When we spoke to Emily Roux about the launch of her debut restaurant in 2018 she said that if she was going to make it, she was going to make it by herself. She also acknowledged the intense pressure that comes with being part of the UK’s foremost culinary dynasty.
Her grandfather Albert Roux and her great uncle Michel Roux did more for French cuisine and fine dining in the UK than anyone, establishing Le Gavroche and The Waterside Inn – which were among the first restaurants on these shores to achieve Michelin stars – and in the process trained a generation of chefs including Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay.
Her father Michel Roux Jr. and uncle Alain have kept the family flame going, with the former taking the reins at Le Gavroche and the latter taking on The Waterside Inn. With all this to live up to, it is unsurprising that Caractère being awarded its first Michelin star earlier this year was an emotional moment for the 34-year-old and her chef husband Diego Ferrari, with whom she co-runs the restaurant.
“Tears were shed. It’s difficult to put into words because it is something Diego and I have both wanted for so long,” she says. “We have worked very hard and sacrificed a lot.”
Cutting the apron strings
Roux’s charismatic father is a director at Caractère but has no involvement in the day-to-day running of the restaurant. The duo have also resisted the temptation to use the considerable weight of the Roux family name in the title of the restaurant.
“We never considered going down that route, largely because Caractère is both of ours. It’s mine and Diego’s baby,” says Roux. “Everything revolves around us here, hence the name (Caractère being the French word for character). We are both incredibly strong minded and independent.”
It is these two character traits that led the pair to pass on the opportunity to take on Le Gavroche, which closed last year after over 56 years’ trading. Roux says that becoming the custodian of her father’s flagship was on the cards for much of her career.
“It was something that was under discussion for a number of years. Diego and I spent a lot of time trying to understand what the implications for the restaurant would be and what it would mean for us long term.”
We didn’t think taking over Le Gavroche would be good for us and potentially not good for the customers and the staff either
But ultimately Roux decided against it, a call that in effect spelled the end for one of the capital’s most iconic places to eat (the Roux family has retained the rights to the Le Gavroche name and says it may use it in the future, but the Upper Brook Street site has been snapped up by Ramsay, who worked there as a young cook).
“It’s not a decision I took lightly,” Roux continues. “It would have been a simple handover, not least because Diego ran the kitchen there as head chef for three years. But at the end of the day we didn’t think taking over Le Gavroche would be good for us and potentially not good for the customers and the staff either.”
While Roux is confident her father would have let her and Ferrari put their own stamp on the place, she believes that the more modern approach the pair would have wanted to take - and that was arguably needed to secure Le Gavroche’s future - would not have gone down well with many of its regulars.
“The restaurant is over 50 years old. Many of our customers have been coming for decades for classic French food in a classic setting. But that isn’t what we would have wanted to do. We would have had to modernise, and that would have seen a backlash. I don’t think we would have ever felt like we were in the right spot. So we opted to start from afresh.”
Getting into Caractère
On the northern edge of Notting Hill, close to a number of other top restaurants including Brett Graham’s The Ledbury and Core by Clare Smyth, Caractère was that fresh start. While the cooking is far from being avant garde, the Westbourne Park Road restaurant serves a more modern style of French cuisine than anything that has come out of the Roux stable to date.
“French food and the French language is our common ground. It’s how we communicate together. Plus Diego worked for Alain Ducasse for over a decade so he’s basically French anyway. He’ll probably hate me saying that,” laughs Roux who, like her father, is an accomplished communicator.
The name of the restaurant, which occupies a prominent corner site that was once a pub, feeds into the menu, with each course named after a character trait (for example delicate for fish, strong for cheese and greedy for dessert).
“We take the food here very seriously but we don’t want people to feel too serious when they are here,” she says.
Changing regularly with the seasons and big on premium produce, Roux and Ferrari’s co-written menu features the likes of roast scallop with sea leek, black winter truffle and beurre noisette; rack of lamb with piquillo peppers, Jersey Royal potatoes, olives, capers and lamb jus; and a pretty strawberry tart with almond and crème pâtissière.
