LONDON — A couple of days earlier than her London Vogue Week present, Simone Rocha, a designer of fantastical and romantic ladies’s put on, was at Café Cecilia, a stark white restaurant subsequent to a canal and Victorian gasworks within the East London borough of Hackney. She was taking a fast break along with her husband, the cinematographer Eoin McLoughlin, and her dad and mom, John and Odette Rocha.
“I’m right here a few instances every week,” stated Ms. Rocha, 35, whose garments are worn by Kate Middleton and was name-checked by Lorde on her final album. “My studio is close by, alongside the canal in De Beauvoir, and our daughter Valentine goes to high school quarter-hour away, so I can choose her up and are available right here for a toastie.”
Her loyalty is comprehensible, provided that Café Cecilia is one thing of a Rocha household challenge. Based by Max Rocha, Ms. Rocha’s youthful brother, the restaurant was embellished by Ms. Rocha’s father and has been adorned with artworks by household, pals and Francis Bacon.
The waiters are dressed by Ms. Rocha, who has, successfully, launched into males’s put on for the primary time by way of the workers uniforms — minimalist short-sleeved shirts and pants in darkish navy — whereas the manager, Kate Towers, wears voluminous black lace-trimmed Simone Rocha appears. Café Cecilia has grow to be the household’s common Sunday lunch canteen, and can also be fashionable within the London artwork and style world.
“If you come right here, it’s such as you’re strolling into our household dwelling,” stated Max Rocha, 30. “All the things could be very us, from the wooden flooring, which my dad has at all times had in his retailers, to the uniforms created by Simone and my mum. There’s additionally a portray on the wall by my 6-year-old niece.”
Dickon Bowden, the vice chairman of the hip retailer Dover Road Market, is a daily. “It’s intimate and acquainted, but looks like you’ve got gone someplace really particular that’s nonetheless a little bit of a secret,” he stated. John Skelton, a males’s put on designer identified for his folklore-inspired artisanal tailoring, likes to cease by for a bacon sandwich within the morning on the best way to his studio a number of doorways down. Ruth Hogben, a style filmmaker identified for her trippy, tessellated work with Dior, Girl Gaga, Alexander McQueen and Gareth Pugh, picks “no matter’s healthiest” from the menu.
Tim Walker, a photographer who shoots for Vogue, can also be a daily. “It’s not typically you could marry simplicity with memorability,” he stated.
Café Cecilia is the most recent chapter in a very fashionable household saga set between Eire and England. John Rocha was a perennial at London Vogue Week from 1985 till he closed his flagship retailer in 2015. Early in his profession he was the cool Hong Kong-born boy from Dublin, placing Sinead O’Connor in addition to Christy Turlington on his catwalk and vacationing in St. Tropez with Bono.
He stopped displaying on catwalks in 2014, however not like many who’ve rolled the cube on the baize of London Vogue Week, Mr. Rocha got here out of the sport impartial and profitable.
Till 2018 he was a part of the Designers at Debenhams roster, alongside Jasper Conran and Julien Macdonald, designing dwelling furnishings. Mr. Rocha additionally has had his personal vary of designs produced by Waterford crystal since 1997; was awarded the C.B.E. in 2002; and in 2010 was certainly one of six Irish style designers honored with a postage stamp in his adopted nation.
His household has at all times been a part of his enterprise — Simone Rocha went to her father’s first present when she was 3 months outdated, and many years later Max Rocha would create their soundtracks — and now, Mr. Rocha stated, it was time for him to help them. (Whereas his youngsters have lived in London for a while, John and Odette Rocha relocated from Dublin in 2018.)
Max Rocha, who left a profession in music administration to grow to be a restaurateur, is an alumnus of St John, one other white-walled modernist restaurant beloved of the London artwork and style group. Mr. Rocha would possibly serve a easy pie, crammed with pig’s head and potato, or a pork and apricot terrine or mussels in cider. Virtually all the pieces is created in collaboration along with his mom, Odette.
“I’ve at all times beloved to prepare dinner,” Odette Rocha stated. “We spend a whole lot of time speaking about produce and recipes.”
The widespread thread working by the artwork, household and meals is Dublin provenance. “The Guinness bread is the staple of the menu,” Max Rocha stated. “It’s served by itself, and in addition blitzed up and roasted with sugar to enter the ice cream.”
Mr. Rocha has been cautious to ease himself into his life as a restaurateur. He’s open about beforehand having nervousness points and episodes of melancholy, and he doesn’t wish to burn out; because of this, the restaurant is open for dinner solely on Friday and Saturday (it serves breakfast and lunch Wednesday by Sunday). One evening off final month he determined to stream “Boiling Level,” a latest film that particulars in actual time a fictional chef spiraling out at his East London restaurant, however “I turned it off after quarter-hour and put a cartoon on as a substitute,” Mr. Rocha stated.
The entire household involves Café Cecilia for weekly Sunday lunch catch-ups. Most not too long ago, they celebrated Simone Rocha’s daughter’s birthday within the area, and Ms. Rocha had her inventive crew’s Christmas occasion there. And there’s at all times no less than one Rocha in the home, even when he’s hiding away within the kitchen. Nonetheless, the member of the Rocha household for whom Café Cecilia is known as can not eat there.
Cecilia was John Rocha’s late mom. “Mum had a ‘charity fund’ along with her mahjong group in Hong Kong,” he stated.
“Yearly a worthy applicant acquired the funds to assist them obtain their objectives. I used to be the fortunate 17-year-old lad who acquired the cash for the ticket to London. Max selected the identify, as he felt with out my mum, none of us can be right here.”
