February 12, 2024 • 39 mins
When Ruthie found herself living in Mexico City for four months in 2018, her regular world of London, work, family and friends became irregular. She was thrust into a city with new people, new language and new food. Then one day someone suggested she meet at Niddo, a small restaurant recently opened by Karen Drijanski and her son Eduardo Plaschinski. From that moment her mornings changed. She went to Niddo almost daily, always to be greeted with a strong embrace from Karen, who would go back to her kitchen and cook the best breakfast: eggs Mexicana, rancheros, tortillas, fresh breads, oatmeal, cheese omelettes, avocado.
Ruthie and Karen kept in touch, but it was only a weeks ago that she returned to Niddo for the first time in four years. And so, here today not from The River Cafe but from a studio in Mexico City, three good friends back in the most beautiful of cities—a warm and irregular world.
Ruthie's Table 4 is made in partnership with Moncler.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
In two thousand and eighteen, I found myself living in
Mexico City for four months. My regular world of London work,
(00:21):
family and friends became irregular as I was unexpectedly thrust
into a city with new people, new language, and definitely
new food. Then one day someone suggested we meet at Nido,
a small restaurant recently opened by Karen Dujonsky and her
son Eduardo Pleshinsky. From that morning everything changed. I went
(00:47):
to Niedo almost every day, always to be greeted with
a strong embrace from Karen, who would then go back
to her kitchen and cook me the best Mexican food,
eggs Mexicana and cettos, tortillas, fresh breads, oatmeal, cheese, omelets, avocado.
Months later, when it was finally time for me to
(01:09):
return to London, it had switched around. Karen and Nido
had become my regular world and it was painful to
leave them. We emailed and sometimes phoned, but it was
only two days ago that I returned to Nido and
Karen for breakfast. In four years, so here we are
today in a studio. Two good friends back in the
(01:32):
most beautiful city I know.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Ruthie, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Would you like to read? Yes? And isn't it good
to be together?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
It is beautiful. You always bring tears to my eyes.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Never So you've chosen the recipe.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I've chosen that tlalini with sparagus. So oh, we need
these five hundred grums of chopped sparagus, four garly clothes, peeled,
four tablespoons chop mix fresh herbs, one hundred million liters
of double cream, five hundred grams of unsalted butter, two
(02:08):
hundred grams of taglarini, one hundred and twenty grams of parmesan.
Please grate it and this is how you're going to
do it. Trim and finally chop the sparagus. Bring the
cream to a boil in a saucepan with a garlic,
and simmer until the clothes are soft. Hiat the olive
(02:29):
oil and butter in the saucepan and fry half of
the chopped sparagus. Add the rest of the cream. Bring
to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until
the cream begins to thicken. Cook the pasta. Add the
sauce half of the parmesan and tossed together, serve with
(02:50):
remaining parmesan and a lot.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Of love and a lot of love. A good recipe.
And why did you choose it? All the recipes in
all our books that I asked you to choose, why
did you choose this one? Cara?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I love sparagus, I love herbs. I like when pastas
are treated simply, and I adore cream and butter. So
I thought anyone can do it because you can find
the ingredients everywhere, and it's something that I do very often.
From your book.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
In England, we have a very short asparagus season. It
goes from probably mid May till end of July. What
is there a season in Mexico asparagus?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
We can find sparagus throughout the year. Yes, usually sometimes
they come from here and sometimes they come from California,
So we find that's you know, it's easy because I
can find sparagus all the year, and also fresh herbs
in the Parmer market that I go every Sunday. They're amazing.
They come from Bay.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
So let's start at the very beginning, perhaps, which would
go back to how did your family come to Mexico?
Because I know it's a very compelling story. Was it
your grandmother or your great grandmother?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
My grandmother?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Tell me about your grandmother.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So my Austrian grandmother came from Austria escaping the Second
World War, and my other grandmother came from Poland way
before the Second World War. So I had two very
different upbringings, two very different kitchens, and two very different
environments for cooking. The Viennese one, the Austrian was super
(04:31):
sophisticated because she could purchase and she knew about a
lot of ingredients. So there was dark, but something very interesting. Ruthie,
the cook at my grandma's, was an amazing Mexican cook.
So when I was five and six, as soon as
I went into her house, I run into the kitchen.
I didn't go to the garden. I didn't want to
(04:53):
go play with the dogs in the garden or with
the dolls. I wanted to cook my own eggs. Had
six years at six, so they had a little wooden
stool for me to go up, and they would say
can I cook for you the eggs and said no, no, no,
I'll make my own. And since then I do scrumble
eggs like I did.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
For you every day. When you talk about your grandmother
who escaped to come to Mexico. What was her story.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
It was a very hard and painful story. She lived
in a very close town to Vienna, who was taken.
You know, they came to get them and kill them all.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
They were a Jewish family.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
He was young. I'm Jewish and my family is Jewish,
and I'm very proud of our traditions like anybody else
with their own traditions. So we are a Jewish family.
And her mom saw a diamond inside a hat and
she explained to my grandma, when they come together us
(05:59):
and if they kill Saul, wear the hat and run away.
They came. They killed everyone except my grandma and my
grandma's sister. In fact, my grandma saved the sister from
a camp. So it was an amazing story because my
grandma was very hard working, and I take the hard
(06:20):
working part from her since I was very young. She said,
you need to work, you need to learn how to
make a living, because that's the experience that she learned,
and she wanted to pass it to me.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Go back to the story of the diamond and the hat.
But she saw her family being killed. She was spared.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
She quickly went and got the hat. She got the
hat she wore, and she was how old she was? Fifteen?
She run away into the.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Woods with the hat and the diamond.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Because by with the diamond she could save her life
and get a ticket to go to America.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
So she was coming not to Mexico, but to a marria.
She went to New York.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, a family member took her while she was trying
to make a living, and she lived in a garbage
bin in New York. In New York, in a garbage
bin for more than six months until she could make it,
wadering doing housework, anything that would give her a living
(07:26):
while finding her sister. She did find. You know, it's
very interesting, Ruthie, because my grandma name was Carlotta Charlotte,
and her sister was Annie, and Annie and my grandma
taught me how to cook. So once they went to
New York, they saw an opportunity to come to Mexico.
(07:47):
And Mexico has been always, always an amazing place of opportunities.
If you work hard and you're passionate, there's always opportunities
in Mexico. So they came to make how old were
they then? Okay, So my grandma was nineteen or twenty.
She was trying to find her sister. She didn't save
(08:08):
her from the camp, from the Holocaust camp, and they
came to Mexico and the sister started to cook and
started to have a little restaurant in a Capulco. And
my dad had a jewelry store and my grandma had
a jewelry store in a Capulco in the in the
coast line of the beach. So I worked in the
(08:28):
jewelry and in the restaurant since I was twelve.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
And your own so that was your grandmother. Your parents
then were born in Mexico.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
The first generation born in Mexico. I'm the second and
my children are the third. Yes, so yeah, it's an
amazing story because on the other side, the Polish signed. Yeah,
they didn't suffer the Holocaust. They just came before to find.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
They decided to camp. Why did they chose Mexico?
