Marco Pierre White

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 20:12

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:27

My castaway this week is a chef. Born nearly thirty years ago on a Leeds council estate, his intention on leaving school was to break free and enjoy himself, certainly not to cook for the enjoyment of others. He took a job as a kitchen hand, and slowly an obsession with food developed. Determined to learn the art through experience rather than formal training, he begged a job in a top London restaurant working under Albert Roux. From there he went to Nico and on to Raymond Blanc, absorbing the repertoire of Britain's top chefs. Today he is their rival. He runs his own restaurant in South London, is the youngest chef ever to win two Michelin stars, and he holds the other qualification of many a successful restaurateur. He has a reputation for being less than polite to some of his customers. He is Marco Pierre White. Shall we deal with the reputation first, Marco? When are you rude to your customers and why?

Marco Pierre White1:22

I don't believe I'm rude to my customers. I believe my customers are rude to me.

Marco Pierre White1:27

And that's why I politely asked them to leave my restaurant.

Marco Pierre White1:31

I don't like people who click fingers, I don't like people who mimic my French staff or have laughs at their expense, especially when they're working long days. They should be just left be. And what a lot of people don't realize

Marco Pierre White1:43

His Enjoyment in a Restaurant is a two-way street.

Marco Pierre White1:46

They have got to come in.

Marco Pierre White1:48

to the restaurant and sit down and enjoy themselves and they've got to give off niceness and they've got to be polite with my staff and sh show affection. And if they get they do that then they get it back. If they come in and they're rude and abrupt and short

Marco Pierre White2:01

They don't wish to be served by them.

Presenter2:03

So what do you do? Just march out and say, Excuse me, would you leave

Marco Pierre White2:05

No, not necessarily. No, they've got to be very rude now. I mean, like nowadays, I mean, I just bite the leather and I sort of tell my manager. And we've both grown together'cause my manager was only

Marco Pierre White2:14

nineteen when he joined me.

Marco Pierre White2:16

And I was twenty five. I mean, we were very young boys.

Marco Pierre White2:20

And he could barely speak English and I could barely cook and you know, I mean, we just did not do a very good job. I mean, it was like faulty towers, but

Presenter2:28

So this image that you have of being a a sort of talented young man who can't be bothered to control his temper'cause his success has gone to his head.

Marco Pierre White2:34

The people who condemn me as being a talented young man who can't control his temper are people who obviously don't know me.

Marco Pierre White2:40

I expect results and if somebody makes a mistake in my establishment then I do shout at them.

Marco Pierre White2:48

Because at the end of the day, it's my name above the door, and if the customer writes a letter of complaint, then it's to me and not to the young person concerned.

Presenter2:57

So now you're off to a desert island, courtesy of us. There's no one to shout at. There's nothing there to cook that we know of. What are you going to do?

Marco Pierre White3:08

I think for a while I I I think I'd really like it because

Marco Pierre White3:11

All my spare time is actually spent in the countryside doing field sports, either shooting or fishing or just walking. And so I think for three months or six months or two months, however long, I think I just have a great time and just sort of hang out on an island and just enjoy myself sort of.

Marco Pierre White3:28

bringing those natural instincts out of me.

Presenter3:30

And what's the first record you'd put on your gramophone?

Marco Pierre White3:33

Uh it's by Steve Harley.

Marco Pierre White3:35

Come up and see me.

Presenter3:36

Why do you want that?

Marco Pierre White3:38

It's just one of those great songs. It reminds me of when I was a a young boy of sixteen when I first left home. It was like the first time in my life I'd ever been given total freedom.

Speaker 43:49

It's just the test.

Speaker 43:52

A game for us to play.

Speaker 43:56

Win or lose, it's hard to smile Resist, resist It's from yourself, you have to have

Speaker 44:11

I roll, come up as aiming to make any smile

Presenter4:21

Steve Harley, and come up and see me. So, when did you catch the food bug, Marco? How did it happen?

Marco Pierre White4:28

I remember when I was a young boy I was in Hurrigan and I was in the hallporter's lodge and I found this little book and it was called The Gunrunny Guide and so I started flicking through it.

Marco Pierre White4:38

And I realized that this was a food guide. I mean, I didn't know there was such a thing as a food guide. And so I started clicking through. And I remember seeing the box tree, Three Stars Seek and Running. I thought.

