Marco Pierre White: Winning Three Stars Is The Most Exciting Journey of Any Cook's Life

Spooning with Mark Wogan

In this episode of Spooning with Mark Wogan, legendary chef Marco Pierre White discusses his meteoric rise to three Michelin stars and his eventual

Key takeaways

• Marco Pierre White achieved three Michelin stars at Harvey's in 1990 after years of intense labor.
• He describes his early career as 'graft,' often working 24-hour shifts and over 100 hours per week.

Main topics

• Michelin star history
• Culinary career evolution

Notable quotes

Winning three stars is the most exciting journey of any cook's life.

Conclusion

A profound look at the cost of culinary excellence and the transition

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:10) Hello and welcome to a very, very special edition of Spooning with Mark Wogan aboard P &O Cruises ship Britannia. Who is my very special guest that we travelled all this way to meet today? Well, he arrived in London with about seven quid in his pocket, not that long after he ended up with three Michelin stars. He is a legend that is behind one of my more enduring friendships, and we'll get into that in a bit. But please, will you welcome, and it is an honour, to sit with the legend that is Marco Pielwart. Speaker 1 (0:46) You're so spoiling with your words. Well, look, you're good at this, aren't you? But you... It's in the gene pool. Well, yes, there's a bit of that. What Speaker 2 (0:54) I love about you is you are a fantastic mix of very confident about your abilities and where you are, but also very humble about the effect your presence within the world of restaurants has had, particularly on me. So I had to do a project at the end of my sort of... cookery diploma and the visuals were all inspired by White Street. Speaker 1 (1:18) Now some of the pictures Speaker 2 (1:19) are a bit racy. Speaker 1 (1:21) You made Speaker 2 (1:22) cooking cool. Speaker 1 (1:24) It wasn't cool before we came. I don't think it was me. You see there Speaker 2 (1:29) we go. I rest my case. Speaker 1 (1:31) What I would say when I first came to London I was in Lowes Lane Street in the old gaff rush and I had a bed sis in both streets. and I'd walk up King's Road every night and I'd drop into a place called Kennedy's Brasserie. I remember. The manager there was a man called Alan Crompton Bass. He married a girl called Elizabeth, who was Lou Grade's niece. I got to know him. I'd tell him stories. He'd give me free coffees. I was like a dog, really, just turning up for a boat. But we became great friends. Years later, I went to Manoir with Raymond. I came back and Alan and Elizabeth... a creative restaurant PR. They were the first. They invented it. So because Alan and I had built this relationship all those years ago, I'd just opened Harvest. I couldn't afford him, but he was my friend. So he did my PR for free. Then there was the great Bob Kellett-Clough, who took those photographs. Yeah, Speaker 2 (2:28) which are amazing. Speaker 1 (2:30) They were the two men who really created the modern-day chef. Yeah, but they were taking a picture of you. You? were in the pictures. But then the third person, so there was Alan Crompton Bass, there was Bob Cullis-Clarke, and let's not forget the Daily Mail. Oh yeah, they Speaker 2 (2:47) loved Speaker 1 (2:48) you. They still do, Mark. Fascinated. So therefore, yes, because I worked over 100 hours a week, I didn't care much about myself. I put all my energies into my work. I just had this long hair. I suppose... It's only now I realized that I was quite good-looking at the time I didn't because I've always said good looks were a curse and I never thought of myself as a good looking boy So therefore but they obviously did like Bobcars Clark and Crompton that so Speaker 2 (3:17) what do you think? Well, I mean there were endless pictures of you standing there in your kitchen with this said long hair with whoever was the latest supermodel Hanging over your shoulder. Speaker 1 (3:28) That was Speaker 2 (3:28) a long time Speaker 1 (3:28) ago. Well, yes, but I mean still I don't remember Speaker 2 (3:31) it was all for me a couple of years behind you, it made such an impression on me. But Speaker 1 (3:37) what's interesting, everybody else thought it was rock and roll. I didn't. Speaker 2 (3:40) You just thought it was bloody hard work. Speaker 1 (3:42) It was hard work. It was graft every night, six nights. Because remember, we used to do six days a week at times. And then I would start off on a Monday at 12 midnight on Sunday. So I'd do a 24-hour shift. Because remember, what happened was with artists. In those days, it was Albert and Michel on three stars. by the time we opened Harvey's. There was Rico's, Kaufman's and Raymond's on two stars. There'd been no movement for six years. And then in 1990, Michelin gave Harvey's two stars. Speaker 2 (4:15) But Speaker 1 (4:16) can we just go back Speaker 2 (4:17) quickly? Because I want to go right back to the beginning. You grew up in a hotel because your dad was