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Do you think there was a good Jewish community and
a lot of opportunities. So from Poland to Mexico it
was a great opportunity. So they came to Mexico, the
Polish and the Austrian and then mom and dad they
met here, they were born here and my mom Susanna
and my dad Muses they met here then married.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And eating. What did they do? Mom?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
An amazing art dealer. Oh yes, amazing art dealer. You know.
I was very lucky to get to know Medida in
Suynia and Toledo. So they sat at a table always.
So there was always cooking, an art, cooking and culture,
cooking and music, cooking and love.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And where were your grandmothers did they did they live
near your house?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Very close Polanco and Planca, both in Polanco and I
could work and the Vienna's grandma. When I was very little,
I put a little food store outside the house with
little soapasitos and the supositos were one sent So since
very young I was cooking and feeding people.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, were you ever trained or did you just know?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I'm not supernatural? Like when I was very young, I
could smell and know what I wanted to put into
the dishes. I love spices and herbs and products and
markets and the people who do it, you know, and
very passionate about it.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And who taught what was it your grandparents and the
Mexican chef that you had cooking for you the Mexican
cook that you had in the kitchen, who actually Corney,
who was Corny Corney, was a very important.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Figure in my life because my grandma taught her cook
while she worked. She was a silversmith, so while she
work a lot, the cook cook a lot, and she
was taught by my grandma. Was very tough and she
and Connie was very soft, and she was very sweet,
(11:07):
and she was an amazing cook. So she was very
patient with me because she took care of my mom
when she was pregnant in me when I was born.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
When I interviewed Alfonso Couran, the other Mexican that I
had on the podcast, he talked very much, and of
course he made a movie Roma about the role of
the domestic help in Mexican families, and it's a very
unique role I think that you had. He said a
very interesting thing. He said, when Americans made money and
(11:40):
had greater wealth, they would buy bigger things. They would
have a bigger kitchen, they would have a bigger car,
they would have a bigger house, they would have maybe
two cars. In Mexico and also I think perhaps in Italy,
maybe in Spain. His opinion was that when people had
greater wealth. They kept the house the same, the kitchen
(12:00):
the same. Is very simple. That they had more domestic staff,
They had more people to work for them, and those
people became very very important in the family.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Do you agree they become your family, They become your
chosen family. In fact, I have somebody that helps me
at home and my children for over thirty years, Ruthie.
So the same with Connie. So Connie became my mom's
mom because my mom's mom was always working, and Connie
(12:31):
was the one feeding the kids and taking care of
their calls and their temperature and their you know, and
she became almost like my grandma.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
So I was always in Cornie's kitchen and then on
my Bobber's kitchen. My Jewish Yewish, you know, very interesting Jewish,
but very different.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
And so you had the Mexican food when your family.
Tell me about life in your household. Your mother was working,
your father was working, and you had one sister. What's
the four girls? Four girls? Okay, so four and so
what would you'd go to school? And what was life
like at home? So mum worked and ground my work.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
So at home you would wake up in the morning,
go to school, come back and have an amazing Mexican meal.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Dinner.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
It was lunchtime. It was two thirty two three, right,
So dinner in Mexico was light. Lunch is heavy.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
When I lived here, that was one of the things
I learned, really was that you had well, we had
big breakfast at Ledo. Then we would have I would
be in the hospital with my husband, and then we
would meet for lunch at about four or possibly five,
have a delicious whatever it was called lunch or early dinner,
and then that was it. You'd have a piece of
(13:49):
fruit at ten o'clock or a glass of mescal or
tequila and then go to bed. So I thought it
was a beautiful way to eat if you could do
that and work.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
You know, I like because you go to bed very light.
You have a slice of papaya or watermelon or melon.
It's very light. But since we have a Mexican food,
you know, you know, Ruthie, you know the rice and
the fideo and the moorland and chiladas, and that's what
we ate at home. And then a little bit of baking,
(14:21):
which was Austrian or.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Polish, and so you sit down to dinner, everybody ate together.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, so they would come from work and at three
everybody was sitting at the table. We had an amazing
Mexican during the week, and then Sunday was a little
bit more sophisticated and for Shabba, dinner was always at
my Polish Grandma, and at sha dinner was very Jewish.
They filled the fish, mudzables, you know, roasted chicken all that.
(14:51):
And on Sunday we had a very delicious, amazing lunch
at my Viennese Grandma, which was dark and then potato
dumplings filled with apricot in sa and linzert and butter cookies.
It was all about butter.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah, and better easy to get in Mexico is amazing butter, yeah, interesting,
amazing butter.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Sometimes I buy it from a special very small ranch,
or sometimes I get it from where it comes to bit,
which is France or Denmark, but produce in Mexico, if
you know where, we're very lucky.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah. I think that there's such an incredible food awareness
in Mexico City, and I think it can be anything
from your own restaurants to what you're doing to contram Mar,
which we went to today, which has probably two hundred
and fifty people in one room and having wonderful you know,
(15:50):
fish brought to you by waiters who just say yes
to everything. You know, there's just a wonderful atmosphere to
a bar that I went to the first night I
got here, and you had to open what looked like
a kind of refrigerator door to get downstairs to have
a thing. It was like prohivision. But it feels on fire.
The Mexican food scene without being with you know, not
(16:13):
being fashionable. There's a culture of food here that I'm
so amazed by and moved by.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
It is so important for us. It is so important
as family together, as friends together, as couples together. So
fort is a huge part for where are you going
for breakfast? What are you doing for lunch? Where are
you having dinner? It's part of our life. You know,
it's big because I find that you stop your day
(16:41):
for those moments and you connect with people in those moments.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
And did you go to restaurants with your family or
so you did, so you'd have those danielsynth thing and
then you'd go Friday night Shabad And then when would
you go to.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Saturday when we were young on Saturday? Have you been
to that movie. Now it's a very typical fish Spanish
restaurant in the city center. You have to go. It's
a classic okay, So from lobster to big shrimp to
little clams, and it's a very old, beautiful dining room.
I'll take you next, Nubio. We went to the Nubio,
(17:17):
We went to La Lanna, We went to Chamselice, which
was like an amazing restaurant. Food was an eat is
a huge part of our lives. I have four sisters,
So wherefore we cook big time?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And is it regional? I know it is regional, so
I know the answer to that question. So if you're
in the Yucutan, you'll be eating something very different than
you would have perhaps in you know, on the Pacific coast.
And if you're on the Pacific coast, you'll have something
that's quite different from you know, Mexico City or then
the Boa, California, Wahaka. So the regionality of food is
(17:55):
very important in Mexico, Isn't It is.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Such a big It is because who is from Wahaca
is very proud from their products and the way they
cook their chillis. If you go to Puebla, you have
a certain kind of molley. But if you go to Wahaka,
you have another morley. Tell me about the two Malays,
you know, they're so different, So listen. In Puebla sweeter.
