Marco Pierre White

 Marco Pierre White was a notorious rebel of the 80’s. Born in Northern England Marco Pierre White went from a boy in a working class family to a 3 Michelin star chef. In this report I will talk about Marco’s restaurant Harvey's , Him training Gordon Ramsay and Marco eventually returning his 3 michelin stars

 

In 1987 Marco opened a restaurant called Harvey's.  This restaurant specialised in french cuisine as Marco wanted to replicate France’s biggest restaurants.  This was a cooperation of Marco and Nigel Platts Martin who was a restaurateur. In this restaurant grew Marco’s reputation as a notorious rebel as a short TV show that featured the young rebel. This show represented the pressure that was on Marco as his restaurant before had 2 Michelin stars and as well as showing recipes such as preparing a panache Foie gras and seared scallops. Marco grew a reputation as an often moody chef as in an interview he expressed how he often has no time to himself and no social life. Marco is also not the most emotional person as he only really smiles a couple of times and mostly has a deadpan expression.  However this moody deadpan head chef of Harvey's was one of the mentors of one of the greatest Michelin starred chefs in the world and his name is Gordon Ramsay

Gordon Ramsay is known for his temper. His quick wit and insults are quite infamous with the Scottish chef. These tactics are to push chefs to the brim and test their commitment and loyalty. Ramsay got these tactics from his mentors such as Marco Pierre White. In the very short TV show about Marco briefly in episode 1 we can see Marco gets frustrated with his apprentices  and cuss a little bit in the episode. This treatment was often common in the 90’s as a way to push the apprentices to their very brim in order to push themselves further. As Gordon Ramsay once said “the thicker your skin, trust me the higher you’ll go” this quote is essentially the foundation of why chefs were and still are so rough because they care most about you and want to push you.  Marco taught Gordon fitness and speed as he could make a dish in quick succession in a fast timely manner yet still retain that finesse. Now Marco has achieved many things in his younger days however in 1999 Marco Pierre White handed back his 3 Michelin stars.

Michelin was a very serious thing for chefs. 1 star meant your food was at a high quality. 2 stars meant your food was at the highest quality it can get. 3 stars meant your restaurant as well as the food was at the highest quality and luxury it can get. To gain Michelin stars you need to play an attacking game whilst protecting those stars requires a defending game. Marco’s journey to a 3 star Michelin star chef was gruelling with blood , sweat and tears and years of cooking and nothing else. However Marco has stated that protecting those 3 stars was the most boring thing in the world. This is because in a kitchen the chefs are sort of high functioning robots. They’ve been programmed to make certain recipes fast and quickly this information has been hammered into their heads again and again. So now those no struggle now the kitchen are programmed robots all programmed to do a certain task which is cooking. Cooking now longer gave Marco any pleasure so in 1999 Marco returned his stars. This was because Marco thought he was being judged by people who had less knowledge than him so what was it worth? 

Marco Pierre White ran a 3 Michelin starred restaurant that trained one of the most famous chefs in the world and then decided to return those stars because it wasn’t worth it. Marco’s maturity and life lessons are all something we can learn from. Commitment and loyalty and the ability to not give up are the reasons why he succeeded and now Marco shares his wisdom now as a retired chef but a great human being no less.