a hotel chef, right? And that's where you first entered the kitchen, working in a hotel. Speaker 1 (4:27) That's right. You still haven't written that. So... My first job was at the hotels in Georgian Herodotus. They live in 15 pounds a week. For me to live in a hotel is normal. Speaker 2 (4:37) And Speaker 1 (4:37) then in my 20s, I watched two documentaries, one on Capone and one on Luchiano. Luchiano used to live in the Waldorf Astoria. And when Capone was in charge of the outfit before he went to Alcatraz, he lived in a hotel, I think the Drake or whatever, in Chicago. And I thought to myself, now that's what I think is really cool. to live in a hotel you know who else lived in a hotel richard harris literally harrison savoy yeah do you know gerard when they sold it and that he passed and gerald sold it because prince waleed had bought it i Speaker 2 (5:08) mean Speaker 1 (5:08) they made millions apple i mean amazing but i mean it's an institution but Speaker 2 (5:15) So we don't go off track. It's very easy. Yeah, it is very easy. So you've worked alongside your dad in the hotel. Speaker 1 (5:21) No, I Speaker 2 (5:22) didn't Speaker 1 (5:22) work alongside my father. No, my father was a... My grandfather was a chef. My father was a chef. My father worked in the hotels in Leeds. Right. And then in February 78, he said to me, Marco, you're not going to school today. You're going to have a little work. And the work was, find the hotel, find the goods entrance, go down there. Find the back kitchen door, knock on the door. But did you have, at that stage, a passion for food? No. You'd grown up around good food. Well, my mother was a great cook. I always say, when I reflect back on my life now, that mum was my first head chef. My mother used to sit me there on the sides, and I used to watch her make the spaghetti, the zabaglioni, the burrito misto. I used to watch her make risotto. You know, all those nice things with bolognese. Watch them mince it by hand. not realising when I'm highly visual. So therefore, it's absorbing all this information. So in my masterclass yesterday, I make a risotto exactly the same way as my mother's. Speaker 2 (6:18) Now, you mentioned masterclass, because that's why we're on board here. You do the masterclasses. This is the cookery club on board P &O's Britannia ship, which is the main ship. And you've been with them for 20 years. I've done a lot of cruising. But that must be your longest relationship with anybody, isn't it? Including women. Speaker 2 (6:40) I've Speaker 1 (6:40) never had a relationship this last 20 years in my Speaker 2 (6:42) life. But that was the other thing. I look back at the sort of list of... Women. No, not women. Jobs. Restaurants. And you've had so many. All of them good. But you've had so many, sometimes you forget which ones you had. I mean, there were so Speaker 1 (6:57) many. If I think I bought the old Maison Plumiere, I bought the Mirabar, I bought Cuevalis, Lescargue, the Crichton. What I had, droolers. Thank God I sold them three months before Lehman Brothers went down. Well, yes, I mean, people thought I was Speaker 2 (7:11) a Speaker 1 (7:11) genius. That is Speaker 2 (7:12) the thing is like you talk about I didn't make it cool, but then timing must have played a huge part. Speaker 1 (7:20) Timing was everything. I've just been a romanticist all my life. Everything I do has to be romantic. Like the criterion, the mirror bell. For me, it's all about the romance of gastronomy. One of my favorite cookbooks of all time, the mirror bell cookbook. Speaker 2 (7:33) Because what he did with the menu there was... so different. It was made up of classics. Recognizable dishes. Yeah. And I think they work. It's like, I like a salami soiree. But nobody was doing that. As bizarre as it sounds, nobody was doing that. Nobody was doing it to the standard that you put into it. Speaker 1 (7:52) Oh, we want to stir up. So Miller Bell, in its entire history, never won a Michelin star. We won a Michelin star for Miller. Because what it had was the best of the old world and the best of the modern world. It was a very romantic restaurant. I mean, it had everything. It was the perfect restaurant. Speaker 2 (8:06) But I'm just so inspired by what you were doing there. When I took over as the head chef of the Groucho Club, I put on the menu the corned beef cash. I love Speaker 1 (8:16) corned beef. Yeah, delicious. And the Speaker 2 (8:18) bottom of the plate, where you saw it. Speaker 1 (8:19) Yeah, Speaker 2 (8:20) it was the head chef of the Groucho. Amazing. Now, that dish. See, that was very rock and roll. Yeah, it was. But that dish was responsible for a friendship that has now lasted 25 years. As I'm walking through the restaurant, I just put it on. I'm walking through the restaurant and this guy goes, mate, did you cook this? I went, yeah. He goes, it's marvellous. I went, I think we've got chatting to. That man and I are still friends now, 25 plus years later. And that is Jimmy Carr. Amazing. So thank you. Because I don't think he would