Marco’s girl pirouettes from ballet to baking
HE WAS once the enfant terrible of the restaurant world, but is Marco Pierre White’s daughter about to make her own mark on culinary culture?
I can reveal Mirabelle, 22, appears to have shelved plans to become a ballerina and is now training as a pastry chef at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire — the same kitchen her father worked in 40 years ago under Raymond Blanc.
Television chef Raymond, 73, tells me: ‘Mirabelle’s learning all the basics about patisserie and she’s lovely. I have high hopes that Mirabelle will come out very strong as she is being trained by the top patissiers.’
‘The older generation like to say all the younger generation are rubbish when it comes to learning how to make food, but I disagree profoundly. They just need to be inspired and given the opportunity to be creative.’
A proud Marco, 61, says of his Royal Ballet School- trained daughter: ‘If I look at Mirabelle, she’s very consistent and she’s very fast and very driven. And so I think she’ll do really well within that world.’
But he suggests his bad boy reputation stems from a misunderstanding. ‘How could I have been a wild child? I worked in the kitchen six nights a week, I used to work over 100 hours a week in my kitchens,’ he says.
‘Most of my reputation is a product of exaggeration and ignorance. I’ve always been conventional and a classicist.’
Mirabelle is Marco’s daughter from his marriage to his estranged third wife, fiery Spanish bar manager Mati Conejero, with whom he also has sons Marco, 28, and Luciano, 29.
They wed in 2000, but filed for divorce seven years later. They gave up on divorce proceedings in 2011 after years of negotiations, with legal bills reportedly reaching £3 million.
In 2012, Mati admitted smashing the windows of Marco’s Range Rover and daubing graffiti in blood and scarlet nail varnish on his West London house.