In Wahaca is hotter, spicier. And I was just in Merida,
(18:22):
in Casasquela doing an amazing pop up, and I went
to these amazing markets, Ruthie, I cannot even tell you
what I found, Like a La masorca. That's the corn cob.
It's burned inside the ground and it's burnt and it's
(18:43):
brown and it's smoky. And I did pick of thee
with it, and mali is with it, and you can
do pastory with it. Then it's very regional.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Can you just tell everyone what malay is.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yes, moley, it's a very thick sauce made with chili nuts,
tons of spices from cinnamon to chocolate.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Does all malet have chocolate and it.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Not in Wahaca. Yes, a ton in Pevla. Less in Pevla,
more sugar, in Wahaca, more chocolate. And then in Wohaca
you can find more than twenty thirty forty kinds of moley,
like Colorado Mariito Nero for for pork for chicken, for waholote.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Molay.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
It's a huge thing. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
You love it? And do you cook a certain type?
Do you make all.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Different Puebla, Yeah, I like it, mole sweeter And I
went to Puebla like two or three months ago, and
I got some beautiful pastes from it, and I just
seas in it. And I do it with chicken and
white rice and tortillas for my kids, with an amazing
avocado and tomato salad with a cilantro dressing, and it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
It's so interesting because as an American, my vision of
what Mexican food was it was so different from the reality.
It's so refined, it's so subtle and light and about
the ingredients. The markets have the markets changed in the
last many years.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
No, there real ones. No, you know, if I go
to El Mercado in Wohaka and Elmergo Central and Ohaga
La Central de Bastos, Ruthie, it's the same. It's beautiful
because it has we make sure we keep it the same.
So if we go to the old markets and the
(20:41):
original markets. Yes, if you go to the neighborhoods, maybe
they come and they want to paint a little bit,
and they take the charm of it. But I was
in Meridia and I went to three markets, and I
went to the original market and these one market was
It took me back one hundred and fifty years ago
in what way, the way that people dress, the way
(21:04):
that people talk, the ingredients they had, the way they
display it, the freshness, It was the same ass one
hundred years ago. So we keep them. We want to
keep the tradition we want to keep. We want to
keep it that way.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
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, tote 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. We grew up in this
(21:57):
family that loved food, love to eat to other, loved art,
loved culture, obviously loved you. What age were you when
you actually left home, this beautiful home.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Life twenty to get married. You were married at age twenty,
very young, super young. I was very in love with love. Yeah,
so I married super young, and I cooked that home,
but I never thought I was going to have a restaurant.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And did you have children very soon?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yes, at twenty five, I had Michelle, then Carlos and
then Ardo, and you cooked for them every single day.
Did you have help at Hey doing that in Mexico?
And again you cooked Italian and Mexican, Mexican food and
the food of the Jewish culture a lot lot.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Did you have a job. Did you have a as
a graphic designer.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
I started graphic design and I always wanted to work
all the time. I was like a carrier woman, a
professional woman. So I said, I have three kids, going
to have a restaurant. I want to be a full
time mom. So I had a very big kitchen with
a big range and a big oven, and I said,
(23:08):
I can have supper clubs. So on Tuesdays I gave
classes in the morning for twenty people and they were
always very liked because it was about comfort food with
a twist. And then at night I had supper clothes.
We moved to Vancouver. I lived in Vancouver for twelve
years with three children. With three children, and it was
(23:29):
huge to work from six o'clock in the morning to
three when I picked them up, and then prepare for
supper clubs on Thursdays. So you came back from Vancouver
to Mexico yesterday. I came back with Eduardo and I
started to work for a guy that had twelve restaurants
and he needed somebody that he can really rely on.
(23:52):
And then one day my kids sat with me and
I said, Mom, enough, I think you need to do
your restaurant. And I said what And I said, Mom,
do your dream die without your dream? And I said no.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
So you started with did you have an investment? How
did you start?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I started by partnering with the door of my son
because we share the same passion in a very deep, deep,
deep level. And then from day one I put my intention.
I found that beautiful old building that bottom part of
the street, tree Line Street off Reforma between a lane.
(24:30):
I was, this is precious. And then Carlos invested my son,
and then we saved a lot of money. And then
I started coming in at three thirty in the morning
to prep because I thought it was going to be
a big supper club.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Ruey, It's a very hard business to start because when
we started you asked about the River Cafe. And when
we began, we had accountants for my husband's office. We
had Rosa worked in a restaurant in New York, and
I had never worked in a restaurant. And you can
(25:05):
fail so easily, you know, the dream of having a
small restaurant, we've seen them, you know, come and go
because you know you don't charge for that cup of coffee,
You throw away a box of funnel, you forget to
turn over the fridge on. There's so many ways you
treat your friends to dinners, and so it takes a
lot of brigger and a lot of business. And did
(25:27):
you have doubts, whether times when in the beginning you
thought it might not work to do it?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Never think that was a very interesting thing. And I
knew from the start it was going to be amazing.
I knew it was going to be successful, but successful
because what I was offering nobody else did in Mexico.
They brought chains, only chains from the States. They never
did their own thing. And I was doing my own
thing with my son. And the story was beautiful. It
(25:54):
was a mom with a son cooking. But I never
thought it was going to be as hard as when
the veggiets are going to arrive and they don't arrive
when the gas is off because you didn't think about
it was one day going to be off. When the
water doesn't come in, when the water doesn't come in,
when your help gets sick, and then you you know.
(26:16):
I remember, for the first three years I went in
a for the first two years, I went in at
four o'clock in the morning. But I woke up so
sure that I wanted to do my dream come true.
I never saw the hour or the time. I just
went to bed, went to take a shower, put on
my apron, and went to needles. And it was really hard,
(26:40):
but at the same time really rewarding because I was
doing what I loved in a more professional way. I
really want to tell people to never ever leave their
dreams on the back burner, and that sometimes it's hard,
but it pays off in the in the realization of
your passion and just keep on doing it.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Can you tell me what it's like to be a
partner with your son, Well, that's.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
The most interesting question. This is an amazing question me.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Why don't you can come and join us if you
want to? EDWARDA, Why don't.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
You come on, come on, just come.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I think in many, in many fields of work, you
hear about husbands and wives being partners of working together.
You hear about brothers working together. I would love to
know how is it working together as a team with
mother and son.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah, so I started front of house and I was
pretty much waitering tables and seeing people and lots of
different types of things.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
What did you do before? Was this your first restaurant
you ever worked in?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
No?