Marco Pierre White4:48

I read about it and I thought

Marco Pierre White4:50

What am I doing here? I mean if I'm not sure what I'm doing.

Presenter4:52

This was just down the road, the box.

Marco Pierre White4:53

This was a boxery about fifty miles away, and I thought what am I doing here? I mean, if I'm going to spend my days in a kitchen, I might as well work somewhere wonderful.

Marco Pierre White5:01

And so I rang them up.

Marco Pierre White5:03

And they told me to come down and I went down and I remember walking in.

Marco Pierre White5:07

And I'd never seen anything like it in my life. It was like walking into an Aladdin's cave. I mean, it was just like the most beautiful junk shop you could ever imagine with wonderful works of art.

Marco Pierre White5:16

And there's these two guys who were totally eccentric. They had a great charm. They had something I mean, even the way Mr. Reid spoke to me, there was depth within his words. And I mean, he was an incredible man, great motivator, great inspirer. And he started talking to me and this and that. And he's he then I'd never seen a French cook before, or a French chef or anything. And he said to one of the waiters, he said, Go tell Michel to bring some terrines through. So Michel, this French cook, appeared, white clogs, immaculately dressed, with these these terrines on these silver salves. And I just could not believe what I was seeing. I'd never seen food look so beautiful. And so I took the job and

Marco Pierre White5:52

And that's where it all started. Remember, sort of everything was served in silver dishes and on I mean it was just quite magical the whole thing.

Presenter6:00

And so from then on I mean, did you did you dream about food?

Marco Pierre White6:03

Some nights I wouldn't sleep. I'd be thinking all night of what to do and

Marco Pierre White6:07

I mean my ideas were most probably totally useless and my concepts were mostly incredibly weird, but you

Presenter6:12

But you were creating dishes in your head.

Marco Pierre White6:13

But I was creating and thinking in my head and and that's where my mind started to work.

Presenter6:18

You you've said that uh there's only um one dish so far anyway that uh you've created that is perfect, and that's your tagliatelli of oysters with caviar. Now why is that perfect?

Marco Pierre White6:29

It's just a wonderful concept. Even from it arriving, I mean, the way I eat it is and most people use a knife and a fork, but I don't. I mean, you just pick it up with your hands. It's incredibly sensuous. And then when you get try to get your mouth round the shell and you just you get all these textures and flavours in your mouth, it's just wonderful. It just sort of sends you to ecstasy. It's great.

Presenter6:46

You have quite a reputation for sticking your fingers in food. You you did um a b uh a programme on the television where viewers got quite upset because you kept tasting things and stuff like that.

Marco Pierre White7:06

We all arrange things on plates with fingers. What is the crime?

Presenter7:10

Record number two.

Presenter7:12

What's that?

Marco Pierre White7:13

She's so modern by the Boomtan Rats. I think that taught.

Marco Pierre White7:17

those days when I left school. And I remember saving up my money, my fifteen pounds a week or twenty pounds a week or sometimes forty pounds a week depending how much overtime I did. I used to run off and buy all these outrageous clothes or what I thought were outrageous and it was just rather nice sort of being able to express myself for the first time with clothes.

Presenter7:37

And this is a memory of the days when you began to do that.

Marco Pierre White7:39

When I thought I was trendy.

Speaker 47:56

Twentieth century Nineteenth seventeen The Writing Society

Speaker 48:04

That's the way cause she demanded

Presenter8:12

She's so modern from the Boomtown Rats. So, Marco, your your mother was Italian, and your dad was a a Yorkshireman, and your two older brothers were called Clive and Graham. Why were you Marco?

Marco Pierre White8:25

I d I d I really don't know. I think I was my mother's child, because my father was a very strong man, very sort of Victorian ways, and he did really rule the roost, and

Marco Pierre White8:36

I think when I came along, I think my mother, I don't know, wanted to put her personality into one person.

Presenter8:43

And did Italy itself and its food play much of a part in your early life?

Marco Pierre White8:47

I used to go with my mother for three months, six months. Majority of my first six years were spent there.

Presenter8:52

And then when you were sick she died.

Marco Pierre White8:53

When I was six she died. My younger brother stayed in Italy.

Marco Pierre White8:58

and me and my two older brothers came to England.

Presenter9:00

What happened? Why did she die?

