Marcus Wareing

Speaker 10:01

BBC Sound

Presenter0:02

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:43

This week, my castaway is Marcus Waring, one of the most respected and acclaimed chefs and restaurateurs in Britain. His contribution to British food and the next generation of cookery talent has earned him multiple awards, a string of best-selling cookbooks, and two Michelin stars, as well as a judging role on TV's master chef The Professionals. He's been cooking for 30 years, but the seeds of his career were sown even earlier when, as the son of a fruit and vegetable merchant in Southport, he accompanied his father on work trips around the northwest. His talent singled him out early. By his late teens, he was already working in some of London's most prestigious kitchens, and his notorious work ethics sorted the rest. By 26, he had clocked up more 18-hour days than most people see in a lifetime and earned his first Michelin star. In 2008, the doors opened on the first restaurant with his name above the door. Two more gastrodomes of his own would follow. He says, Right from the beginning, you could say I was incredibly selfish. I never wanted any rules from my girlfriend. I didn't want to be asked to take nights off or to take my jacket off. I certainly didn't want anyone moaning because I was working hard. Marcus Waring, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Marcus Wareing1:51

Q nice to be here.

Presenter1:53

And you knew at an early age that you wanted to work with food. Why? What was the appeal?

Marcus Wareing1:57

My father was in food, and my eldest brother Brian was a chef. I think it was the working with basic produce, going to the farmers' markets, going to Liverpool Market in Preston, and dealing with basic produce that my father bought and sold into school meals, services, but also into kitchens and restaurants and hotels. So, as a young boy, I used to be a delivery boy with my dad's firm, and it was a place that I really enjoyed going to. It was a time where I could spend quite a time with my father, but also work incredibly hard. My father wasn't teaching me about food, he was teaching me a work ethic. Really, that was as basic as it was. And I didn't know it at the time, but when I reflect back on that time, that's what he was teaching us: work hard, get your head down, but also be very accurate in what you do. My father was a stickler for precision in every single thing that he did.

Presenter2:48

Have you picked that up?

Marcus Wareing2:50

I have. I have. My family do remind me of it all the time.

Presenter2:54

It's time to hear your first disc today, Marcus Faring. Tell us about it. Why have you chosen this?

Marcus Wareing2:59

My first disc is Tainted Love by Socelle and there wasn't a massive amount of music in our house. Radio was never on, but I remember my eldest brother buying Mark Coleman's uh L P. I used to play it over and over again'cause I just loved the beat of it and Mark Collman was from Southport.

Speaker 23:16

Once I ran to you

Speaker 23:19

Now Uh

Marcus Wareing3:20

Uh

Speaker 23:20

Uh

Marcus Wareing3:20

I run from you. This tainted love you give us. I give you all a boy could give you. Take my tears, and that's not nearly all tainted love. Tainted love.

Marcus Wareing3:38

Now I know I've got to

Marcus Wareing3:43

Run away, I've got to get away, you don't really

Presenter3:50

Tainted Love by Soft Cell. Mark is wearing It's not the easiest time in the restaurant industry right now. Many of the mid market chains are shutting down premises and we've seen the collapse of the very well known chef Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant chain. Are we seeing a crisis unfolding in the dining industry?

Marcus Wareing4:07

I think we're seeing a bit of a crisis on the high street full stop. I think the level or the point of uncertainty in our economy in Brexit is such a cloud that sits above us. I think it's sort of worrying and quite scary. And I think when you do see restaurants like Jamie Oliver's closing, such a popular person, best-selling cookbook author, T V, everything, it's quite extraordinary that people have stopped walking into his restaurants. And so the tide is changing.

Presenter4:31

You're at the very top end of the market, of course, in fine dining. How vulnerable is that to recession?

Marcus Wareing4:37

People think that rich people eat in fine dining restaurants and they do and they don't. The majority of fine dining restaurants are full of everybody and anybody who wants to have a great time, maybe a celebration of a birthday or an anniversary or so many different reasons to eating in fine dining. The way I look at it is it's like going to a really great shop and everything is really expensive, but you feel very special once you've bought one item in that shop and you've had that shopping experience. Fine dining is very much like that at the moment and so there's not a great deal of us out there. So the choice is limited so we have to make sure that we get it right.

Presenter5:12

You're also a judge on MasterChef the Professionals. Has that changed your outlook on what is a great plate of food?

