Shopping bag.

Max Rocha talks one hundred miles an hour, scarcely pausing to breathe in and reflect on what it is that he has achieved over the past 7 months and we don’t blame him. Cafe Cecilia opened in August 2021, and it sits proudly, if somewhat inconspicuously, on the edge of the canal in Hackney. Having smashed the first months of service, Max and his team have become known as the darlings of the London restaurant scene, and it isn’t hard to see why.

Their homely yet refined fare reflects an Irish upbringing as well as stints in some of the city’s most iconic kitchens (more on that later). But the most impressive part about this venture is the attitude with which the restaurant is run, Max has cultivated an efficacious and effervescent culture which may indeed change the way in which kitchens are perceived in years to come.

This fabled environment that Max has created in both the kitchen and dining room at Cafe Cecilia stems from a need for self-preservation. Having worked in the music industry after studying Business and French at University, he was hit by a tidal wave of clinical depression which necessitated a career change, one which was spurred on by a loaf of bread. “In a way bread kind of saved my life to be totally honest with you and I know that doesn’t sound like it’s true, but it really is. I couldn’t get out of bed and well, I was like, I need to change my career, I need to change. And I said to my mum one day, ‘Listen Ma, do you want to make some bread today?’” The tactility and energy that goes into making a loaf of bread was a practice that became cathartic and life-changing for Max, likening it to Sertraline. He is open about the fact that he has struggled with depression and ADHD, both of which he manages with medication, but is also adamant that baking was one of the first things that helped him get out of his head.

After taking a bread course with his mum, Odette, Max knew the kitchen was where he wanted to spend his days, so he headed, with confidence, to Spring in Somerset House. “I went in, and I saw Skye (Gyngell), said hi and she asked if I was looking for a job, I said, yeah, but I have no idea what I’m doing. She’s like, cool. Just like that and then boom, I was in the kitchen for nearly four years.” After Spring, Max went on to work at St John Bread and Wine and The River Cafe, working with some of our favourite Semaine alumni, Fergus Henderson and Ruthie Rogers. Each kitchen taught him valuable lessons that he still carries in his daily practices; Spring taught him seasonality and how to work in a riotously busy kitchen, at St John, he “learnt how to do things like costings, in terms of using the whole animal. If we did a roast on Saturday night, we’d serve it cold the next day, it wouldn’t go to staff, it would all be saved for the menu.” Ruthie, who is always at the end of the phoneline if Max needs advice, taught him the mastery of managing a team and how not to shout.