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WORKING NOT BEGGING · NO.851 · 22-28 NOVEMBER 2010 · £2.00
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Pakistan after
the floods
Salford Quays:
dockland heritage
Marco Pierre White
‘My spiritual home in Ilkley’
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‘This is my
spiritual home’
Legendary chef Marco Pierre White has returned to the
Yorkshire restaurant where his career was ignited, and
has opened two restaurants in the North West. Does
that mean the one-time enfant terrible of cuisine is in a
mellow, reflective mood? Sophie Haydock finds out
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THE BIG ISSUE IN THE NORTH · 22-28 NOVEMBER 2010
For what exactly is Marco Pierre White best known?
As a world-renowned chef, who at the age of 33 was
the youngest ever to be awarded three Michelin
stars? Or as the enfant terrible, who sold out by
becoming the unlikely advocate for Knorr stock
cubes and ambassador for Bernard Matthews, the
producer who spawned the infamous Turkey
Twizzlers?
Or is White best known for those volatile rages,
witnessed on television cooking programmes like
Hell’s Kitchen and Marco’s Kitchen Burnout, where he
frequently reduces his guests and fellow chefs to tears
with his ferocious temper? Or perhaps it is that
trademark tea towel/bandana he wears wrapped
tightly round his head, pulled down to his eyebrows:
an unfathomable item that some critics, including
Gordon Ramsay, say make him “look like something
from the Taliban”.
I am about to find out. Sitting nervously in the
Michelin-starred Box Tree restaurant in Ilkley, I come
face to face with the man who has made journalists
weep. The interview begins well with White
explaining his passion for the Box Tree – “one of the
most famous restaurants in the north of England” and
the place he describes as his “spiritual home”. It is,
White explains, where the flames of his successful
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MARCO PIERRE WHITE
Gueller and White.
Photo: Kippa Matthews
White glowers
at me. The bit
of croissant I’m
trying to
swallow sticks
in my throat
“Not everyone
is in the
privileged
position to be
able to afford
organic food.”
career were cultivated over 30 years ago when he was
just a teenager.
White, now 48, has come full circle and recently
returned to the “place where it all began” by striking
up a partnership with Simon Gueller, who owns and
runs the Box Tree with his wife Rena. White and
Gueller are old friends who grew up together in
Leeds: Gueller, according to White, on the “posh
side” and White himself on a rough council estate on
the outskirts of the city. The Guellers took over the
Box Tree six years ago and within months of opening
earned a Michelin star.
“The Box Tree is where it all started all those years
ago,” White says slowly, as if rehearsed. “We all have
our spiritual home, wherever that may be. Mine
happens to be in Ilkley in a little restaurant. And
I don’t say that because I’m sitting in front of a
journalist today with my good friend Simon, I say it
because it’s true.”
At its peak, the Box Tree was one of only four
restaurants in Britain to have two Michelin stars –
and the only one outside London. White’s praise
continues.
“I’ve always flown the flag for the Box Tree. It gave
me the passport to survive in London. I would never
have gone and got three stars like I did years ago. It
was where all my dreams were ignited.”
It’s around this point that I interrupt the flow of the
hot-tempered chef’s monologue with a question.
I quickly realise that was a grave error. White glowers
at me. The bit of croissant I’m attempting to swallow
sticks firmly in my throat as he sternly says “If you’d
be polite enough to let me finish my sentence” and
stares at me pointedly.
Yikes. White’s fiery reputation certainly isn’t
unfounded. It feels that being on the receiving end of
his snappy temper was always inevitable; this is a
man who I suspect likes to make others feel
uncomfortable, most of all to see how they react. In
fact, by all accounts I get off lightly. And let’s not
forget, White has a lot to be angry about: money was
tight when he was growing up and the death of his
mother when he was six years old hit him
particularly hard. He left school without any
qualifications, courted controversy as a young chef,
has been married three times and only a few years ago
went through a high profile, messy divorce.
But perhaps what grounds him is that, even though
his early years were tough, White still recalls having
“the most romantic childhood”. As a young boy he
would explore the rolling grounds of a stately home.
“I was very fortunate that my playground was the
grounds of Harewood House where I would play and
forage wild mushrooms, and along the River Wharfe,
where I would fish. I liked being in the woods. I like
being alongside the rivers and the streams.
“Mother nature inspired me and captured my
imagination. It was a natural love affair, of respect
and admiration.”
White and his brothers also grew up with a
knowledge and appreciation of quality food. “As a
boy I always ate well, even though we were poor. My
mother was Italian, and a very good cook. Secondly,
my father was a chef, so we always ate very well,”
says White. Perhaps because of these influences, he
likes simple and straightforward food. “I like honest
food, I really do. I like a roast dinner – anything that
has that sense of occasion. Every meal you eat should
have a sense of occasion. I like the whole ritual of
eating, dining out or dining in, sitting at the table.”
It may seem a contradiction that a man with such
passion for food, who has undeniably remoulded the
traditions of modern cuisine, should then go on to
have such enthusiasm for food that makes an
everyday cook’s life easier. Whether it’s cheap meat
that happens to be battery farmed, ready-made
convenience food, like the range of soups bearing his
name and face sold a few years ago at Morrisons, or
Knorr’s stock cubes, which he champions and says
today are the “best f***ing ingredient in the world”,
White’s love of simplicity shines through – although
the fees for advertising them are unlikely to go amiss.
“Not everyone is in the privileged position to be
able to afford organic food,” he says. “Who has the
time to make stock from scratch every time? How
many families could afford to put a chicken on the
table on a Sunday if it wasn’t for battery farming?
Let’s live in the real world, shall we?”
White may have lived in London for most of his
adult life, but Yorkshire is evidently where his heart
is. Last month he won Yorkshire Man of the Year, an
annual prize given to inspiring people from the
region.
“I don’t do parties – I don’t do award ceremonies,
really,” White says. “But I did break the rule in
October to come and collect Yorkshire Man of the
Year. That was quite an honour – to come back to
your county and to be recognised by your county. It’s
quite humbling.”
White hasn’t overlooked the North West as his
interests have spread up the country. He has opened
the Swan Inn in Aughton, near Ormskirk, and the
Steakhouse Bar & Grill, Chester.
So will returning to his northern roots make him
happy? “In my case,” he says, “the apple never rolled
far from the tree. Even though I’ve been in London for
30 years, my heart is still in Yorkshire. And my
values, standing up and fighting for what I believe in,
are still very northern.”
White adds that his “work ethic is very northern
too”. He has several projects in the pipeline,
including writing a book about the history of the Box
Tree and developing a new television series taking
school leavers to work full time with him for five
weeks in one of his restaurants.
Let’s just hope they come out of the other side of a
close encounter with White as I have done: just about
smiling and pretty much unscarred.
The White album
Marco Pierre White was born in Leeds on 11 December, 1961 • He attended Allerton High School but left without any qualifications •
White moved to London at 16 and began training at Le Gavroche • At 24, he became head chef and joint owner of Harvey’s restaurant.
Kitchen staff included Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal • In 1995, aged 33, White gained his third Michelin star. At the time, he
was the youngest British chef to achieve this • In 1999, White retired, handing back his Michelin stars, before returning to the industry.
22-28 NOVEMBER 2010 · THE BIG ISSUE IN THE NORTH
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