Speaker 3 (27:48):
I worked with who's the chef of Maximo Bistro in
Mexico City, and I think that pretty much was like
my PhD in learning how our restaurant works. I had
absolutely no restaurant experience elsewhere. I went to school for
hospitality here in Mexico City, but I actually dropped out
(28:08):
halfway because school was never something for me. So I
decided to quit my job at Maximo, and together we
opened the first restaurant, which is the original one in
the corner. I mean together we've opened all of them,
but it's been that first one was really intense because
we had very little restaurant experience, and so we learned
(28:33):
day by day. We learned how to manage a team.
Day by day. You learn how to create an internal culture.
You learn how to make your processes more efficient. You
learn how to optimize the business part to it, which
is fundamental, because if you don't have a good business,
then you don't have anything.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You know, how many do you have now?
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Right now we have two cafes and two restaurants.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
So someone listening to this coming from New York or
Paris or you know, Moscow, who knows what would you
recommend them to? How would they come to find you
in Mexico City? Which one would you?
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Which one? It's if you feel like breakfast or lunch,
I would say go to the original, which is the
corner on Dres.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Street where yesterday yes and I would like to describe
the restaurant. And I recommend anybody who's listening to this
that they must come there on their first trip to Mexico,
because if going to the market teaches you about the culture,
going to Nito teaches you about culture. And these beautiful
shelves with beautiful objects of Mexico on them and a
(29:41):
mirror on the ceiling which reflects being inside or outside.
You try and think where do I want to sit
outside on the street with their friends walking past or
inside where you feel cozier, but always that sense of
warmth and delicious, delicious food. You can't just have warmth
and haveiness, you need to have the rigor of having
(30:02):
delicious food.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
If you like.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Listening to Ruthie's Table four, 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.
(30:37):
I'm very impressed with the younger generation of people here
in your city. When I was here four years ago,
there were young people really exploring how to make tequila again,
how to make mescal again, how to make Tamali's again.
You know, going back with from the the parents maybe
had the farms, the parents maybe had the alcohol. But
(30:58):
the younger generation were interested in organic, They were interested
in means of production, They were interested in the ethics
of the workers. And I thought there was very definitely
a younger generation who are challenging and excited about what
incredible ingredients you have and land you have in this
country to produce great food.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, Mexico has everything. We have everything, and people here
are very creative and very driven. I think, so, Yeah,
there's opportunity. I always I have a lot of friends
that live outside of Mexico, and I always say that
Mexico is the perfect place to be an entrepreneur and
(31:42):
to start a business and to create, which is what
you're saying, because it's a lot easier. People are very nice,
people help you a lot. You're just like in an
environment where it's easy to flourish, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, And did you find any difficulty in terms of
the male dominated yes, profession and.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Especially I have to say Mexico it's a very much
are driven country. That it's a male driven places where
where women are, your wishes are second or not a priority,
or your passion or your work is not a priority.
In fact, it's a very alpha, male dominated world and
(32:31):
you find it everywhere. So I learned that Mexico sometimes
is stuff that way. In business. I have to say,
the comfort food that we offer because the other night
we created the concept, we created the family meals that
we had since my kids were born is the menu.
(32:52):
So I was competing with no one, really, but it
is an alpha dominated country.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Yes, And how did you expand? So you have one?
You had one needle and twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
And then we opened another one and then the pandemica
came and I couldn't stop cooking because number one, I
need to be creating and creative all the time. And
I knew that people would need to go out at
least two breathe and get a little, a little treat.
And do you know our famous butter milk pancakes. They
(33:28):
saved us. And that not only saved us, but it
helped us expand. So we expanded into desserts because baking,
it's my cooking, it's for sure my passion. But ending
with a nice dessert routine. For me, you cannot have
a meal without good bread, good butter, good olive bail,
(33:48):
and good dessert. You agree like it is a tip,
like it's a cherry on top. So we opened the
first needle. Then we opened a needle cafe, which is
all my recipes, my heritage from my tribe, my grandma's,
my aunts, my sisters, my kids, my loves. And then
(34:09):
we open another middle because we started to have a
wedding list, and the wedding list wasn't an hour, it
was two and there was three hours wait, and then
we had an opportunity to go around the block and
I went to a retreat because I love meditation and said, mom,
this place opened up. Shall we take it? I said, okay,
(34:31):
let's go for it. And now we open in Polanco.
The fourth one, how do you keep the control of holidays?
Like they all are very, very good? Like you. I'm
there every day. What did it Dodo tell you when
we pick you up? Tell my mom to rest a
little bit?
Speaker 1 (34:47):
And I can't.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I just I mean, she said that you're my mentors.
So what do you have to say about it? Because
my passion is to go there, so I try.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
I think we have the best job in the world.
I always say that, you know, and I say that
if you you know. Steve Job said, if you if you,
if you love your job, you'll never have to work again.
I don't worry. So it don't work, you know, we don't.
And do you talk and meet with other chefs, other
people who are doing what you're doing or is it quite?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
It is interesting that question. I'm not a celebrity chef.
The you know, I'm just a cook. I'm not a celebrity.
I never wanted to be a celebrity chef. I'm just
a simple cook that there to do my dream and
open up a restaurant and became very successful because of
(35:39):
the comfort of the food and also the price of
the food. You know it has to do also, you
know you can go to Mido many times.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, when you talk about your restaurant or other people's restaurant,
or your grandmother or your you know, your parents, or
sitting down meals or the people that you've learned from,
the word comfort comes up a lot. And I always
end the podcast by asking people because it's important to me. No,
(36:14):
And I think it's quite revealing that if we eat
for hunger, we eat because we're hungry, don't we We
eat because we want to share with other people. We
eat because we want to sit down at a table
with our children, We eat because we want to cook,
But very often we eat because we need comfort. And
so if I were to ask you in times of comfort,
(36:35):
is there a food that you would turn to?
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (36:38):
And what with that?
Speaker 2 (36:39):
A good mulsiple soup, good muth a good? And what
is this pasola borsola?
Speaker 1 (36:46):
I love.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I do it with chicken and very big corn that
I forget in English how it's called. But it's a
soup with My kids love it and it's a lot
of chicken and this big corn and then I put
radish and cilantro and lemon chillis and they prepare it
and it's comforting.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
There's so many chilis and Mexican food. Tell me about chilis.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Oh, I love passia. What is that? The chili passia.
It's a dried chile that is very sweet. The chipotlet
that is very smoky. My favorite is the morita, and
the morita is very small. It's very tasty, but it
doesn't burn your tongue, so it makes you just enjoy
the meal and you eat that fresh or dry dry
(37:31):
fresh calapagno and serrano and the rest, which are so many.
Ruthie Dry.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
I think there's incredible culture to Mexico. I I when
I was here in twenty eighteen for those four months.
You know, culture can be you know, going to the
Anthropological Museum or going to Tomao to the folk museum.
But it also can be the way you make a bed.