Marco Pierre White9:01

She just had my younger brother. Uh my brother was thirteen days when she died. She died of a brain hemorrhage.

Presenter9:07

So your childhood then suddenly changed dramatically, was remembered?

Marco Pierre White9:10

I remember once.

Marco Pierre White9:14

After my mother's death, I remember one of the teachers asked me a question.

Marco Pierre White9:19

and I answered them in Italian.

Marco Pierre White9:21

And all well I didn't realize at the time all everyone started laughing.

Marco Pierre White9:25

I remember saying to myself when I was a young boy sitting there

Marco Pierre White9:28

Did I answer in Italian or English? I didn't even know the answer.

Marco Pierre White9:32

I didn't even know the answer, and that's when I used to have to have special English lessons and

Marco Pierre White9:37

I think I I actually well, I know now for a fact, I didn't know as a child, but I'm rather dyslexic.

Marco Pierre White9:43

And, you know, even that, I used to get taunted for that as a boy at school.

Presenter9:48

But you don't have an accent now. Where's the where's the Yorkshire gone?

Marco Pierre White9:51

I d I don't really know. I mean, I came to London when I was nineteen and I I think I must have absorbed it from the people I associate myself with.

Presenter9:59

And you don't go back to Yorkshire, do you?

Marco Pierre White10:01

I go back now then I was fishing uh in Yorkshire a month ago, where I was when I was a boy.

Presenter10:07

But you don't go back to Yorkshire now to visit your relatives?

Marco Pierre White10:09

Oh no. I've left it behind because I've got business in London. But it doesn't mean I don't think about my life in Yorkshire. It doesn't mean I don't think about my brothers or my father.

Presenter10:18

When did you last see your father?

Marco Pierre White10:20

Uh, when I was sixteen, so I suppose that's fourteen years ago.

Marco Pierre White10:24

Fifteen no, thirteen years ago.

Presenter10:26

Why so long?

Marco Pierre White10:28

Uh my father remarried.

Marco Pierre White10:30

I didn't approve.

Presenter10:32

And you have no desire to see your father again?

Marco Pierre White10:34

None whatsoever.

Presenter10:35

You're also tee total. Is that uh something that's in the family?

Marco Pierre White10:38

I've uh no. I mean, my father and my brothers indulge heavily in alcohol.

Marco Pierre White10:44

I've just never drunk.

Presenter10:46

What about school back in Yorkshire? What did your teachers think that life had in store for you?

Marco Pierre White10:52

They made comments, like I remember my headmaster on my last night at school said, White, you'll be nothing in life. He's absolutely right, just because I've achieved two mission stars, just because I've achieved and I've made money and I've got my business and I earn mostly fifteen times the amount he'll earn in a year. That doesn't mean I'm something special.

Marco Pierre White11:08

If I think back now, the problem with the with my schooling was

Marco Pierre White11:13

that they didn't know how to inspire.

Marco Pierre White11:16

And that is the problem. It's like a lot of people within my profession. I can take a boy from a council house and I love it. And you know they're totally they've got no no nothing.

Marco Pierre White11:26

Well, they don't think they've got anything. And six months later you see this boy, you see how his hands are disciplined, you see how his mind's working, you see how he cares, you see how he tastes things, you see how he's conscientious about a thumbprint on a plate.

Marco Pierre White11:38

That's when you can bring that out of a person who's been suppressed all his life, that's called achievement.

Presenter11:45

Record number three.

Marco Pierre White11:47

It's by Gene Pitney, Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart and

Marco Pierre White11:51

The reason why I've chosen this song is.

Marco Pierre White11:53

There's a side of me which is just incredibly romantic and

Marco Pierre White11:56

You know, I don't really like to portray this image. I don't like to show this part of myself off. I don't know why. It's just you know, it's very hard expressing emotions sometimes. It's very hard to show what you feel about people or

Marco Pierre White12:08

on what you feel about the people you love and

Marco Pierre White12:10

I don't know, I'd much prefer just to put this song on.

Marco Pierre White12:13

I was pouring them a glass of wine or making them a cup of coffee or something, let him do the talking for me.

Speaker 412:18

Something's gotten hold of my heart

Speaker 412:23

In my soul and my senses apart

Speaker 412:29

Something's gotten into my

Speaker 412:33

Cutting its way through my dreams like

Presenter12:38

Jean Pitney, and something's gotten hold of my heart. Um that first job you had at the Saint George's Hotel in in Harrogate, um what was the first thing they gave you to do, do you remember?

