Fashion’s Favorite London Canteen – The New York Times

LONDON — A number of times before her London Vogue Week clearly show, Simone Rocha, a designer of fantastical and passionate women’s dress in, was at Café Cecilia, a stark white cafe next to a canal and Victorian gasworks in the East London borough of Hackney. She was getting a fast break with her spouse, the cinematographer Eoin McLoughlin, and her moms and dads, John and Odette Rocha.

“I’m right here a pair of instances a week,” said Ms. Rocha, 35, whose outfits are worn by Kate Middleton and was title-checked by Lorde on her last album. “My studio is close by, together the canal in De Beauvoir, and our daughter Valentine goes to faculty 15 minutes absent, so I can select her up and arrive below for a toastie.”

Her loyalty is comprehensible, given that Café Cecilia is something of a Rocha family members project. Established by Max Rocha, Ms. Rocha’s younger brother, the cafe was embellished by Ms. Rocha’s father and has been adorned with artworks by spouse and children, pals and Francis Bacon.

The waiters are dressed by Ms. Rocha, who has, proficiently, embarked on men’s don for the to start with time by using the employees uniforms — minimalist quick-sleeved shirts and pants in dark navy — although the supervisor, Kate Towers, wears voluminous black lace-trimmed Simone Rocha appears to be like. Café Cecilia has turn into the family’s regular Sunday lunch canteen, and is also well-known in the London artwork and vogue planet.

“When you occur in this article, it is like you are walking into our family house,” said Max Rocha, 30. “Everything is really us, from the wooden flooring, which my dad has generally experienced in his stores, to the uniforms designed by Simone and my mum. There is also a painting on the wall by my 6-calendar year-outdated niece.”

Dickon Bowden, the vice president of the hip retailer Dover Street Market, is a regular. “It’s intimate and common, still feels like you have gone someplace really distinctive that’s nonetheless a bit of a mystery,” he mentioned. John Skelton, a men’s dress in designer identified for his folklore-influenced artisanal tailoring, likes to prevent by for a bacon sandwich in the early morning on the way to his studio a few doorways down. Ruth Hogben, a fashion filmmaker known for her trippy, tessellated perform with Dior, Lady Gaga, Alexander McQueen and Gareth Pugh, picks “whatever’s healthiest” from the menu.

Tim Walker, a photographer who shoots for Vogue, is also a typical. “It’s not typically that you can marry simplicity with memorability,” he mentioned.

Café Cecilia is the most current chapter in a specifically trendy spouse and children saga set amongst Ireland and England. John Rocha was a perennial at London Trend 7 days from 1985 until eventually he closed his flagship keep in 2015. Early in his occupation he was the interesting Hong Kong-born boy from Dublin, placing Sinead O’Connor as perfectly as Christy Turlington on his catwalk and vacationing in St. Tropez with Bono.

He stopped showing on catwalks in 2014, but compared with lots of who have rolled the dice on the baize of London Trend 7 days, Mr. Rocha arrived out of the recreation independent and thriving.

Right up until 2018 he was component of the Designers at Debenhams roster, along with Jasper Conran and Julien Macdonald, coming up with house furnishings. Mr. Rocha also has experienced his individual variety of models developed by Waterford crystal since 1997 was awarded the C.B.E. in 2002 and in 2010 was one particular of 6 Irish manner designers honored with a postage stamp in his adopted nation.

His loved ones has always been portion of his enterprise — Simone Rocha went to her father’s initial present when she was 3 months outdated, and decades later on Max Rocha would develop their soundtracks — and now, Mr. Rocha explained, it was time for him to guidance them. (Even though his young children have lived in London for some time, John and Odette Rocha relocated from Dublin in 2018.)

Max Rocha, who still left a job in songs management to become a restaurateur, is an alumnus of St John, another white-walled modernist cafe beloved of the London art and style group. Mr. Rocha may possibly provide a straightforward pie, loaded with pig’s head and potato, or a pork and apricot terrine or mussels in cider. Practically all the things is produced in collaboration with his mom, Odette.

“I’ve constantly liked to cook dinner,” Odette Rocha said. “We shell out a large amount of time speaking about make and recipes.”

The typical thread managing through the art, loved ones and foodstuff is Dublin provenance. “The Guinness bread is the staple of the menu,” Max Rocha explained. “It’s served on its have, and also blitzed up and roasted with sugar to go into the ice product.”

Mr. Rocha has been cautious to simplicity himself into his lifetime as a restaurateur. He is open about previously owning stress and anxiety difficulties and episodes of depression, and he does not want to burn off out as a result, the cafe is open up for dinner only on Friday and Saturday (it serves breakfast and lunch Wednesday via Sunday). 1 night off very last thirty day period he resolved to stream “Boiling Place,” a modern film that information in serious time a fictional chef spiraling out at his East London cafe, but “I turned it off right after 15 minutes and place a cartoon on as an alternative,” Mr. Rocha claimed.

The whole family members will come to Café Cecilia for weekly Sunday lunch capture-ups. Most not long ago, they celebrated Simone Rocha’s daughter’s birthday in the area, and Ms. Rocha had her creative team’s Christmas celebration there. And there’s usually at least a person Rocha in the home, even if he is hiding absent in the kitchen. Even now, the member of the Rocha family members for whom Café Cecilia is named cannot consume there.

Cecilia was John Rocha’s late mom. “Mum had a ‘charity fund’ with her mahjong group in Hong Kong,” he said.

“Every yr a worthy applicant got the money to enable them achieve their ambitions. I was the lucky 17-12 months-aged lad who bought the funds for the ticket to London. Max selected the name, as he felt without having my mum, none of us would be here.”