It can be the way you drive a taxi and
(38:02):
the cleanliness of your car. It can be the kindness
to a stranger. It can be showing somebody if they're
lost how to walk down the street. I think it's
an incredibly beautiful culture. And the other day when I
was with some friends and they said I'm going I said,
I'm going to Mexico for my Christmas holiday and one
(38:24):
of them said, well, when are you coming back, And
one of my children said, maybe never.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
I'm surprised. I'm surprised you're not living here. All right.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for listening
to Ruthie's Table for in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
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
(39:22):
is Bella Cellini. Thank you to everyone at The River
Cafe for your help in making this episode.
You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
In two thousand and eighteen, I found myself living in
Mexico City for four months. My regular world of London work,
(00:21):
family and friends became irregular as I was unexpectedly thrust
into a city with new people, new language, and definitely
new food. Then one day someone suggested we meet at Nido,
a small restaurant recently opened by Karen Dujonsky and her
son Eduardo Pleshinsky. From that morning everything changed. I went
(00:47):
to Niedo almost every day, always to be greeted with
a strong embrace from Karen, who would then go back
to her kitchen and cook me the best Mexican food,
eggs Mexicana and cettos, tortillas, fresh breads, oatmeal, cheese, omelets, avocado.
Months later, when it was finally time for me to
(01:09):
return to London, it had switched around. Karen and Nido
had become my regular world and it was painful to
leave them. We emailed and sometimes phoned, but it was
only two days ago that I returned to Nido and
Karen for breakfast. In four years, so here we are
today in a studio. Two good friends back in the
(01:32):
most beautiful city I know.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Ruthie, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Would you like to read? Yes? And isn't it good
to be together?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
It is beautiful. You always bring tears to my eyes.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Never So you've chosen the recipe.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I've chosen that tlalini with sparagus. So oh, we need
these five hundred grums of chopped sparagus, four garly clothes, peeled,
four tablespoons chop mix fresh herbs, one hundred million liters
of double cream, five hundred grams of unsalted butter, two
(02:08):
hundred grams of taglarini, one hundred and twenty grams of parmesan.
Please grate it and this is how you're going to
do it. Trim and finally chop the sparagus. Bring the
cream to a boil in a saucepan with a garlic,
and simmer until the clothes are soft. Hiat the olive
(02:29):
oil and butter in the saucepan and fry half of
the chopped sparagus. Add the rest of the cream. Bring
to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until
the cream begins to thicken. Cook the pasta. Add the
sauce half of the parmesan and tossed together, serve with
(02:50):
remaining parmesan and a lot.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Of love and a lot of love. A good recipe.
And why did you choose it? All the recipes in
all our books that I asked you to choose, why
did you choose this one? Cara?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I love sparagus, I love herbs. I like when pastas
are treated simply, and I adore cream and butter. So
I thought anyone can do it because you can find
the ingredients everywhere, and it's something that I do very often.
From your book.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
In England, we have a very short asparagus season. It
goes from probably mid May till end of July. What
is there a season in Mexico asparagus?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
We can find sparagus throughout the year. Yes, usually sometimes
they come from here and sometimes they come from California,
So we find that's you know, it's easy because I
can find sparagus all the year, and also fresh herbs
in the Parmer market that I go every Sunday. They're amazing.
They come from Bay.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
So let's start at the very beginning, perhaps, which would
go back to how did your family come to Mexico?
Because I know it's a very compelling story. Was it
your grandmother or your great grandmother?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
My grandmother?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Tell me about your grandmother.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So my Austrian grandmother came from Austria escaping the Second
World War, and my other grandmother came from Poland way
before the Second World War. So I had two very
different upbringings, two very different kitchens, and two very different
environments for cooking. The Viennese one, the Austrian was super
(04:31):
sophisticated because she could purchase and she knew about a
lot of ingredients. So there was dark, but something very interesting. Ruthie,
the cook at my grandma's, was an amazing Mexican cook.
So when I was five and six, as soon as
I went into her house, I run into the kitchen.
I didn't go to the garden. I didn't want to
(04:53):
go play with the dogs in the garden or with
the dolls. I wanted to cook my own eggs. Had
six years at six, so they had a little wooden
stool for me to go up, and they would say
can I cook for you the eggs and said no, no, no,
I'll make my own. And since then I do scrumble
eggs like I did.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
For you every day. When you talk about your grandmother
who escaped to come to Mexico. What was her story.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
It was a very hard and painful story. She lived
in a very close town to Vienna, who was taken.
You know, they came to get them and kill them all.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
They were a Jewish family.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
He was young. I'm Jewish and my family is Jewish,
and I'm very proud of our traditions like anybody else
with their own traditions. So we are a Jewish family.
And her mom saw a diamond inside a hat and
she explained to my grandma, when they come together us
(05:59):
and if they kill Saul, wear the hat and run away.
They came. They killed everyone except my grandma and my
grandma's sister. In fact, my grandma saved the sister from
a camp. So it was an amazing story because my
grandma was very hard working, and I take the hard
(06:20):
working part from her since I was very young. She said,
you need to work, you need to learn how to
make a living, because that's the experience that she learned,
and she wanted to pass it to me.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Go back to the story of the diamond and the hat.
But she saw her family being killed. She was spared.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
She quickly went and got the hat. She got the
hat she wore, and she was how old she was? Fifteen?
She run away into the.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Woods with the hat and the diamond.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Because by with the diamond she could save her life
and get a ticket to go to America.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
So she was coming not to Mexico, but to a marria.
She went to New York.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, a family member took her while she was trying
to make a living, and she lived in a garbage
bin in New York. In New York, in a garbage
bin for more than six months until she could make it,
wadering doing housework, anything that would give her a living
(07:26):
while finding her sister. She did find. You know, it's
very interesting, Ruthie, because my grandma name was Carlotta Charlotte,
and her sister was Annie, and Annie and my grandma
taught me how to cook. So once they went to
New York, they saw an opportunity to come to Mexico.
(07:47):
And Mexico has been always, always an amazing place of opportunities.
If you work hard and you're passionate, there's always opportunities
in Mexico. So they came to make how old were
they then? Okay, So my grandma was nineteen or twenty.
She was trying to find her sister. She didn't save
(08:08):
her from the camp, from the Holocaust camp, and they
came to Mexico and the sister started to cook and
started to have a little restaurant in a Capulco. And
my dad had a jewelry store and my grandma had
a jewelry store in a Capulco in the in the
coast line of the beach. So I worked in the
(08:28):
jewelry and in the restaurant since I was twelve.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
And your own so that was your grandmother. Your parents
then were born in Mexico.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
The first generation born in Mexico. I'm the second and
my children are the third. Yes, so yeah, it's an
amazing story because on the other side, the Polish signed. Yeah,
they didn't suffer the Holocaust. They just came before to find.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
They decided to camp. Why did they chose Mexico?
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Do you think there was a good Jewish community and
a lot of opportunities. So from Poland to Mexico it
was a great opportunity. So they came to Mexico, the
Polish and the Austrian and then mom and dad they
met here, they were born here and my mom Susanna
and my dad Muses they met here then married.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And eating. What did they do? Mom?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
An amazing art dealer. Oh yes, amazing art dealer. You know.