Marco Pierre White12:49

I remember I walked into the kitchen and the first job they gave me I had to pass some veal stock.

Marco Pierre White12:55

And it was so glutinous and jellyfied I had to pass it through a very fine syphony. It took me about three hours. And then I didn't even succeed. They just took it off me. And now I think back

Marco Pierre White13:05

They've just been incredibly cruel because what they what they should have done is like you just don't do that. You you pass a warm stock through a chimois so it runs through because it's liquid. But they made me pass it jelly.

Presenter13:14

So you were pressing the jelly through the silver?

Marco Pierre White13:16

So I was trying to pass the gel through a very fine silver. And they were just very cruel.

Presenter13:20

But undoubtedly your your first lesson was that it that actually working in a kitchen is extremely hard work.

Marco Pierre White13:26

It really does destroy you. It does destroy you. And like I'm twenty nine now and I did six days a week, a hundred hours a week for sort of three and a half years.

Marco Pierre White13:34

And I I never thought I would say.

Marco Pierre White13:38

That

Marco Pierre White13:39

It got the better of me, but I've got to be humble and I've got to say it did beat me.

Presenter13:43

So just to give me an idea of this of this enormous stress that you describe, tell me about a typical Saturday night in your kitchen. Why is it so sweaty and so stressful?

Marco Pierre White13:53

A Saturday night in Harvey's, you know, in the middle of the night nine o'clock comes and you've sort of you're wading, you've got tickets around, you've got food around you, you've got waiters walking around, you've got boys bumping into you, burning your wrists like they did the other week, that one of the boys took a pan to my wrist.

Marco Pierre White14:09

You've got the manager wanting something else, you've got a customer wanting this, you've got this and that. I mean, your back is just drenched with sweat. I mean, you know, you just don't know what is happening. You just are oblivious to the world outside.

Presenter14:21

How many of you are there in this?

Marco Pierre White14:22

There's myself and four in the main kitchen and two in pastry. I mean, oh it's just a nightmare. If a souvlet is not risen enough then it goes back, so because I see everything.

Presenter14:30

Your quality control as well as cooking.

Marco Pierre White14:32

Every night I I have to cook and when you come to Harvey's and you're paying the prices Harvest is charging then you want me to cook.

Marco Pierre White14:40

You can go to a lot of the big houses in Britain.

Marco Pierre White14:43

and pay big money.

Marco Pierre White14:44

And the person whose name's above the door is not in the kitchen. And that's when it's robbery.

Presenter14:50

What do they normally do? Do they normally stand in what they call the pass where the food goes out and just

Marco Pierre White14:53

A lot of chefs stand on the pass and they just look at the food, but they're not tasting it, they're not feeling it, they're not cooking it.

Presenter15:00

So i there's a lot of pressure, as you say. Is there a lot of noise in this kitchen on a Saturday night?

Marco Pierre White15:06

Not from speech.

Marco Pierre White15:08

Just a clip.

Presenter15:09

Just a clatter.

Marco Pierre White15:12

No one else is allowed to speak.

Marco Pierre White15:15

They just do their job.

Presenter15:16

What are you saying?

Marco Pierre White15:17

I I might say to a boy, how long for table five? Two minutes. That's him.

Presenter15:23

So it's all geared to getting all the dishes for table five, as it were, ready at the same time.

Marco Pierre White15:28

Everything's optionally ready at the same time. People don't understand fifteen seconds is a lifetime in cooking.

Marco Pierre White15:34

If you are cooking a very thin piece of salmon

Marco Pierre White15:37

In a pan you're cooking it pink.

Marco Pierre White15:39

Fifteen if you leave it there fifteen seconds too long, then it's overdone.

Presenter15:43

Is there panic, then?

Marco Pierre White15:45

No, I don't allow them to panic. If you panic, you've lost her.

Presenter15:48

But do you, Panny?

Marco Pierre White15:49

Never.

Marco Pierre White15:51

I can't afford to.

Presenter15:52

But you're absorbing the the stress.

Marco Pierre White15:53

I absorb the pressure.

Presenter15:54

There's

Presenter15:55

Let's have your next piece of music. What is it?

