Marco Pierre White
With The Restaurant back open for business, Elle Gordon chats to the head chef and judge
Back on our screens with the new series of The Restaurant, chef, TV personality and restaurateur, Marco Pierre White chats to Elle Gordon about the food his mother made him, a cookbook that still inspires him, and the Wicklow pub he loves to visit when he’s here
What is your first memory of food?
I would say my first memory of food was when I was a boy in Italy. When I say that, I am thinking of picking cherries and picking peaches off the tree, or picking the grapes off the vine. When I think of my first memory of cooked food, I think of my mother and my nonna in Italy, and my aunties. I can remember seeing them, all the ladies around the table preparing the vegetables for the minestrone. I am a very visual person, so in the filing cabinets of my subconscious mind, I can see this even now.
What is a dish your mother made for you?
I used to spend time watching my mother make risottos or pasta. She used to make boiled chicken and from that you also have broth with all the vegetables and everything. And so my mother was a very good cook and all those early memories are of the Italian food she made. But then my mother died when I was six years old and so therefore my memories after that are all very English. It’s interesting how at that point, my world went from Italian into English food.
That was a life-changing moment…
Yes. My mother died as I say when I was six and my younger brother was only 13 days old. So he went to live with my Uncle Franco and my Auntie Paola and he was adopted by them. I was brought up in England. Now, we are both adults, and he is Italian and I am English. We are completely different in everything, but I am very close to my middle brother Clive, I am one of four boys.
If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your days, what would it be?
I suppose it would be boiled chicken with vegetables and the little dumplings that my mother used to make, because then you get a sort of two-for-one from that dish; the broth and the boiled chicken.
What is a beloved cookbook that will always remain on your shelf?
Great Chefs of France by Quentin Crewe. It is
My mother was a very good cook and all those early memories are of the Italian food she made
the book that inspired me most as a child. I must have read it 50 or 60 times and I still have it by my bed today. It gives you great insight into those great three-star chefs from the late ’70s.
An Irish restaurant that you admire?
Caviston’s Seafood Restaurant [in Glasthule, Co Dublin]. I like Peter the owner a lot and I like the shop/emporium that is adjacent. They serve delicious wine and really fresh fish. I just had lunch there on Sunday and Peter brought this musician in who was playing the harmonica and people were up dancing. It was brilliant. He is my favourite restaurauteur in Ireland.
Salt or sugar?
What do you think? Salt!
Red or white?
I think I will have to go for a red so say a nice Burgundy.
What is your favourite dish to cook at the moment?
I like one-pot cooking. I am not into knickknacks, or picnics on plates. Or when you go to those restaurants that tell you you have to have 18 courses… how patronising! I don’t want tiny portions. I had a delicious dinner last night, a beautiful traditional Dublin coddle.
What do you do to switch off?
Fishing. I like salmon fishing. I like gardening too. My garden is a bit bigger than a normal garden and I have turned it into a nature reserve. So we have now got hedgehogs, slow worms, crickets, grasshoppers, songbirds. We have even got raptors like falcons, sparrowhawks and kestrels. My dream is that one day we will have skylarks too. It is very beautiful. It has shown me that if you do things for nature, nature will return and blossom.
You had three Michelin stars by the age of 33. Is there anything on your list that you have yet to achieve?
I realised my dream professionally as a young man when I was 36. Because my dream was to win three stars with my five knives and forks. So really, that was it with my restaurant, The Oakroom by Marco Pierre White.
What should walking into a three- star Michelin restaurant feel like?
It should feel petrifying but incredibly exciting. Like walking into the church and when you see the crucifix, you bow. You want to see the show.
A pub that you love to go to in Ireland?
It has got to be Johnny Fox’s. It is crazy. It defies gravity. Last time I was there, I had the cabbage and bacon. It’s the show that they put on that is so fantastic and it represents Ireland in a wonderful way.
The key to being a great cook?
A person who works with their hands is a labourer, a person who works with their hands and their brain is a craftsman, but a person who works with their hands, their brain and their heart is an artist. To me, that is what is beautiful about cooking. Great chefs have three things in common: firstly, they accept that Mother Nature is the true artist, they are just the cook. Secondly, everything that a chef does becomes an extension of him or her as a person, it comes through them and it pours through their fingers onto the plate. And thirdly, and most importantly, they give you great insight into the world they were brought up in, the world that inspired them and they serve that on their plates. That’s a great cook.