I was very lucky to get to know Medida in
Suynia and Toledo. So they sat at a table always.
So there was always cooking, an art, cooking and culture,
cooking and music, cooking and love.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And where were your grandmothers did they did they live
near your house?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Very close Polanco and Planca, both in Polanco and I
could work and the Vienna's grandma. When I was very little,
I put a little food store outside the house with
little soapasitos and the supositos were one sent So since
very young I was cooking and feeding people.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, were you ever trained or did you just know?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I'm not supernatural? Like when I was very young, I
could smell and know what I wanted to put into
the dishes. I love spices and herbs and products and
markets and the people who do it, you know, and
very passionate about it.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And who taught what was it your grandparents and the
Mexican chef that you had cooking for you the Mexican
cook that you had in the kitchen, who actually Corney,
who was Corny Corney, was a very important.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Figure in my life because my grandma taught her cook
while she worked. She was a silversmith, so while she
work a lot, the cook cook a lot, and she
was taught by my grandma. Was very tough and she
and Connie was very soft, and she was very sweet,
(11:07):
and she was an amazing cook. So she was very
patient with me because she took care of my mom
when she was pregnant in me when I was born.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
When I interviewed Alfonso Couran, the other Mexican that I
had on the podcast, he talked very much, and of
course he made a movie Roma about the role of
the domestic help in Mexican families, and it's a very
unique role I think that you had. He said a
very interesting thing. He said, when Americans made money and
(11:40):
had greater wealth, they would buy bigger things. They would
have a bigger kitchen, they would have a bigger car,
they would have a bigger house, they would have maybe
two cars. In Mexico and also I think perhaps in Italy,
maybe in Spain. His opinion was that when people had
greater wealth. They kept the house the same, the kitchen
(12:00):
the same. Is very simple. That they had more domestic staff,
They had more people to work for them, and those
people became very very important in the family.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Do you agree they become your family, They become your
chosen family. In fact, I have somebody that helps me
at home and my children for over thirty years, Ruthie.
So the same with Connie. So Connie became my mom's
mom because my mom's mom was always working, and Connie
(12:31):
was the one feeding the kids and taking care of
their calls and their temperature and their you know, and
she became almost like my grandma.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
So I was always in Cornie's kitchen and then on
my Bobber's kitchen. My Jewish Yewish, you know, very interesting Jewish,
but very different.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
And so you had the Mexican food when your family.
Tell me about life in your household. Your mother was working,
your father was working, and you had one sister. What's
the four girls? Four girls? Okay, so four and so
what would you'd go to school? And what was life
like at home? So mum worked and ground my work.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
So at home you would wake up in the morning,
go to school, come back and have an amazing Mexican meal.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Dinner.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
It was lunchtime. It was two thirty two three, right,
So dinner in Mexico was light. Lunch is heavy.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
When I lived here, that was one of the things
I learned, really was that you had well, we had
big breakfast at Ledo. Then we would have I would
be in the hospital with my husband, and then we
would meet for lunch at about four or possibly five,
have a delicious whatever it was called lunch or early dinner,
and then that was it. You'd have a piece of
(13:49):
fruit at ten o'clock or a glass of mescal or
tequila and then go to bed. So I thought it
was a beautiful way to eat if you could do
that and work.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
You know, I like because you go to bed very light.
You have a slice of papaya or watermelon or melon.
It's very light. But since we have a Mexican food,
you know, you know, Ruthie, you know the rice and
the fideo and the moorland and chiladas, and that's what
we ate at home. And then a little bit of baking,
(14:21):
which was Austrian or.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Polish, and so you sit down to dinner, everybody ate together.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, so they would come from work and at three
everybody was sitting at the table. We had an amazing
Mexican during the week, and then Sunday was a little
bit more sophisticated and for Shabba, dinner was always at
my Polish Grandma, and at sha dinner was very Jewish.
They filled the fish, mudzables, you know, roasted chicken all that.
(14:51):
And on Sunday we had a very delicious, amazing lunch
at my Viennese Grandma, which was dark and then potato
dumplings filled with apricot in sa and linzert and butter cookies.
It was all about butter.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah, and better easy to get in Mexico is amazing butter, yeah, interesting,
amazing butter.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Sometimes I buy it from a special very small ranch,
or sometimes I get it from where it comes to bit,
which is France or Denmark, but produce in Mexico, if
you know where, we're very lucky.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah. I think that there's such an incredible food awareness
in Mexico City, and I think it can be anything
from your own restaurants to what you're doing to contram Mar,
which we went to today, which has probably two hundred
and fifty people in one room and having wonderful you know,
(15:50):
fish brought to you by waiters who just say yes
to everything. You know, there's just a wonderful atmosphere to
a bar that I went to the first night I
got here, and you had to open what looked like
a kind of refrigerator door to get downstairs to have
a thing. It was like prohivision. But it feels on fire.
The Mexican food scene without being with you know, not
(16:13):
being fashionable. There's a culture of food here that I'm
so amazed by and moved by.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
It is so important for us. It is so important
as family together, as friends together, as couples together. So
fort is a huge part for where are you going
for breakfast? What are you doing for lunch? Where are
you having dinner? It's part of our life. You know,
it's big because I find that you stop your day
(16:41):
for those moments and you connect with people in those moments.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
And did you go to restaurants with your family or
so you did, so you'd have those danielsynth thing and
then you'd go Friday night Shabad And then when would
you go to.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Saturday when we were young on Saturday? Have you been
to that movie. Now it's a very typical fish Spanish
restaurant in the city center. You have to go. It's
a classic okay, So from lobster to big shrimp to
little clams, and it's a very old, beautiful dining room.
I'll take you next, Nubio. We went to the Nubio,
(17:17):
We went to La Lanna, We went to Chamselice, which
was like an amazing restaurant. Food was an eat is
a huge part of our lives. I have four sisters,
So wherefore we cook big time?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And is it regional? I know it is regional, so
I know the answer to that question. So if you're
in the Yucutan, you'll be eating something very different than
you would have perhaps in you know, on the Pacific coast.
And if you're on the Pacific coast, you'll have something
that's quite different from you know, Mexico City or then
the Boa, California, Wahaka. So the regionality of food is
(17:55):
very important in Mexico, Isn't It is.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Such a big It is because who is from Wahaca
is very proud from their products and the way they
cook their chillis. If you go to Puebla, you have
a certain kind of molley. But if you go to Wahaka,
you have another morley. Tell me about the two Malays,
you know, they're so different, So listen. In Puebla sweeter.
In Wahaca is hotter, spicier. And I was just in Merida,
(18:22):
in Casasquela doing an amazing pop up, and I went
to these amazing markets, Ruthie, I cannot even tell you
what I found, Like a La masorca. That's the corn cob.