Marcus Wareing5:19

I don't think it's changed my outlook on a great player food. What I think it has done is changed my outlook on how I approach chefs and how I talk to chefs. Because prior to going to my chef, I'm just filming my sixth series right now and I go to my job and I go to my place of work and I talk to everyone like they know everything that I'm discussing. So I talk to a team of chefs. I expect them to understand what I'm talking about. So I'm short, I'm sharp and to the point. When I went onto Master Chef, I'm asked to explain in great detail what it is I'm thinking, what I'm tasting, why I like it, why I don't. But also, I may be talking to the chef standing in front of me, but I'm actually communicating to the viewer watching the TV. So I'm using the chef as a channel to explain to the viewer why I like it and why I don't. So it makes me break down things in a lot more detail. Hence, when I go back to my kitchen, I go and I talk to my chefs in a little bit more detail. So I'm actually giving them more information because I think I was taking them for granted. And that actually took away the swearing and aggression, if I have to be honest with you.

Presenter6:16

Oh really? Yeah. You have to learn to edit yourself a bit.

Marcus Wareing6:17

Yeah, you can't

Marcus Wareing6:18

Yeah, and it did. It made me a better speaker in my own home, in my own home, in my kitchen at the restaurant. I call that my own home because that's where I spent most of my life.

Presenter6:25

That's kinda

Presenter6:26

That's revealing.

Marcus Wareing6:26

That's revealing. And at home as well.

Presenter6:29

It's time for your second disc. Tell us about it. Why have you chosen this?

Marcus Wareing6:33

It's by Dexi's Midnight Runners, and it's a track called Come On Eileen. And this is old fond memories for me because my mum is called Eileen. And as growing up, when this song came out, my mum used to do a lot of baking. When I went to catering college, I learnt all of the things that the mistakes that my mum was making, and I tried to correct them for her. And of course, she was always a better baker than me, or she told me she was. But as when I went to Catering College, I learnt all the tricks. She used to get in the audience me telling her: Come on, Eileen. It's like you don't call your mum Eileen. And then she'd come back at me, and then I'd start singing this track to her. And she just couldn't, you couldn't help but end up laughing. And then the family, then we'd all do it. And it was because it was the name of my mum. We just sang it to her just to annoy her.

Speaker 17:02

My lady

Speaker 27:17

Allura Rollural Singapore

Marcus Wareing7:28

Come on, I mean, oh I swear at this moment

Marcus Wareing7:34

Everything you think that dress my thoughts are the best for John Durton I come on

Presenter7:47

Come on, Eileen, by Dexie's Midnight Runners. Mark is wearing you chose that last track for your mum, Eileen. How would you describe her?

Marcus Wareing7:55

Ooh

Marcus Wareing7:56

Sometimes we felt like we lived alone when my dad was a seven-day a week operator, never at home. And so mum was running the household, four children, myself, my brother, and my two sisters. Mum was a stickler for precision and cleaning, and she was so house-proud, and everything my mum did around the house was immaculate. So when it came to ironing,

Marcus Wareing8:18

It was perfect. That's where I got my ability to learn how to iron. She watched her all the time ironing. So when I started ironing my white chef's jackets, I wanted to do them as good as my mum would do them, which was starched. You could almost stand the jackets up, they were that starched. You'd walk into the kitchen, it's like stiff as a ball. It took you a couple of hours to sort of loosen up before this jacket got soft. And I'm serious, trust me. And she was brilliant like that. She cooked every day. She sent us off to school every day, but she was tough. She was hard as nails with us, strict in where we were, strict in every way that I can remember.

Presenter8:53

Two of the four of you ended up becoming chefs. Presumably you learnt from her then.

Presenter8:58

I don't know what

Marcus Wareing8:59

Whether my mum was a great cook or not, I know one thing, I used to enjoy her food because it was delicious. I know that when I went to Cajun College, I became a better cook than my mum for a very short period of time because I was starting to master a trade. As you learn your trade, you become stronger and stronger in your opinion of other people's food. So I reflect back on mum's food as being always on the table, but the meat was always overcooked. The vegetables were always cooked to smithereens because that's when my dad wanted it. The apple pie, we always had a soggy bottom. But as a young kid, it's delicious.

Presenter9:28

You're the youngest of four children. What were the dynamics between you and your siblings like?

