WHEN CHEFS REACH BOILING POINT
As Great British Menu judge Michael O’Hare uses very unsavoury language in response to a complaint, we look at other instances of cooks going rogue
THE customer is always right – unless the customer happens to be a diner at a Michelinstarred restaurant. When father-of-two Russell Whish had the temerity to describe the food at Michael O’Hare’s Leeds eatery The Man Behind The Curtain as “bland and salty” he was subjected to a bizarre personal attack from O’Hare himself.
Whish had paid £180 for dinner with his wife and waited a year for a table at the restaurant that boasts it once had the longest waiting list in Europe but after feeling disappointed with his food he asked for a refund. When he was told by the manager this would not be possible he emailed O’Hare directly.
But instead of listening to his concerns the chef, who has appeared on The Great British Menu and MasterChef, wrote back: “You didn’t like the food but plenty do. I do, I love it, I’m very proud of it and my palate is about 10 million times better than yours! This is why I’m a famous chef!” He went on to compare himself to the rock band Led Zeppelin.
Undeterred, Whish replied: “We paid for a Led Zeppelin concert and got Wizzard,” before suggesting that he would “go public” with the exchange. It was at this point that O’Hare’s insults became personal.
“Russell,” he wrote, “if you’re going to share this publicly could you please add to it the fact that both my staff and I think you’re a right **** . Regards, Michael O’Hare, lead singer of Wizzard.”
O’Hare’s outburst is just the latest in a tradition of celebrity chefs losing their temper with customers.
Here we detail some of the most unsavoury kitchen nightmares…
When restaurant blogger James Isherwood’s review of two-Michelin-starred Claude Bosi’s former restaurant Hibiscus in 2012 described one dish as “like a crab-flavoured Findus crispy pancake”, Bosi took to Twitter to vent his spleen. “Nice way to gain respect with chefs…!!” he blasted. “I think you’re a **** .” He continued: “As a man you should say something to my face when I ask. Buy yourself a pair of balls and play with them.”
Not all instances of chef rage are obvious. Gordon Ramsay’s disdain for non-meat-eaters is well documented and in 2003 he was asked about his most recent lie, to which he replied: “To a table of vegetarians who had artichoke soup. I told them it was made with vegetable stock when it was chicken stock.” UNREPENTANT: Michael O’Hare, left, and Claude Bosi, right
Marco Pierre White set the template for modern celebrity chefs in uncompromising style. In his autobiography The Devil In The Kitchen he remembers physically assaulting the designer of his restaurant Harveys after he asked for a free meal. “Every swipe I delivered – and I delivered a few – was a blow for good taste. He staggered out of Harveys, minus a tooth or two and nursing a perforated eardrum… During the scuffle I ripped an entire sleeve from his suit jacket and it was left lying on the corridor floor, a casualty of battle. As his friends helped him out of the restaurant he stepped on to Bellevue Road, looked down at his arm and wailed, ‘This is Gucci, for Christ’s sake’.”
Food bloggers have also irked MasterChef judge Marcus Wareing. In 2010 website The Critical Couple reviewed his restaurant at London hotel The Berkeley, describing their £600 meal as “severely lacking” and “sort of laughable”. The bloggers then alleged that Wareing himself phoned and “ranted for close to 30 minutes… At one point he said, ‘How would you like me to write about you and your appearance and the way you dress?’ ”
The most extreme example of a chef boiling over comes courtesy of Sydney restaurateur Yukako Ichikawa. Despite running one of Australia’s most exclusive restaurants, Wafu, she closed the entire business in 2012, apparently in frustration at those who actually ate there. “Wafu is viable as a business if I continue to accept inconsiderate, greedy people,” she said. “But I couldn’t do it.”
Ejecting members of the public is one thing but in 1998 Gordon Ramsay turfed none other than Joan Collins on to the street for the crime of dining with the late critic AA Gill, who had once described him as a “failed footballer”. When Ramsay spotted the pair at his Chelsea restaurant he said to Joan, “Don’t take this personally,” before demanding they both leave immediately.
Marco Pierre White once claimed he had thrown out 54 unwanted or ungrateful customers in a single evening and in The Devil In The Kitchen described what he called “the whoosh” technique for removing the wrong sort of diners. The waiters would clear the entire table at lightning speed, finishing with the tablecloth itself. “The customers get the message,” he wrote. “They have been humiliated.”