It's burned inside the ground and it's burnt and it's
(18:43):
brown and it's smoky. And I did pick of thee
with it, and mali is with it, and you can
do pastory with it. Then it's very regional.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Can you just tell everyone what malay is.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yes, moley, it's a very thick sauce made with chili nuts,
tons of spices from cinnamon to chocolate.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Does all malet have chocolate and it.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Not in Wahaca. Yes, a ton in Pevla. Less in Pevla,
more sugar, in Wahaca, more chocolate. And then in Wohaca
you can find more than twenty thirty forty kinds of moley,
like Colorado Mariito Nero for for pork for chicken, for waholote.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Molay.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
It's a huge thing. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
You love it? And do you cook a certain type?
Do you make all.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Different Puebla, Yeah, I like it, mole sweeter And I
went to Puebla like two or three months ago, and
I got some beautiful pastes from it, and I just
seas in it. And I do it with chicken and
white rice and tortillas for my kids, with an amazing
avocado and tomato salad with a cilantro dressing, and it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
It's so interesting because as an American, my vision of
what Mexican food was it was so different from the reality.
It's so refined, it's so subtle and light and about
the ingredients. The markets have the markets changed in the
last many years.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
No, there real ones. No, you know, if I go
to El Mercado in Wohaka and Elmergo Central and Ohaga
La Central de Bastos, Ruthie, it's the same. It's beautiful
because it has we make sure we keep it the same.
So if we go to the old markets and the
(20:41):
original markets. Yes, if you go to the neighborhoods, maybe
they come and they want to paint a little bit,
and they take the charm of it. But I was
in Meridia and I went to three markets, and I
went to the original market and these one market was
It took me back one hundred and fifty years ago
in what way, the way that people dress, the way
(21:04):
that people talk, the ingredients they had, the way they
display it, the freshness, It was the same ass one
hundred years ago. So we keep them. We want to
keep the tradition we want to keep. We want to
keep it that way.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
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, tote 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. We grew up in this
(21:57):
family that loved food, love to eat to other, loved art,
loved culture, obviously loved you. What age were you when
you actually left home, this beautiful home.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Life twenty to get married. You were married at age twenty,
very young, super young. I was very in love with love. Yeah,
so I married super young, and I cooked that home,
but I never thought I was going to have a restaurant.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And did you have children very soon?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yes, at twenty five, I had Michelle, then Carlos and
then Ardo, and you cooked for them every single day.
Did you have help at Hey doing that in Mexico?
And again you cooked Italian and Mexican, Mexican food and
the food of the Jewish culture a lot lot.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Did you have a job. Did you have a as
a graphic designer.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
I started graphic design and I always wanted to work
all the time. I was like a carrier woman, a
professional woman. So I said, I have three kids, going
to have a restaurant. I want to be a full
time mom. So I had a very big kitchen with
a big range and a big oven, and I said,
(23:08):
I can have supper clubs. So on Tuesdays I gave
classes in the morning for twenty people and they were
always very liked because it was about comfort food with
a twist. And then at night I had supper clothes.
We moved to Vancouver. I lived in Vancouver for twelve
years with three children. With three children, and it was
(23:29):
huge to work from six o'clock in the morning to
three when I picked them up, and then prepare for
supper clubs on Thursdays. So you came back from Vancouver
to Mexico yesterday. I came back with Eduardo and I
started to work for a guy that had twelve restaurants
and he needed somebody that he can really rely on.
(23:52):
And then one day my kids sat with me and
I said, Mom, enough, I think you need to do
your restaurant. And I said what And I said, Mom,
do your dream die without your dream? And I said no.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
So you started with did you have an investment? How
did you start?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I started by partnering with the door of my son
because we share the same passion in a very deep, deep,
deep level. And then from day one I put my intention.
I found that beautiful old building that bottom part of
the street, tree Line Street off Reforma between a lane.
(24:30):
I was, this is precious. And then Carlos invested my son,
and then we saved a lot of money. And then
I started coming in at three thirty in the morning
to prep because I thought it was going to be
a big supper club.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Ruey, It's a very hard business to start because when
we started you asked about the River Cafe. And when
we began, we had accountants for my husband's office. We
had Rosa worked in a restaurant in New York, and
I had never worked in a restaurant. And you can
(25:05):
fail so easily, you know, the dream of having a
small restaurant, we've seen them, you know, come and go
because you know you don't charge for that cup of coffee,
You throw away a box of funnel, you forget to
turn over the fridge on. There's so many ways you
treat your friends to dinners, and so it takes a
lot of brigger and a lot of business. And did
(25:27):
you have doubts, whether times when in the beginning you
thought it might not work to do it?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Never think that was a very interesting thing. And I
knew from the start it was going to be amazing.
I knew it was going to be successful, but successful
because what I was offering nobody else did in Mexico.
They brought chains, only chains from the States. They never
did their own thing. And I was doing my own
thing with my son. And the story was beautiful. It
(25:54):
was a mom with a son cooking. But I never
thought it was going to be as hard as when
the veggiets are going to arrive and they don't arrive
when the gas is off because you didn't think about
it was one day going to be off. When the
water doesn't come in, when the water doesn't come in,
when your help gets sick, and then you you know.
(26:16):
I remember, for the first three years I went in
a for the first two years, I went in at
four o'clock in the morning. But I woke up so
sure that I wanted to do my dream come true.
I never saw the hour or the time. I just
went to bed, went to take a shower, put on
my apron, and went to needles. And it was really hard,
(26:40):
but at the same time really rewarding because I was
doing what I loved in a more professional way. I
really want to tell people to never ever leave their
dreams on the back burner, and that sometimes it's hard,
but it pays off in the in the realization of
your passion and just keep on doing it.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Can you tell me what it's like to be a
partner with your son, Well, that's.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
The most interesting question. This is an amazing question me.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Why don't you can come and join us if you
want to? EDWARDA, Why don't.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
You come on, come on, just come.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I think in many, in many fields of work, you
hear about husbands and wives being partners of working together.
You hear about brothers working together. I would love to
know how is it working together as a team with
mother and son.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah, so I started front of house and I was
pretty much waitering tables and seeing people and lots of
different types of things.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
What did you do before? Was this your first restaurant
you ever worked in?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
No?
Speaker 3 (27:48):
I worked with who's the chef of Maximo Bistro in
Mexico City, and I think that pretty much was like
my PhD in learning how our restaurant works. I had
absolutely no restaurant experience elsewhere. I went to school for
hospitality here in Mexico City, but I actually dropped out
(28:08):
halfway because school was never something for me. So I
decided to quit my job at Maximo, and together we
opened the first restaurant, which is the original one in
the corner. I mean together we've opened all of them,
but it's been that first one was really intense because
we had very little restaurant experience, and so we learned
(28:33):
day by day. We learned how to manage a team.
Day by day. You learn how to create an internal culture.