Marcus Wareing9:33

Tough, my elder sister Diana is nine years older than me, my brother seven, and Tracy six. There was a big gap. Everyone in my house was a workaholic. As soon as I left school, they all went to work. But I think my relationship was strongest with my brother because he was a chef and we were both into boxing, so we used to go to the boxing gym together. And I always admired him because he was always my big brother role model. Because my brother was a hard man and he still is. He's a tough guy. Eventually, he did so many different jobs. He worked on the doors of clubs. He was a chef. He was a professional boxer as well. And he was always for me someone who stood up for me when things got tough until I went to London where there was no big brother and you had to stand up for yourself.

Presenter10:14

We'll come to that. Tell us a little bit more about your dad, Raymond, though. He had his own fruit and vegetable business, and as you said, everyone in your house was a workaholic, including him.

Marcus Wareing10:19

Okay.

Marcus Wareing10:24

Oh, he was the leader of it. My dad would leave home at 6, 6, 6:30. I was never home before 11, 11:30, sometimes midnight. His tea would be cooked by mum at that time of night, and he would eat at midnight. He was the buyer as well as the seller of the produce, so he used to go to the markets quite a lot. But he almost didn't trust himself in everything he did. He used to quadruple check everything. So if we were on a wagon putting an order together for a client, a customer, he would make you check it, weigh it, look at it, count it, make sure that there wasn't one bag of potatoes extra on that wagon that would go to that customer. So he used to doubt himself, which I used to think was why he spent so much time at work. And he did drive my mum insane. And then his half day was a Sunday, which was getting to work at 8, 9 o'clock. He'd do all his bookkeeping and come home for his Sunday roast at 6 o'clock in the evening.

Presenter11:11

Were you aware that that was an unusual family culture? Were you comparing yourself to other friends, peers? You know,'cause you it must have been a bit different in other households that you knew.

Marcus Wareing11:21

It's a good question. I don't know. I don't know. I didn't compare to anyone. My dad had a family business. His brother was working in it and his sister. And if you're going to survive in you know, this is Margaret Thatcher years now. We're talking about where the coal miners were going under, taxes were changing, interest rates in the banks and the building societies were at 12, 13, 14%. How crazy does that sound in the world we live in right now? So if you had borrowings, you were working very hard to make ends meet. So my father's fear of failure made him work even harder, and that's what I admired my dad for the most.

Presenter11:54

Time to go to the music. It's your third disc. Why have you chosen it?

Marcus Wareing11:57

When I left home after caging college, the only person that took me to the train station was my dad, and that was on a Sunday uh evening to come back to London. And the only cassette he had in the car was a Roy Alberson cassette, and we just played it. And for that hour from Southport to Liverpool Lime Street station, my dad and I didn't speak a word to each other. I didn't want to go to London, he didn't want to let me go, and it was really tough. And it was a track called In Dreams. It was a track that was at the start of this LP, and the whole LP reminds me of that hour journey.

Marcus Wareing12:30

A candycolored clown they call the Sandman Tiptoes to my room every night Just to spreat the stardust and he whisper Go to sleep, everything is alright

Marcus Wareing12:47

I close.

Speaker 112:49

Close my eyes

Speaker 112:52

Then I drift away

Marcus Wareing12:56

Into the magic night I saw

Presenter13:02

Roy Oberson and In Dreams. That last track was for your dad then, Marcus Waring. Did you grow up expecting to join the family business?

Marcus Wareing13:10

I did. The family business was everything to me. I spent so much time there as a schoolboy. And I remember one day standing on the back of a wagon, it was a summer's day, and moving these potatoes around. And he literally just turned to me and just said, I've made a decision, you're not coming into family business. And he explained to me that he couldn't see a long-term future in the company that he would been running all of his life. And it was because of school meal services were changing in the 80s. The school dinner when I was at school was a meat, fish, or whatever, cut with veg and potatoes. It was one plate of food. It was given to you by the dinner ladies, and that's what you had. In the end of my school days, canteens at schools were changing into choice, chips, deep-fried this, tins. And the dinner ladies that used to cook the lunches, we were 12 people, became three or four. Fresh produce died away. And my father could see that coming because the councils used to determine where they used to buy their produce from. So the only obvious choice for me was to become a cook because that's what my big brother did. So those were the only two jobs I had as a young boy at school because I had a part-time job in my brother's hotel where he was the head chef. Then my brother and my dad decided that I was going to go to catering college and have a full-time course.