Marco Pierre White15:57

It's the Rolling Stones and the Continental Drift.

Marco Pierre White16:00

I suppose my real hero, if I've ever got one in life, is Keith Richards. He's just a man who just lives life to the full, and I envy that.

Speaker 416:10

I'm cold.

Speaker 416:13

The speed of light

Speaker 416:24

Come on.

Speaker 416:28

Speed of light

Presenter16:38

The Rolling Stones and Continental Drift. It was ten years ago, Marco, that you arrived in London with seven pounds in your pocket and knocked on the door of the one of the best restaurants in town and ended up working for Albert Rue. It's i it's almost too good to be true as a story that this top chef took you on. How did you persuade him? What did he see in you?

Marco Pierre White16:56

I didn't persuade him. I mean

Marco Pierre White16:58

I'd been I'd went to the um Tuton Glen for an interview the day before and when I came back to London

Marco Pierre White17:04

I'd missed my train back to Yorkshire, so I had to walk the streets of London.

Marco Pierre White17:08

And while I was walking the streets of London waiting to get my train back, you know,'cause I couldn't get into a bed and breakfast, I had no dosh, I was skin, and I came across the Gavroche.

Marco Pierre White17:17

And I thought, well since I'm in London, maybe in the morning I'll just go and knock on their door.

Marco Pierre White17:22

And so I knocked on the door at nine o'clock in the morning, and this young man told me to go to Wandsworth Road.

Marco Pierre White17:29

to Rue head office and he told me how to get there. I didn't have the money for a bus so I had to walk so I was really wrecked. So I walked there and I walked into the office. There was Al Bairu sitting there. I couldn't believe my eyes. I thought it was like a mirage.

Marco Pierre White17:41

And he said, Can I help you? And I said, Well, I've

Marco Pierre White17:45

Come for a job.

Marco Pierre White17:46

And uh I didn't sit down or anything and it was all very brief. It must have lasted two minutes, but it seemed like a lifetime. And he read my reference and he said, You worked at the box chair. I said, Yes. And he said

Marco Pierre White17:57

He said, How long were you there? I said, A year. He said, Have have you got digs in London? I said, No. I said, I'm only down for today and he said, He turned around and said, Right, come down on Monday, we'll find you digs and you start work on Tuesday. You know, ever since then, I mean, Albert has stood by me for ten years. I mean, he's been like a father to me and

Marco Pierre White18:11

It's it's it is really like a fairy tale.

Presenter18:13

But can you sum up, in a couple of sentences, difficult this, what you learned from Alberu?

Marco Pierre White18:20

Extravagance.

Marco Pierre White18:21

The way they used truffles in the Gabroche in the early 80s, the way they used wild mushrooms, the way they presented their food, the way everything was done, it was so extravagantly done.

Presenter18:31

But he wasn't enough for you, was he? Because you went on then to work for at the same time, I think, for Nico, Nico Ladiny. What did you learn from him that you hadn't learned from Albert?

Marco Pierre White18:39

Let's just go ahead and see what's going on.

Marco Pierre White18:41

Consistency, I don't consistency from this moment.

Marco Pierre White18:45

And that's what Nico's is is an incredibly consistent man.

Presenter18:49

Record number five.

Marco Pierre White18:52

The Stranglers and Golden Brown.

Presenter18:54

Why?

Marco Pierre White18:55

I sort of took time out from cooking and sort of

Marco Pierre White18:58

83 I think it was. It reminds me of that year I dug out and didn't really care about my career. I threw it in the gutter for a while and just enjoyed myself.

Marco Pierre White19:08

It was fun.

Speaker 419:18

Golden brown, find a temptress Through the ages she's heading west From far away, stays for a day Never a frown with a golden brown

Presenter19:37

The Stranglers and Golden Brown. So tell me about opening your own um restaurant. It was nineteen eighty seven. You talk about it sometimes if it was years ago, but I mean it was four short years ago.

Marco Pierre White19:46

Four short years ago.

Presenter19:49

You bought this run down wine bar in Wandsworth, and you went flat out to make a name for yourself. But six months later, you'd lost two stones in weight and fifty thousand pounds, and yet the restaurant had been full to bursting. Now what went wrong?

Marco Pierre White20:02

I gave too much away.

