River Café owner to open second site in Mayfair

Ruth Rogers, founder of the Michelin-starred River Café in Hammersmith, is to open a new restaurant in Mayfair nearly 30 years after her first venture launched.

Ruth Rogers

As reported by the Evening Standard, American-born Rogers will stick to the Italian theme for her second site, due to open below the new Gagosian gallery on Grosvenor Hill in 2017.

The new site will be run by River Café chefs Sian Owen and Joseph Trivelli, with Rogers due to spend time in both of her restaurants every day.

With business partner Rose Gray, who died in 2010, Rogers grew The River Café to its current status as one of the best Italian restaurants in London.

Starting life as a staff canteen for the offices of her architect husband Richard Rogers, it counts Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall among its alumni. Keeping things in the family, the new restaurant will be designed by Lord Rogers’s practice, Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners.

Rogers told the Standard that she had held out so long on a second site as none of those she looked at had the right light, views or a ground floor open kitchen.

She did confess however to falling “in love at first sight” with the space below the Gagosian, which, she believes will become a destination restaurant.