Presenter14:19

How did you feel about that?

Marcus Wareing14:20

I was gutted. I wanted a part-time course, which meant I could work in kitchens five days a week and go to college one day a week and have one day off, because I wanted to work. I was a worker and I just had the best two years of my life. These most amazing lecturers who made cookery so enjoyable to learn in this college environment in Southport. And it's that college that opened the door to London.

Presenter14:43

What happened?

Marcus Wareing14:44

I was part of a

Marcus Wareing14:46

competition called the gas catability and there was a gentleman who was a judge Jack Naber who was a lecturer at South Trafford College who came to judge us as cooks to get into the national final. I got into the national finals but while I was in that heat he pulled me to one side afterwards and just said I don't think I've seen a chef work with so much precision and hygiene and togetherness in organization like you do and he said have you ever thought about going to London? And I said well I've dreamed of it but I've never thought about actually doing it. He said well I know the head chef for the Savoy Hotel Anton Edelman. Would you like me to introduce you to him and his kitchen? And he did and the rest was history.

Presenter15:25

Let's go with the music. It's your fourth disc.

Marcus Wareing15:27

My brother and I were big boxing fans and the reason why I took up boxing because my brother, I was an individual, I was never a team player, I hated relying on anyone at anything. So boxing where I was in the ring on my own, I didn't have to rely on anyone by myself. And at that time, the boxer that I admired the most at that particular time was Chris Eubanks. And he had this track. It was by Tina Turner and it was simply the best. And the reason why I chose it was that this was a fighter who was an individual who, every step of his journey, of every fight, was about his immaculate training, his approach to the ring. His title was I am simply the best. And he stood on the rim of the ring every time he entered it and stood there showing himself to the crowd with his eight pack. Not six pack, eight pack. Proud guy. But I think this track just summed him up as an individual and that single-mindedness that reminds me so much of being a cook.

Speaker 116:20

You're sampling

Speaker 116:35

I love that.

Speaker 116:39

Stop on your heart.

Speaker 116:44

I hate on every word you say.

Speaker 116:47

Uh

Speaker 116:48

Uh

Presenter16:52

Tina Turner and Simply the Best. Marcus Waring, your first job in London then was at the Savoy under Anton Edelmann. What do you remember about visiting the hotel for the first time?

Marcus Wareing17:03

I entered the front door because I went to see it the day before I started work there and had a look around the hotel to see the the grandeur of it. My parents came with me and we actually went to have afternoon tea and my brother came with us as well, but they wouldn't allow us into have afternoon tea'cause we didn't have ties. So we just sat in the lobby and just took it all in. And my parents then and my brother got in a cab, went back to Euston and got a train back to Liverpool and left me there at the front of the Savoy. I then wandered off back to Ellscourt, which is where I found some accommodation, and wondered what on earth had I just done. And then the next day, or the 4th of July 1988, I walked into the back door of the Savoy as a kook and the rest is history. And I absolutely fell in love with fear and worry and scared and hated it, loved it, and I just had every emotion you could ever imagine being a boy from a seaside town that never really wandered outside of Southport apart from every one once a year going on holiday.

Presenter18:05

How did you adjust Real Only?

Marcus Wareing18:05

Uh

Marcus Wareing18:07

I hated it. And my dad kept saying to me, There's nothing in Southport for you, mate. You know, forget it, get on with it. And the reason why Dad became such a rock was that when I used to go home at night and worry or get upset, I'd pick up the phone. So I'd finish my shift and I'd go to a payphone, call my dad at 11 o'clock at night, and I knew exactly where he was. He was in his office at the warehouse. So he was always there. And we'd talk for hours. I mean, we're talking to midnight. And he would always call me back on the payphone. And so he kept me going. And what happened in the Savoy was I got promoted quickly. I got moved up the ladder very quickly because of the way it worked and because of what I could get through in a day was more than most people, which made me stand out. So I found myself being promoted very quickly in an environment that was much bigger than me.

Presenter18:54

After the Savoy you went to work for Albert Rue at Le Gavroche, where you also met Gordon Ramsey, and the two of you went on to work together in one of the hottest kitchens in London at the time. Aubergine, what are your memories?