Marco Pierre White20:04

I never even even to this day I've never d costed a dish, I've never priced a dish, I've never looked at the price of anything. The only difference is in those days I had to cut into the market, so I cut into the market with incredibly cheap prices. And for whatever reasons I got a mountain of publicity. It doesn't I mean the majority of publicity didn't come about my food, it came about me as a person and

Presenter20:05

You're too extravagant.

Marco Pierre White20:25

My long hair and my

Marco Pierre White20:27

Sort of nightly habits and things like this. I mean, whatever, it doesn't really matter. And then.

Marco Pierre White20:32

I got my Michelin star so therefore.

Marco Pierre White20:35

Michelin stars justify prices.

Presenter20:37

Mm.

Marco Pierre White20:38

And that's what's happened.

Presenter20:39

And you're into profit now.

Marco Pierre White20:41

I'm into profit, I make a living.

Presenter20:43

But it hasn't been very good for your health, has it? I mean, there were stories that that last year y your blood pressure was so high you were close to having a heart attack.

Marco Pierre White20:50

You know, health doesn't stay with you for long and if you carry on punishing yourself and you carry on sort of pushing yourself, then of course something's gotta give.

Marco Pierre White20:59

And it just came to a head uh last summer.

Presenter21:03

And that's the only way you can do it, is it? I mean, there's no way that you can pull back, cut down, give three quarters instead of a hundred and ten percent.

Marco Pierre White21:11

You know

Marco Pierre White21:12

I suppose, if I've got to be honest with myself, I do love my restaurant.

Marco Pierre White21:18

I do love it.

Marco Pierre White21:19

And I would never sell it.

Presenter21:23

Next piece of music. What's that?

Marco Pierre White21:25

A Good Year for the Roses by Elvis Costello. I remember when I was a a boy in Oxford.

Marco Pierre White21:32

I didn't have many friends and I worked very hard and a lot of the time was spent by the river or

Marco Pierre White21:38

Just sort of reading or listening to music and

Marco Pierre White21:41

I was getting over my

Marco Pierre White21:42

First love, I suppose.

Marco Pierre White21:45

And I kinda liked the song, I could you have the res and I thought

Marco Pierre White21:48

It summed up life and it helped me get through that sort of sad patch of my life.

Speaker 421:53

What a good year for the roses Many blooms no linger there

Speaker 422:02

Long could stand and never know it

Speaker 422:07

Funny how

Speaker 422:12

As you turn your heart in

Speaker 422:17

As the dovin you clove

Presenter22:22

A good year for the roses from Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Do you remember the day you got the news that you'd won the two Michelin stars?

Marco Pierre White22:30

I remember it well.

Marco Pierre White22:31

We had a private party booked at Harvey's for twelve people.

Marco Pierre White22:36

And we didn't know who it was. And then my manager came through and said, Marco,

Marco Pierre White22:40

Derek Brown, the head inspector of Michelin, has just walked in the restaurant.

Marco Pierre White22:44

And so, and he's asked to see you.

Marco Pierre White22:47

So I walked out to see him.

Marco Pierre White22:50

And he gave me a guide and he said, congratulations, you've won your two stars.

Marco Pierre White22:56

And he opened up the page and showed it to me and I just sort of couldn't believe it. It was like everything I've ever worked for in my life, I've always wanted two. Never three, never one, just two.

Marco Pierre White23:05

And I just couldn't believe it. And so then

Marco Pierre White23:09

I spoke to Alberu, and he arranged a special dinner for us.

Marco Pierre White23:14

For me and my boys.

Marco Pierre White23:16

And I remember watching them all sitting down enjoying themselves, all incredibly happy. And it was like if a shadow came over me.

Marco Pierre White23:23

All I wanted then.

Marco Pierre White23:24

was my mother to be with me.

Marco Pierre White23:26

But she couldn't.

Marco Pierre White23:28

And so it goes to prove in life we can have a lot in life, and we can get a lot of things in life.

Marco Pierre White23:34

But sometimes we can't have everything we want.

Marco Pierre White23:37

And so therefore Harvest became the monument for my mother.

Presenter23:42

We've talked in talking about food, I mean, we've used all these words, you know, extravagance and passion and commitment and love and all these things.

Marco Pierre White23:48

Commit

Marco Pierre White23:50

And

Presenter23:51

Yeah.

