Image: Herry Lawford · CC BY 2.0
The River Cafe Cook Book
- Year
- 1995
- Era
- 20th century
- Origin
- England · Europe
- Language
- English
- Category
- Modern collectables
The River Cafe Cook Book, by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, gathers the rustic Italian recipes served at their Thames-side restaurant in Hammersmith, opened in 1987. Published in London by Ebury Press in 1995, the first edition helped shift British attitudes toward simple, seasonal ingredient-led Italian cooking, and launched an influential series. Its kitchen also nurtured a generation of cooks, including Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
Cooking from this book
Chocolate Nemesis
Signature dishThe dish most often invoked when this book is mentioned is Chocolate Nemesis, the famously dense, almost truffle-like flourless chocolate cake that became a signature of the London restaurant on the Thames. Its appearance in the 1995 Ebury first edition helped cement the River Cafe's reputation for stripped-back Italian cooking executed with uncompromising ingredients, and home cooks have wrestled with its temperamental reputation ever since, making it something of a culinary rite of passage.
An editorial note on a dish associated with this book, written for The Coquinist. It is not a reproduction of the book's recipe.