Marcus Wareing19:07

Well, whatever you've ever seen on in anything in kitchens, the Obi Jim was the hottest kitchen and the health kitchen of London at that particular time. And it was a place that you went to because you you wanted to learn a trade at a different level. The way I look at it, there's going to be part of an army, and there's different types of armies, and they all do different things. But then there's an SAS.

Marcus Wareing19:30

which sits above everything else. And these kitchens were classed like that. They were military style places of sixteen, seventeen hour days, six days a week. And if you're weak, you fail. And that's what that kitchen was like. In fact, I was the first employee that Gordon Ramsey ever employed.

Presenter19:31

Right.

Presenter19:48

What is it like being on the cutting edge? I mean, was it rock and roll? This was a new kind of generation. Like you say, the hottest kitchen in town. Everybody was talking about it.

Marcus Wareing19:56

You didn't know it at the time because everything was revolved around the name Aubergine and him. And it was only when I stepped out after two years I went to Paris to work at a restaurant called Guy Savoir, Guy Savoy, three-star Meetel in one of the top kitchens in France. And I remember working in there and it was only at that point that I realized that I'd finally learnt my trade. Working in a three-star Meetel in Paris was one of the easiest kitchens I'd ever worked in, because I had worked in the Aubergine.

Presenter20:24

It's time for your neck Piece of music tell it. What's about this track?

Marcus Wareing20:27

When I was in Paris, I felt very lonely, even though my girlfriend was with me, who is Jane, my wife now. I found Paris very difficult because it was almost like starting back in London again. I was in a new city, and the language barrier, I didn't crack that. And this film came out, Braveheart. I was just fixed by this movie and the coldness of it, and the loneliness of it. And the track, A Gift of a Thistle for me, was a track that I hear in my head, and it was a very lonely part of the movie where Mel Gibson's sort of wife dies. But it's a point of his life where he then becomes this man, and the next step of his life becomes the journey of William Wallace. And that's when I left Paris and came back to London. For me, it was the beginning of my head chef's hat being put on, and for me, that track was the beginning of what came next.

Presenter21:53

A gift of a thistle from the soundtrack to Braveheart. Marcus, wearing hugely dedicated to your profession and your career. How about those working hours? You've told us a little bit about what they were like at the beginning of your career. Six day weeks, how many hours a day?

Marcus Wareing22:09

I still work seven days a week in my head, but I now do what my father didn't do, was actually spend any time with his children. When my father retired eventually because his business collapsed, his children were adults and had left home and he'd never ever spent any time with them apart from at work. It's the one thing I made an agreement with myself, more to myself than Jane actually, was that if I'm going to ever have a family, I really want to be part of it. So I've managed my time all the way through my children being born to enjoy their life and to enjoy my life with them and vice versa so that they get a little flavour of who dad is, so that I can enjoy everything that they're doing in their school, their education, their sports days, their reading. So I give them as much as I possibly can, but that's by surrounding myself with good management and never really putting the cart before the horse. I don't want to be a slave to the kitchen all of my life. I'm not going to do what my dad did to his warehouse.

Presenter23:02

Your stint on MasterChef began in 2014. What was it about the programme that persuaded you to step out of your own kitchen at work and in front of the camera?

Marcus Wareing23:11

It was basically when Michel Reed Jr. had left the show. As a kid, I watched Master Chef with Lloyd Grossman, and I loved it. If you'd have asked me if there was one show I would have done on television, it was always Master Chef Professionals because I just loved what Michel and his team had done with it. And it really shone the light on the next generation of young chefs. So I was honored.

Marcus Wareing23:30

Delighted, nervous, and excited about it. How honest are you if something's really awful? Oh, I'll say it as it is.

Presenter23:36

What about feedback on food at home? I read that you're a dad of three, as you mentioned, and you score each other's food. Is that true?

Marcus Wareing23:43

There was a time where I appeared on a Great British menu and every dish was scored out of ten. And so when Jane used to cook or I used to cook at home, the kids were around the table, they started watching the show and they started this fun thing about judging our food, of which I found quite unusual'cause I my food's always ten in my head.

Presenter23:58

Boop.

