He never wanted to be a chef, but Marco Pierre White rose to be one of the biggest names in world cuisine. So why did he quit the kitchen?
MARCO Pierre White, in Adelaide for Tasting Australia, rose to be one of the biggest names in world cuisine. So why did he quit the kitchen?
DON’T call Marco Pierre White a “celebrity chef’’.
The famously volatile English cook bristles at the term, even though he is widely described as the being the first of that particular breed.
The difference, however, that he sees between himself and some others who more proudly carry the label is one of accomplishment.
“The truth is, I don’t regard myself as a celebrity chef because I achieved something as a chef,’’ he says.
Which is a fair point. White was a phenomenon in the London restaurant scene of the 1990s. By 33, he had achieved three Michelin stars, the ultimate culinary recognition of excellence. No one had achieved three stars at a younger age.
The rock-star looks and bad-boy antics belied his classic training and obsession with detail in the kitchen. It was an intoxicating blend that changed the perception of British cooking and influenced younger chefs everywhere, particularly those who worked with him and survived, including Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay.
“If you look at the majority of chefs who are famous, they don’t have one star in the Michelin guide,’’ White says. “They are there because of their personality.’’
White is in Adelaide for the first time for Tasting Australia, the state’s annual food festival which starts Sunday. He is taking part in three events, all of which are already sold out, including one with his old friend Jock Zonfrillo, whom he trained in London, and who now runs Orana, one of the state’s best restaurants.
There will be cooking exhibitions and stories from his varied life. Even questions from those brave enough to put their hand up to attract the attention of this somewhat formidable character.
White, by any measure, has led a remarkable life, but perhaps most striking is that at the end of the 1990s, at the height of his fame and notoriety, he walked away from the kitchen and handed Michelin back those three stars.
“You know something? I was bored,’’ he says. “You are this well-oiled machine, which turns it out every day with extreme consistency. You don’t change your menus because you have achieved. You don’t take high risks because you have three stars from Michelin to protect.’’
To White’s way of thinking, he had three choices. To continue what he was doing and retain this elevated status.
The second option was to “live a lie and pretend I cook when I don’t cook’’.
“I continue to charge high prices and question my integrity and everything that I have ever worked for.’’
Option No. 3 was to walk away. He walked away. And he now revels in the freedom that high-risk decision affords him.
Not being tied to the kitchen allows him to visit places such as Adelaide for the first time.
To travel to a food festival in Margaret River. Or even to film Hell’s Kitchen Australia for the Seven Network as has recently done.
White says these options would have been denied to him had he decided to remain behind the stove. The necessity would have been to stay close to home and to continue to be the driving force in the restaurant.
Which takes him back to his view on those “celebrity chefs’’ who spend more time travelling the world than cooking in their restaurants.
“If I go to a three-star Michelin, I want to be sitting in that restaurant and the man whose name, or lady whose name, is above the door is in the kitchen cooking my dinner,’’ he says.
“Why would I want to go to a restaurant where the head chef is over the other side of the world filming?’’
He draws an analogy with famous names from other fields.
“If (former Manchester United manager) Alex Ferguson had not been on the touchline every Saturday afternoon, hadn’t been on the training ground Monday to Friday, would Man United been as successful as they were? The answer is ‘no’.’’
He continues.
“If you went to watch Elton John play tonight and the curtains opened and his No. 2 walks on and plays his piano and his songs, would you be happy?’’
White may have stepped away from the kitchen in 1999 but nothing about his passion for good food seems to have dimmed.
The 55-year-old was born into a family who cooked. His grandfather was a chef. His father was a chef. But he initially rebelled against the idea of joining the family trade. “I never wanted to be a chef but my father made me,’’ he admits.
He was captivated by produce, though. By the salmon or the cod that came into the restaurant. It’s still something that drives him. He loves to fish, loves to hunt. He lives far from the bright lights of London, with a home in Wiltshire, near Bath.
White’s first job was in the Hotel St George in Harrogate, near where he grew up in Leeds, before moving to the Michelin-starred Box Tree in Ilkley, West Yorkshire.
By 24, he was head chef at Harveys in London before establishing The Restaurant Marco Pierre White in the Hyde Park Hotel, where he won that third precious star and then made his last stand at the Oak Room.
Aside from his talents in the kitchen, White also cultivated a reputation as a firebrand, someone who was blunt and free with his appraisals.
On the phone, however, that deep, resonant voice suggests a polite and urbane man, one comfortable with himself and still quite happy to distribute quick and direct opinions.
Anyway, any bad behaviour, he suggests, is inevitable given his line of work.
“All chefs in the service are grumpy because they have got a job to do,’’ he explains.
“If you can imagine you are head chef tonight. You have got 20 cooks in your kitchen and 100 people to feed five courses to. You don’t start around joking and laughing, do you?
“You don’t say ‘Barry, in your own time, can I have two sea bass’, do you?’’
No, probably not.
White has no regrets about stepping back from the day-to-day grind in the kitchen.
His name decorates restaurants in Britain, Ireland and the US. He owns two hotels and has built a couple of piggeries. He is a regular on TV, including for many years on MasterChef in Australia before making the jump to Hell’s Kitchen this year.
“I can contribute to the world of gastronomy in a greater way now than when I was in the kitchen,’’ he says.
“I can inspire people by doing TV. I can inspire mothers to go and buy better produce and learn to cook and give their children better food.
“Even though I am not behind the stove any more, it doesn’t mean I can’t share my three- star knowledge or my three-star philosophy.’’
And he still loves to cook at home, describing is as his “favourite pastime’’.
The rule for home cooking, though, is to keep it simple.
“I love one pot cuisine,’’ White says. “Even something as simple as making a great bowl of pasta. It’s fabulous. It’s delicious.’’
White also believes he saw the best of the culinary world. He says his time in the kitchen crossed over between the old world of gastronomy and the new world.
“It was more romantic really,’’ he says of that time. “I would always say I saw the golden age of gastronomy. Today, accountants have taken over.’’
Now, he is looking forward to his time in South Australia — and to catching up with his one-time employee Zonfrillo and eating at his Rundle St restaurant.
White can’t speak highly enough of Zonfrillo. Perhaps he sees something of himself in him. The Scotsman has also been described as having something of a messianic attitude towards his food, coupled with an arrogance that has the capacity to unsettle.
“He is an extraordinary young man, very clever and very talented,’’ he says of Zonfrillo.
“I sometimes think he has never been given the recognition he truly deserves for his contribution to the world of gastronomy.’’
The duo will team up at Tasting Australia. There will be an Italian feast at Fino Seppeltsfield in the Barossa Valley and another event at the Glasshouse Kitchen in Victoria Square, which will also include Clayton Wells, who was last year dubbed “Australia’s hottest chef’’.
White says the events will be about more than just food.
“One of the complications when people do masterclasses, it all becomes a bit too serious,’’ he says. “Always when I ever do a masterclass, I always interact and cook at the same time.
“I also think it’s very important to tell stories rather than technique. Technique is a bit boring, really. Especially if you’re doing the same thing for 75 minutes.
“Stories and food and wine are a delicious combination.’’
The annual Tasting Australia festival begins tomorrow, with more than 100 food and wine events in the city, suburbs and regions.