Rose Gray, chef and co-founder of River Café, dies aged 71

[supernova]

Aww, I really got of kick out of her. The River Cafe had a cooking show that was shown for a while on our PBS station. I got such a big kick out of Rose saying "Mezzaluna" And man, I still want to eat at the River Cafe. This was the beginning of the end of the jokes about British food.



Rose Gray, who gave Londoners a "little piece of Italy on the Thames" and became one of Britain's best-known chefs, has died from cancer. She was 71.

"She died at home surrounded by her family in Marylebone," her friend and business partner of 23 years, Ruth Rogers, said yesterday.

She will be remembered, mainly, as co-chef and patron of the River Café, a Michelin-starred restaurant, in Hammersmith, west London, with Rogers.

Gray, who passed her talent on to some of Britain's leading contemporary chefs, was diagnosed with breast cancer in early 2001. After surgery and chemotherapy, she was clear for five years. But, last year, just as she was finishing what was to be her last book, The River Café Classic Italian Cookbook, which she wrote with Rogers, doctors found brain tumours.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/01/rose-gray-river-cafe-died

RIP, Rose. You were a fantastic teacher and role model.