'People always ask when they taste Nida's food, "does she have any sisters?"' Stewart says. Anoushka drifts about between her photographic studio and the main house their daughters Kaya and India are chivvied along and generally entertained by members of Nida's family. Today, we're not at the Covent Garden flat, but at the sixteenth-century house in Haslemere, Surrey, that is properly home and is where Stewart spends roughly half his time. Preferably somewhere near my flat, so I can go there when there are too many people to feed at home.' The menu at the café, situated a stone's throw from the flat, will feature a range of soups, salads, curries and noodles inspired by Nida and cooked to her recipes.
'If I'm going to Los Angeles,' Stewart says, 'the first thing I get asked is "are you bringing Nida?" She's become part of a massive extended family, and over the years I've said she should open a café, so that other people can experience her food. Now the Stewart-Nida combo is launching a still grander project: a Covent Garden café, also called Nida Noodle.
'She's cooked for everyone at one time or another,' he adds, where everyone obviously has a fairly limited meaning. That's the kind of household it is: they can't remember when Bryan Ferry was last over. 'Was it Sunday that Bryan Ferry was here?' he asks Nida over lunch. Stewart gets annoyed when journalists refer reflexively to his famous friends, but the fact is that he's a networker and Nida has cooked for half the people you have heard of, from Bob Dylan to Robert Altman, from the man Stewart calls simply Mick (he thoughtfully adds the Jagger a beat later, in case you're not, yourself, on first name terms), to the Prime Minister (at his birthday party in Downing Street the year before last). Nida couldn't speak any English and Stewart couldn't - still can't - speak any Thai, but the relationship lasted, and launched a thousand celebrity meals.
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