Some plates nod to Ferrari’s Italian heritage, not least Caractère’s signature dish of celeriac ribbons with a cacio e pepe-inspired sauce finished with top-quality balsamic vinegar.
Sticking with the two-metre rule
The cooking at Caractère has evolved quite a bit since the restaurant launched.
“Prior to the pandemic we were doing much higher volumes,” Roux explains. “People were packed more closely together and the place had more of a neighbourhood feel, although I do still consider Caractère to be a neighbourhood restaurant. The food was beautiful, but it was less involved than it is now.”
When the two-metre rule came in during the early days of Covid, Caractère removed around half of its tables. Five years or so later, Roux and her husband have not had cause to put them back in.
“We went from doing 80 covers in a busy service to 40. The drop in covers allowed us to serve more intricate food and reduce our staff costs. We actually like having fewer people in the kitchen. We’re a much tighter unit now and there’s a proper family feel.”
Roux believes the reduction of covers and the tighter kitchen team was a major factor in Caractère securing a Michelin star.
French food and the French language is our common ground. It’s how we communicate together
“It changed everything for us and mostly for the better. But I am grateful for that first year and a half. We got a lot of people through the door and ended up making just enough money to get ourselves through the various enforced closures. We didn’t have to take out a loan, which is making it a bit easier to get through the current challenges the industry is facing.”
Roux is happy with Caractère’s performance. The star has given the restaurant a significant boost and – it is hoped – will drive international business during the traditionally quiet summer months when a lot of Notting Hill locals are out of the picture.
“Business is good but we are having to keep a very close eye on costs. Diego and I are both here every day and we spend a lot of our time trying to get better deals from our suppliers,” says Roux, who has been running Caractère’s pastry section for the last few years with her husband focused on the savoury side of things.
“If making a profit was easier, we’d probably spend less time negotiating things like broadband and our laundry service but that’s just the way things are at the moment. Diego and I are both here every day, which also helps.
“In a small business such as this you end up wearing a lot of hats. As an owner you need to be willing to get stuck into anything. After the pandemic I ended up working front of house because that was what was needed at the time. But the kitchen is home for me. It’s where I want to be.”
Born into the kitchen
Roux may come from a line of chefs but her mother and father didn’t force a career in kitchens on her.
“I spent a lot of time in the Le Gavroche kitchen as a child but I was only there because I wanted to be there. I’m an only child so I loved the camaraderie of the team. I found a little family within the kitchen. I think that’s a big part of why I ended up pursuing it as a career.”
Her parents – especially her mother Giselle, who also works in the restaurant business – didn’t seek to dissuade her from a career in hospitality but were honest about the sacrifices it might involve.
“My mother had more reservations than my father I think. She was worried about me missing out on things like holidays, birthdays and spending time with friends. Both of them were very keen that I did what I wanted with my life. But I guess cooking is in my bones.”
We’re a much tighter unit now and there’s a proper family feel
After a brief stage at Le Gavroche, Roux – who is bilingual – studied at what was then called L’Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon. Her decision to train in France was partly due to the high quality of culinary education available across the Channel but also because she liked the idea of being anonymous.
“All of my friends were going to university. I just wanted to have the same experience as everyone else and that meant being a complete unknown,” says Roux, who met Ferrari while staging at Alain Ducasse’s three-Michelin-star Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo towards the end of her bachelor’s degree.
The couple lived in Paris for a few years with Roux working under chefs Frédéric Vardon and Akrame Benallal and Ferrari continuing to work for Alain Ducasse before heading to London to get married and launch their own restaurant (it was during this period Ferrari was head chef at Le Gavroche).
Not long after Caractère launched, the pair welcomed their first child – who is now five – and a second came along a little under two years ago.
So what are Roux’s thoughts about her children following in her footsteps and becoming the fourth generation of the Roux family to run restaurants in the capital?
“They do spend a lot of time here so they see what it’s like already but I suppose they don’t realise how different hospitality can be to other professions.
“I would be happy for them to come into this industry. It’s getting better and better each year. I don’t know what they will end up doing. But yes, a part of me does like the idea of them following me into restaurants. But if they want to do something else, then good for them.”