The great fear of the first-time restaurateur is that your big opening will be a bust. A lesser concern is how you’ll react if it’s an instant, massive hit. That’s the situation Irish chef Max Rocha found himself in after opening Cafe Cecilia in August 2021, in a white-walled space next to the Regent’s Canal in east London.
“It was all too much,” he recalls of that heady first year of glowing reviews and packed tables dotted with famous faces (Nigella Lawson raved about the deep-fried bread and butter pudding). “It felt like the place everyone wanted to be, but I was putting myself through hell.”
