We’re more from the Delia Smith school of cookery,” says Rose.
Adds Ruthie: “Now it’s all about lifestyle and being a domestic goddess or Jamie cooking for his mates or Rick Stein going fishing and that’s not what we do. Our way doesn’t make good television.”
Rose says of celeb chefs such as Jamie: “It’s about entertainment.
“No, for us it’s always been about the books and the restaurant.”