Now this is a really nice rice pudding

Max Rocha, the owner of London hotspot Café Cecilia in Hackney, started buying tins of Ambrosia rice pudding in his local corner shop five years ago; he sought solace in it when he was stressed out amid opening his restaurant in 2021. To him, rice pudding is a warm hug. “It’s the ultimate comfort dessert,” he says. “I love it so much, especially topped with marmalade ice-cream.” Rocha’s homemade rice pudding is a staple on the restaurant’s winter menu, and the recipe is featured in his recently released cookbook of Cecilia’s signature dishes. In contrast to the canned stuff, the restaurant’s version is baked with full-fat milk, sweetened with brown sugar and aromatically flavoured with a bay leaf – the latter a tip he picked up while working at St John Bread and Wine. Farokh Talati, St John’s head chef, says it’s “good food for [kitchen staff] because it’s carby and sustaining”. He likes to add nutmeg and rum-soaked raisins. “I’ve never been let down by rice pudding.”

It’s consistent; we just give it a seasonal wardrobe as the weather changes

Increasingly, it’s back on menus. At Norman’s, the new-age take on the classic British café in north London, it’s served with a big dollop of raspberry jam. Others offer more innovative variations. American chef Flynn McGarry, the owner of Gem Home in New York, adds a passion-fruit topping. Frederik Bille Brahe, from Denmark, tops it with apple jam and pistachios, while Anna Hedworth of Cook House in Newcastle upon Tyne finishes it with roasted blackberries. Mexican chef Santiago Lastra likes to infuse his with mezcal, while Rahel Stephanie, founder of supper club Spoons, cooks hers the Indonesian way, using coconut cream and pandan. “It’s delicious, light, creamy and fragrant,” she says.

In Britain, the dish has struggled to distance itself from memories of the 20th-century school cafeteria staple, where the taste and stodgy texture aligned more with beige sludge. Many baulk at milky puddings, including semolina, which often comes with a thick skin atop. Rocha insists good ingredients are the redeemer. “If it’s made with better cream, better sugar, better rice and better eggs than [a pudding hater has] had before, it’s a different experience entirely,” he says. Bay leaves also give it an earthy bang.

Rice cultivation is at least 7,000 years old, with origins in the Yangtze River basin in China. Imported via the Silk Road since the end of the first millennium BC, the grain spread globally through Asian-European trade deals, and by the 1400s it was commonly eaten as a dessert in England. Almost every country, in every continent, therefore, has its own version of rice pudding. In China, it’s known as “eight treasure” – topped with eight kinds of preserved fruits and nuts with red bean paste and served as a good luck token. In the Philippines, one version is called Biko, made with coconut milk; in Japan, it’s often served cold with bananas. In Cuba, they use condensed milk and sprinkle it with cinnamon. “It came to Mexico via the Spanish centuries ago,” says Lastra, adding it’s a popular dish “because it’s low in complex carbs”.

“If it’s well-made you always know what you’re going to get,” says Talati, who calls it “totally unassuming, very reliable” and “loved” by St John’s diners. “It’s consistent; we just give it a seasonal wardrobe [of fruit toppings] as the weather changes.” In Talati’s cookbook, Parsi: From Persia to Bombay, is a recipe for a fragrant Persian version, scented with rose water, cardamom and palm sugar. “It really carries flavour,” says Roberto Nitti, head baker at Pophams in London, who recently stuffed rice pudding inside a pastry along with a fig and Earl Grey compote. “The smooth, creamy texture contrasts sharply with the crisp, flaky layers,” he adds. And the chef Douglas McMaster, owner of Silo, makes his own amazake pudding from fermented rice, using it as the base of a dairy-free ice-cream.

It’s a cool, easy and unexpected choice for a dinner party too, according to Rocha and Stephanie; both advise putting a big bowl in the centre, with various toppings acting as a “conversation starter”. “It’s a good diffuser if the chat turns to politics,” says Rocha. St John’s Talati advises to “cook the rice in milk only… add everything else [egg yolks, sugar and cream] once there’s no chew left”. Also make it slowly, he warns, and stir the pot every few minutes so it doesn’t catch on the pan. “Simplicity is the new meaning of luxury,” says Lastra. “In such a detached world, to be able to link people with feelings, traditions and memories – that’s becoming more and more special.”