Presenter23:52

But what do you say to those people who find that kind of talk an affectation, actually, who say in the end, you know, food is just food and and and all this fancy talk is really the stuff of Sude's corner?

Marco Pierre White24:02

The stuff

Marco Pierre White24:04

You must respect them.

Marco Pierre White24:06

You know, not everybody in life

Marco Pierre White24:08

As being given the opportunity I've been given, I remember one day two kids walked into my restaurant about 18 years old.

Marco Pierre White24:15

And they told they said we'd like to have a party if they had ripped jeans on and this and that.

Marco Pierre White24:20

And they said they'd like to have a party here. And I said, Why do you want a party? I was most curious. And they said, We're getting married and we've been to the two restaurants up the street, one's at Winebar and one's a one's a sort of Brathery and they've refused us.

Marco Pierre White24:32

And I said

Marco Pierre White24:34

You're getting married.

Marco Pierre White24:35

I said how much are you wanting to spend? They said fifteen pounds a head.

Marco Pierre White24:41

And I said, What do you want? They said, We want patty.

Marco Pierre White24:44

Chikinkiev

Marco Pierre White24:45

and a chocolate cake.

Marco Pierre White24:47

And so I said, Fine, we'll do it. My manager was dying.

Marco Pierre White24:52

And I walked into the kitchen and said, Next Wednesday we're doing a wedding party for two kiddies and they're having this I said Margaret, how can you cook this food?

Marco Pierre White25:00

And what they all forgot, like a lot of people forget in life, is we once looked Patty, we once looked chicken Kiev.

Marco Pierre White25:09

And we once love chocolate cake.

Marco Pierre White25:11

And you speak us.

Marco Pierre White25:13

Weez.

Marco Pierre White25:14

Seeing another side of life, does it mean we must forget where we came from? Does it mean we must forget the things?

Marco Pierre White25:19

which our parents gave us.

Marco Pierre White25:21

And we thought with a whirl.

Marco Pierre White25:24

And so they had that chicken kit.

Presenter25:25

They had it today.

Marco Pierre White25:26

They did. They loved it.

Presenter25:27

And how much did you charge him?

Marco Pierre White25:29

Fifteen pounds I had. I lost money. But that's not the point. I gave them a memory.

Presenter25:34

But in the main you charge something like what for for for two people

Marco Pierre White25:37

The average price is about one hundred and fifty for two.

Presenter25:39

150 for two. Tell me honestly, do you think it's good value for money to have dinner for two with wine and all the trimmings, as they say?

Marco Pierre White25:47

I think it's very good value.

Marco Pierre White25:50

But that is my opinion.

Marco Pierre White25:52

At the end of the day, a man who goes and to down to the local pub and spends fifteen pounds a night on beer.

Marco Pierre White25:59

I call that expensive. He calls it good value.

Presenter26:03

Record number seven.

Marco Pierre White26:04

Its withering heights ply Cape Bush.

Marco Pierre White26:07

Which sort of

Marco Pierre White26:09

was number one, the first I ever started working. All I ever heard was this one song. And it must have been played fifteen times. They flogged the song to death. They must have been on a percentage or something. They went wild.

Speaker 426:21

Are dwelling on the band?

Speaker 426:24

He told me I was going to lose the plant. Leave me high, I walked through, walking through, walking through the high tea.

Speaker 426:35

Fear, Captain Cumber!

Presenter26:49

Kate Bush and Wuthering Heights. Where where are we going next in in food, Marco? We've had cuisine marseur and naturel and nouvelle. What happens next?

Marco Pierre White26:59

Simplicity is where it's going.

Marco Pierre White27:01

Honesty.

Marco Pierre White27:03

and bringing back some of those wonderful old recipes which died a long time ago.

Presenter27:07

Nightwalk

Marco Pierre White27:08

Well Cocovan was one of those great dishes which was prostituted to death. It was like pig's head. I mean it's wonderful as pig's head. I mean it's on the menu at Harvest Now at the moment. It's wonderful with spices. And they were all pushed out of the door. You know it's like there's a three star in France which has got chicken Kiev on its menu, garnished with little mousserois. You know and it's it's bringing these dishes back which were great dishes. It's like I was at Albert's not so long ago and Albert cooked the most wonderful cocovan in the world. And it was garnished with the little girl which is a wild michelin, the little lards, the petits onions, and the little cret de cock, which is the combs, the cock combs. Wonderful it was.