Presenter24:01

I've named

Marcus Wareing24:02

Right. So they would always give me a hard time. And so we used to go around the table and give each other a mark of what the food was. And there was one day Jane served a lasagna and Jane had cooked. And so it was our turn to judge her food. And their kids judged it, and the seven and the eight or the nine or whatever it was. And he came to me and said, Jane, I said, I can't judge it. She says, why not? What's wrong with it? What's wrong? He's not salt, blah, blah, blah. I said, no. I said, it's a 10 out of 10. And that is like this big celebration on her face and smile. And she said, really? I said, yes, it is stunning. It is beautiful. It is seasoned to perfection. I couldn't make it better myself.

Presenter24:35

It's time for some more music. Your sixth disc mark is why you've chosen this one.

Marcus Wareing24:39

I've chosen Bee Gee's How Deep Is Your Love and I was transfixed by this movie, Saturday Night Fever. I remember watching the movie and John Travolta strutting his stuff and they saw it very next day. Everybody, all the men were walking a little bit different back in those days after we'd watched that movie. But it was a great movie and I loved the tracks, I loved all of the music that ran through the movie. And we chose How Deep Is Your Love as our first song on our wedding day.

Speaker 125:02

How deep is your love? How deep is your love?

Speaker 125:09

Really mean to learn.

Speaker 125:12

Cause we're living in a world of

Marcus Wareing25:16

Breaking us down.

Marcus Wareing25:19

When they all should let us be.

Marcus Wareing25:24

We

Speaker 125:24

Belong to you and me, I believe in you.

Speaker 125:30

You know the door to my baby

Presenter25:33

The B Gee's and How Deep Is Your Love. Marcus Waring You were once quoted as saying the two biggest turning points in my life were meeting and breaking with Gordon Ramsey. Tell me about the second. You had been great friends, but after you parted ways professionally there was an acrimonious legal battle. What did you learn from that experience?

Marcus Wareing25:50

It was hard, really hard. You know, a good friend to me, and I wouldn't be sitting here right here right now if it wasn't for being part of his life and me being part of his life. We were very close and we worked together tirelessly to try and be successful in our own rights. And Gordon, you know, gave me a stage to perform on, but I'd also helped him perform on his own stage, you know, the Obi Gim. We needed another person in sort of the business life, which was his father-in-law, who helped us build or helped him build this company, which I was part of. I think, long story short, was that you grow up and you want to spread your own wings. And I'd worked with Gordon for so long. I think, you know, it's natural to want to step out of the shadow. Unfortunately, we had to fall out to do that because there was never a way which you could say to him that, you know, I want out, I'm done. He'd invested everything into us. And the third person in the relationship, that's what broke it down. You know, there was never anything between me and Gordon that was between me and the business side of things that I wasn't sort of happy with. And I decided to

Marcus Wareing26:53

Go my separate way and sort of pick a fight. And it ended up splitting and going our separate ways. But it was very, very hard, and it was probably the toughest three years of my life because I put so much at risk. I put everything on the line: my family, my children's schooling, my house, everything to fight to secure my future. But that is the sort of person that I am.

Speaker 126:59

Mm.

Presenter27:17

So it was a a test of your mettle.

Marcus Wareing27:19

It was a test of my mettle, and it my father and my brother stood right behind me if ever I needed support. The company was getting bigger and bigger and I was becoming less and less important and I felt from being the number one pupil in the whole thing to being one of very many, it didn't feel right for me and it was it was tough.

Presenter27:37

Time for some more music. This is your seventh. Why have you chosen it?

Marcus Wareing27:42

When I finally became a restaurateur on my own and I broke away, we'd holidayed in the UK for quite a number of years because we were saving our money up and we were biting a leadle case. And eventually we a couple of years later, we went down to south of France and we had a villa and for two weeks we just used to hang out. And Jane found this C D in the collection of the people that owned the house and it was a Burt Bacharach C D and it was all of his greatest hits and we just played this C D over and over again until my kids were screaming at us for not to do it anymore. We fell in love with it. Doors wide open, pool, cooking, all together, swimming and it was this song called Blue on Blue that was sung by Bobby Vinton.

Speaker 128:22

Blue one blue, part ache, a heartache, blue one blue, now that we are through Blue One Blue

Marcus Wareing28:33

Yeah.

Speaker 128:33

Uh

Speaker 128:34

Uh

Marcus Wareing28:34

Party cool party

Marcus Wareing28:37

And I find I can get over losing you

Marcus Wareing28:45

I walk along the street We used to walk to buy two lovers

Presenter28:53

Bird Bacharach and Blue on Blue, sung by Bobby Vinton. Marcus Waring, we love cookbooks and cookery programmes here in the UK, yet last year British people spent more on ready meals than any other country in Europe. Oh no. How do you explain that paradox?

