To walk across the floor of the River Café with Ruth Rogers is to make peace with the fact that progress will be slow. Not long after meeting the spry, 75-year-old co-founder of one of the most influential British restaurants in history, I realise that, for her, the blue-carpeted expanse of its famous main dining room is really a catwalk of seemingly infinite connections and acquaintances.
‘Oh hello,’ she says, stopping to hug and greet a lunching couple while I loiter awkwardly behind her. Next, she is checking in on another table, as they are poised to descend on a frazzled heap of roasted langoustines. And then, having set off to find a quieter spot for our interview, we are suddenly leading two sharp-suited men — one an old friend of hers; the other a former member of the Italian government — on an impromptu tour of the restaurant’s newish stand-alone shop.
