If there’s a word to describe Max Rocha, it’s humble—wonderfully, disarmingly so. “I never thought I would write a cookbook,” he tells me, crouched in the office-meets-changing-room of Café Cecilia. “I’m dyslexic, ADHD, all of that stuff, and so much of the food that I make is intuition-based rather than following any particular recipe.” Then again, he never thought he would open a restaurant, either—let alone one with the influence of his 30-cover site across from the Bethnal Green Gasholders. Since launching on Regent’s Canal in 2021, Café Cecilia has become a site of pilgrimage for everyone from Vogue photographer Tim Walker to menswear designer John Skelton thanks to its artful yet homespun menu, Simone Rocha uniforms, and Deep Fried Bread & Butter Pudding—although not necessarily in that order. (As one Vogue staffer told me recently, “I’d take that dessert over a Margaux bag.”) For many in the design world, it’s become a home away from home of sorts. See Lou Stoppard and Jamie Shaw’s familial wedding reception there, where set designer Juliet Caswell filled the room with dark tulips grown in Hikari Yokoyama and Jay Jopling’s garden, trays of lemon drop martinis and Lambrusco were circulated all night long, and Max personally wheeled out the Guinness cake, which had been made to look “a bit Miss Havisham” at the bride’s request.
It’s Rocha’s support front- and back-of-house, however, that’s honored in the Café Cecilia Cookbook, released this month by Phaidon. (Max, who owns dozens of the publisher’s books, still has the first letter from his editor tacked on the wall beside him when we speak: “That meant so much to me—just the Phaidon logo on an envelope coming to me. I was like, what is going on?”) The finished tome opens with photographs of his two grandmothers (both of whom influenced him as a cook) and closes with portraits of his devoted restaurant staff, whom he’s quick to credit with keeping Café Cecilia going when he had to take a step back for mental health reasons a year after opening. “This isn’t the Max show,” he insists. “This restaurant is bigger than me—as is this cookbook.”
Said cookbook, like Rocha’s dishes, is deceptively simple and wholly brilliant. Beyond the chapter on Guinness bread—which bookends each and every meal at Café Cecilia—chapters are themed loosely around the likes of “Fish” and “Pasta,” “Meat” and “Salads.” There are no gimmicks here, nor manifestos—just superlative dishes that bear the mark of Max’s years in the kitchen at Spring, St John, and The River Cafe. Every theoretically complicated recipe appears in its purest form—a Pork and Apricot Terrine with just 10 ingredients, a Whole Poached Trout layered with “scales” of pickled cucumber that is, somehow, foolproof—while classics are reimagined (think roast chicken brined overnight and served with Aioli Salad). Max’s favorite chapter, though, is “Desserts,” because it’s been shaped by both his team (“I really respect chefs that know how to do pastry”) and his favorite British restaurants: there’s an almond tart inspired by Ruth Rogers’s version, a soufflé that nods to The Sportsman in Whitstable, and nearly effortless Champagne and Raspberry Jellies that belong on every table over the coming festive period.
“Sometimes you eat in a place that encapsulates simplicity and deepens your understanding of what the word means,” writes Diana Henry of the allure of Rocha’s dishes in her introduction to the Café Cecilia Cookbook. “I found it the first day I had lunch at Café Cecilia. There was a tangle of anchovies sandwiched between sage leaves and fried in the lightest batter… Then there was a piece of hake with aioli and roast peppers in a pool of olive oil… It was one of the best plates of food I’ve ever eaten.” Max, as ever, is more modest about his M.O.: “I just love cooking, at the end of the day—and I want to share good food with as many people as possible with the restaurant. And, now, with the book.”