Marcus Wareing29:09

I sort of blame social media, I have to be honest with you, because we spend so much time wasting time on our phones that we actually lose a lot of time by

Marcus Wareing29:17

doing this social activity and this communications connection, this wanting to connect to so many people, that I think we lose a lot of time, which then means something has to give. And unfortunately, going to supermarket and picking up a ready meal is probably one of the easiest things you can do. It's lazy and we need to slow it down because it's not good for the waistline either.

Presenter29:36

I guess the other thing is you can't really get a ready meal wrong, and maybe social media raises our expectations a bit too much. You know, we're surrounded by all these images of perfect food, aren't we? And it can be a bit intimidating for people who are new to it or maybe out of the habit.

Marcus Wareing29:51

It can be, but I think we could if we're not careful, we're going to lose the opportunity of learning how to cook. We now as a nation need to remind ourselves to teach the next generation of how to cook so that they don't consistently pick up those ready meals.

Presenter30:05

I'm about to cast you away to our desert island, of course. What would you rustle up for your last meal, before you went, do you think, if you could only have one thing?

Marcus Wareing30:12

Oh so many things, but I just I'm going to go with roast beef on the bone, river beef, triple cooked chips, Bernay sauce, and a serious bottle of Bordeaux, and some lots of vegetables.

Presenter30:25

And what do you imagine you'd be able to rustle up on the island? I mean, you know, having grown up surrounded by fresh produce, presumably you know how to handle most things?

Marcus Wareing30:33

It wouldn't be that.

Marcus Wareing30:35

It'd have to be fish'cause you'd catch it and over an open fire. I think cooking over an open fire, if I'm on a desert island, I think that would be our uh cook.

Presenter30:42

It's time for your final disc. This is your eighth. Why have you chosen it?

Marcus Wareing30:46

I love Bond movies. There's something about the modern day Bond movie, even the olden days, the ones that I grew up with, and I love the character, I like the way it's developed, and I love Daniel Craig. And I think that my next track has to be It's Adele and It's Skyful, it's just absolutely magical piece of work written and sung by an amazing, amazing singer.

Presenter31:10

And a customer of yours, I think.

Marcus Wareing31:11

Yes, cheers.

Speaker 131:13

The Skypho.

Speaker 131:16

When he crumbled

Speaker 131:19

We will stand tall and face it all.

Speaker 131:24

Together let the sky fall Spinny Co

Speaker 231:30

We will stand tall and face it all together at Sky

Marcus Wareing31:38

I fall.

Presenter31:42

Adele and Skyfall. So, Marcus Waring, you're off to our island. How do you think you'll manage life as a castaway?

Marcus Wareing31:50

I don't know. Um I'd like to think I could manage and deal with it. But I I know I'll miss home. I'll miss home. I'll miss my f my comforts. I'll miss my family. I'll give it a good go though. I think um it take me back to the beginning. I started alone. I was an individual in everything I ever did. I think I

Marcus Wareing32:09

Struggled at the beginning, but I think I'll find my way. I'm not sure how long I'd last there.

Presenter32:14

Well, we won't send you there empty-handed. We will give you the books. You can have the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to take with you. You can also have a book of your own. What would you like?

Marcus Wareing32:23

I was struggling with this one because I I'm not a I don't read many books. I I don't I read one book a year and that's when I'm on holiday. But I think I'd have to take a Bear Grylls book.

Presenter32:31

Okay, so a survival manual.

Marcus Wareing32:32

I think it'd have to be a survival,'cause I I know I'd need it. I I'm creative, but when it comes to sort of staying alive, I might just need a bit of help. So I want to take a bear, probably a bear grills, but.

Presenter32:43

Who better to have with you? It's yours. You can also have a luxury item. What would you like?

Marcus Wareing32:47

I think for me, the knife, it's the only way I could survive. I could cut wood, I could chop things up, I could fill it the fish, I could do lots of things with a knife.

Presenter32:55

And if you could only save one of these eight tracks from the waves on the desert island, which would it be?

Marcus Wareing33:01

Oh, that's really difficult. Really, really difficult.

Marcus Wareing33:06

Normally with Bee Gees.