Presenter27:39

The very strange thing is, I mean, all these French names trip off your tongue. You've never been to France, have you?

Marco Pierre White27:44

Nope, never been to France, never had the time.

Presenter27:46

Can you speak conversational French?

Marco Pierre White27:48

No, wouldn't try to.

Presenter27:50

So this is this is kitchen French, is it?

Marco Pierre White27:52

This is kitchen French. I've got a lot of French stuff and I can

Marco Pierre White27:56

demand orders to my French waiters. I mean or if I've got French cooks and I talk to them in French and tell them what I want.

Presenter28:02

But buying a ticket at the railway station would be quite

Marco Pierre White28:05

Well, I think y years ago, years ago, I mean, I don't know, I wouldn't be able to buy a ticket now, I'd get so I'd n knowing me, I would get someone else to do it for me, do you know what I mean? I'd pay them to do it. But you know, if I go back years ago, I'd love to have gone to France, but I never had the money or the confidence.

Presenter28:08

Uh

Presenter28:18

So how important is that third Michelau star to you, Mark?

Marco Pierre White28:22

I was talking to Albert about it the other day and Albert says he says Marco, you know you'll be the next three star in prison and you know, I listen to him and I respect what he has to say, but you know

Marco Pierre White28:32

I don't know whether I want the aggravation. I don't know whether I want the

Marco Pierre White28:36

The pressure.

Presenter28:37

As you say, Albert obviously thinks you're capable of it. Um what he said of you is, and I quote, if he doesn't burn himself out, he'll go right to the top.

Presenter28:46

Which do you think is more likely?

Marco Pierre White28:48

I think the decision of that question, if you want me to be frank with myself, is my decision.

Marco Pierre White28:54

And it depends what I want. Do I want if I want my three star, then I'll

Marco Pierre White28:58

I might burn myself out.

Marco Pierre White29:00

Who knows?

Presenter29:01

Should we have your last record?

Marco Pierre White29:02

Sure, it's Louis Armstrong.

Marco Pierre White29:04

And what a wonderful world.

Marco Pierre White29:06

It's one of those songs I remember being a little boy, my father used to play on a Sunday or that sort of music. And on a Sunday now, when I if I'm going off fishing, I'll put What a Wonderful World On by Louis Armstrong. It's just

Marco Pierre White29:18

One of those songs which is nice to wake up.

Speaker 429:20

I hear babies crying.

Speaker 429:25

I watched them grow.

Speaker 429:28

Never mind much more.

Speaker 429:31

Then I never knew.

Speaker 429:34

And I think to myself

Speaker 429:39

What I want to do

Presenter29:42

Louis Armstrong and What a Wonderful World. Now what you have to do is choose one of those records that you would

Presenter29:48

like to have with you more than any of the others.

Marco Pierre White29:52

I think it would have to be

Marco Pierre White29:54

I could you have the roses?

Presenter29:57

That's a sad one, isn't it?

Marco Pierre White29:58

That's right.

Marco Pierre White29:59

But I wouldn't be with my daughter.

Marco Pierre White30:01

I wouldn't be with my friends, I wouldn't be with the Harveys.

Marco Pierre White30:04

So I'd have to sort of

Marco Pierre White30:06

There'd have to be something in my life to keep my feet on the ground.

Presenter30:09

What about um a book?

Marco Pierre White30:11

The book I ch the book I chose, that was a very hard question to ask myself.

Marco Pierre White30:17

And, you know.

Marco Pierre White30:18

I wanted to choose Pierre Kaufman's Memories of Gasconia. I wanted to choose Albert's book.

Marco Pierre White30:24

But I didn't choose any of those. I chose a book by a man called Fenam Poin, which is called La Gastronomique.

Marco Pierre White30:30

It's not really a recipe book, it's got recipes in it, but it doesn't say the recipes aren't announces, it sort of says take one chicken and roast it and add some th some vinegar and add some of this and it's just very simple. It's like a miniature history book of this man's life and the philosophies are quite incredible. They really are incredible.

Presenter30:48

And what about your luxury on the island?

Marco Pierre White30:51

Well, since you deprived me of my fishing rod, I had to choose a picture of my daughter. That's all.

Presenter30:57

Marco Pier White, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Marco Pierre White31:01

Thank you.

Speaker 231:10

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.