You learn how to make your processes more efficient. You
learn how to optimize the business part to it, which
is fundamental, because if you don't have a good business,
then you don't have anything.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You know, how many do you have now?
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Right now we have two cafes and two restaurants.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
So someone listening to this coming from New York or
Paris or you know, Moscow, who knows what would you
recommend them to? How would they come to find you
in Mexico City? Which one would you?
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Which one? It's if you feel like breakfast or lunch,
I would say go to the original, which is the
corner on Dres.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Street where yesterday yes and I would like to describe
the restaurant. And I recommend anybody who's listening to this
that they must come there on their first trip to Mexico,
because if going to the market teaches you about the culture,
going to Nito teaches you about culture. And these beautiful
shelves with beautiful objects of Mexico on them and a
(29:41):
mirror on the ceiling which reflects being inside or outside.
You try and think where do I want to sit
outside on the street with their friends walking past or
inside where you feel cozier, but always that sense of
warmth and delicious, delicious food. You can't just have warmth
and haveiness, you need to have the rigor of having
(30:02):
delicious food.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
If you like.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Listening to Ruthie's Table four, 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.
(30:37):
I'm very impressed with the younger generation of people here
in your city. When I was here four years ago,
there were young people really exploring how to make tequila again,
how to make mescal again, how to make Tamali's again.
You know, going back with from the the parents maybe
had the farms, the parents maybe had the alcohol. But
(30:58):
the younger generation were interested in organic, They were interested
in means of production, They were interested in the ethics
of the workers. And I thought there was very definitely
a younger generation who are challenging and excited about what
incredible ingredients you have and land you have in this
country to produce great food.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, Mexico has everything. We have everything, and people here
are very creative and very driven. I think, so, Yeah,
there's opportunity. I always I have a lot of friends
that live outside of Mexico, and I always say that
Mexico is the perfect place to be an entrepreneur and
(31:42):
to start a business and to create, which is what
you're saying, because it's a lot easier. People are very nice,
people help you a lot. You're just like in an
environment where it's easy to flourish, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, And did you find any difficulty in terms of
the male dominated yes, profession and.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Especially I have to say Mexico it's a very much
are driven country. That it's a male driven places where
where women are, your wishes are second or not a priority,
or your passion or your work is not a priority.
In fact, it's a very alpha, male dominated world and
(32:31):
you find it everywhere. So I learned that Mexico sometimes
is stuff that way. In business. I have to say,
the comfort food that we offer because the other night
we created the concept, we created the family meals that
we had since my kids were born is the menu.
(32:52):
So I was competing with no one, really, but it
is an alpha dominated country.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Yes, And how did you expand? So you have one?
You had one needle and twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
And then we opened another one and then the pandemica
came and I couldn't stop cooking because number one, I
need to be creating and creative all the time. And
I knew that people would need to go out at
least two breathe and get a little, a little treat.
And do you know our famous butter milk pancakes. They
(33:28):
saved us. And that not only saved us, but it
helped us expand. So we expanded into desserts because baking,
it's my cooking, it's for sure my passion. But ending
with a nice dessert routine. For me, you cannot have
a meal without good bread, good butter, good olive bail,
(33:48):
and good dessert. You agree like it is a tip,
like it's a cherry on top. So we opened the
first needle. Then we opened a needle cafe, which is
all my recipes, my heritage from my tribe, my grandma's,
my aunts, my sisters, my kids, my loves. And then
(34:09):
we open another middle because we started to have a
wedding list, and the wedding list wasn't an hour, it
was two and there was three hours wait, and then
we had an opportunity to go around the block and
I went to a retreat because I love meditation and said, mom,
this place opened up. Shall we take it? I said, okay,
(34:31):
let's go for it. And now we open in Polanco.
The fourth one, how do you keep the control of holidays?
Like they all are very, very good? Like you. I'm
there every day. What did it Dodo tell you when
we pick you up? Tell my mom to rest a
little bit?
Speaker 1 (34:47):
And I can't.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I just I mean, she said that you're my mentors.
So what do you have to say about it? Because
my passion is to go there, so I try.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
I think we have the best job in the world.
I always say that, you know, and I say that
if you you know. Steve Job said, if you if you,
if you love your job, you'll never have to work again.
I don't worry. So it don't work, you know, we don't.
And do you talk and meet with other chefs, other
people who are doing what you're doing or is it quite?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
It is interesting that question. I'm not a celebrity chef.
The you know, I'm just a cook. I'm not a celebrity.
I never wanted to be a celebrity chef. I'm just
a simple cook that there to do my dream and
open up a restaurant and became very successful because of
(35:39):
the comfort of the food and also the price of
the food. You know it has to do also, you
know you can go to Mido many times.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, when you talk about your restaurant or other people's restaurant,
or your grandmother or your you know, your parents, or
sitting down meals or the people that you've learned from,
the word comfort comes up a lot. And I always
end the podcast by asking people because it's important to me. No,
(36:14):
And I think it's quite revealing that if we eat
for hunger, we eat because we're hungry, don't we We
eat because we want to share with other people. We
eat because we want to sit down at a table
with our children, We eat because we want to cook,
But very often we eat because we need comfort. And
so if I were to ask you in times of comfort,
(36:35):
is there a food that you would turn to?
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (36:38):
And what with that?
Speaker 2 (36:39):
A good mulsiple soup, good muth a good? And what
is this pasola borsola?
Speaker 1 (36:46):
I love.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I do it with chicken and very big corn that
I forget in English how it's called. But it's a
soup with My kids love it and it's a lot
of chicken and this big corn and then I put
radish and cilantro and lemon chillis and they prepare it
and it's comforting.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
There's so many chilis and Mexican food. Tell me about chilis.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Oh, I love passia. What is that? The chili passia.
It's a dried chile that is very sweet. The chipotlet
that is very smoky. My favorite is the morita, and
the morita is very small. It's very tasty, but it
doesn't burn your tongue, so it makes you just enjoy
the meal and you eat that fresh or dry dry
(37:31):
fresh calapagno and serrano and the rest, which are so many.
Ruthie Dry.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
I think there's incredible culture to Mexico. I I when
I was here in twenty eighteen for those four months.
You know, culture can be you know, going to the
Anthropological Museum or going to Tomao to the folk museum.
But it also can be the way you make a bed.
It can be the way you drive a taxi and
(38:02):
the cleanliness of your car. It can be the kindness
to a stranger. It can be showing somebody if they're
lost how to walk down the street. I think it's
an incredibly beautiful culture. And the other day when I
was with some friends and they said I'm going I said,
I'm going to Mexico for my Christmas holiday and one
(38:24):
of them said, well, when are you coming back, And
one of my children said, maybe never.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
I'm surprised. I'm surprised you're not living here. All right.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for listening
to Ruthie's Table for in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
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
(39:22):
is Bella Cellini. Thank you to everyone at The River
Cafe for your help in making this episode.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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