Presenter33:07

Good choice. Marcus Waring, thank you very much for letting us see your Desert Island discs.

Marcus Wareing33:11

My pleasure.

Presenter33:11

Yeah.

Presenter33:22

As we leave Marcus on his desert island rummaging around for ingredients, there's just time for me to remind you that there's a whole range of castaways in our back catalogue, including many chefs. Angela Hartnett, the Rue Brothers, and Marco Pierwhite are among those who've paid a visit to our island, and you can hear them and many more programmes via the Desert Island Disc's website and BBC Sounds. Marcus recalled his first job and lucky break in London working at the Savoy under head chef Anton Edelman. Back in 1993, Anton was also castaway on our island by Sue Lawley.

Speaker 233:58

Your kitchens at the Savoy Anton Edelman serve some two or three hundred lunches a day and even more dinners in the river room and the various banqueting suites. It sounds more like a a military operation than a creative process. I mean, i is there a danger that that fine detail is sacrificed to order and efficiency?

Marcus Wareing34:15

I think that danger is always there. I think that danger is probably there in a small restaurant as much as in a larger kitchen. I think it depends very much there on the motivation of staff, how you motivate your staff, what kind of rapport you have got with them.

Speaker 234:28

But in a small kitchen, in a small restaurant, I mean, a a top chef who runs a small restaurant can stand in the past, can't he, and and actually see everything that goes by, if not stick his finger in it and taste it. You can't do that.

Marcus Wareing34:37

You can't do that. Well, I stick I wouldn't like to say I stick my finger in most uh sources which code, but I've I think I've got my finger in many pies, so to speak. I think it depends very much on on your personal involvement and how deep you are in it.

Speaker 234:51

So how involved do you get during the course of a day?

Marcus Wareing34:53

Well, I think I'm nearly drowning most days. Or I'd like to think I'm nearly drowning. You see, the the the most amazing thing I have found in my career is that I mean I've trained to be a chef all my life, but I've never trained to be an administrator. So when I then got the job at the Savoy I all of a sudden realized that I had to administrate as well. And obviously administration is quite important. I mean there's money to be made or money to be lost more often than not.

Speaker 235:18

You've got to be a good housekeeper, you mean, and you see those little waste.

Marcus Wareing35:20

Precisely. But I must say to this day I hate the whole of the administration. I think I've got good enough or nice enough managers who have recognized that and they helped me a lot with management and or with administration and they gave me tools for administration and I think I've got some very good people who back me up there.

Speaker 235:39

So you can leave other people to write out the shopping lists, as it were, and order the stuff from from the butcher, from the wholesaler. So and you can go off and taste the sauce perigoudine or whatever.

Marcus Wareing35:43

Precisely.

Marcus Wareing35:45

I will say that.

Marcus Wareing35:49

No, do they c do do the making of the saucepan?

Speaker 235:51

How much cooking do you do?

Marcus Wareing35:53

I cook every day from about half past eleven till to two thirty and every day from seven till about ten at night.

Speaker 235:59

But you've got these hundred chefs who are there to do that.

Marcus Wareing36:02

Well, you've got a hundred chefs, you see, but your hundred chefs are only as good as you make them. They're very young, they're very keen, they're very ambitious, but they look for leadership and and you want to encourage the competition amongst them.

Speaker 236:13

So do you say to them right today, I am going to make the source, whatever it is? I'll let them know we have a.

Marcus Wareing36:18

I let them know. We have a meeting in the morning, which is what, a quarter to nine, where we discuss what goes on, because we obviously have quite a few things going on every day. Uh and a lot of the detail of the food is discussed and also who does what. And then it sort of is shelled out who does what and obviously there's something left for me.

Presenter36:35

The chef Anton Edelman. Next time on Desert Island Discs, you'll be able to hear the poet John Cooper Clark. Don't miss it.

Speaker 136:59

Hello! Sorry to interrupt your content consumption, but can I quickly suggest a podcast you might like? It's called Grown Up Land. Every week, comedian Heidi Regan, podcaster Ned Sedgwick, if that is even a job, Syrian Dream Boat, Steve Alley and me, comedian Sophie Duca, are joined by a brilliant guest to discuss the bewildering pursuit of adulthood. We talk sex, jobs, rejection, jealousy, sex, all with help from BBC Radio 4. That's the Grown Up Land podcast. Make sure you subscribe on BBC Sounds.