Marco Pierre White on Dreams
Marco Pierre White is the first British chef to win three Michelin stars. He is known as the godfather of British gastronomy and the man who trained chefs like Gordan Ramsey and Mario Battali.
I became familiar with him because of how Anthony Bourdain referred to him as the first celebrity chef. A guy from a working-class background who wrote a book that was the Kitchen Confidential for Bourdain when he wanted to be a chef.
Bourdain’s admiration for White was an important referral. I liked how Bourdain thinks, what he values and his judgment of character. What I particularly liked about White was how he decided to give Michelin back his stars because maintaining it no longer fulfilled him.
I decided to listen to his talks at Oxford and Cambridge. Both interviews start with White’s monologue on his career. They are each about 25-30mins and I suggest you pick one and listen to it. White is a brilliant storyteller with an amazing voice. I won’t tell you his entire journey here. Rather, it’s a montage of what I found significant.
His Journey
White got his start as an apprentice at the Hotel St. George. He walked up to the kitchen door and knocked to ask for a job and a place to live.
“The truth is, I never wanted that door to open.”
It was there that he worked during the day as a shoeshine boy. That’s where he picked up Egon Ronay’s Guide to discover the Box Tree (two Michelin stars) was the best restaurant in Britain.
He went to work at Box Tree and was given the dream of three Michelin stars with five red knives and forks. After Box Tree, White went to work at Le Gavroche (two Michelin stars).
He found himself in front of the Le Gavroche’s kitchen door in the middle of the night because he missed his last train and walked aimlessly through London in the middle of the night. He realized after looking into the beauty of the restaurant within that he needed to work there.
“Let’s not forget, I’ve been traveling for 24 hours with no sleep. I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m thirsty. But you know something? That’s irrelevant.”
While was hired when the interviewing chef learned he had worked at Box Tree. The chef said that was where he had his best meal. White said he was hired on the reputation of Box Tree alone.
After Le Gavroche, he went to work for Pierre Koffmann at La Tante Claire (three Michelin stars). Koffmann worked at Le Gavroche prior to and only hired Frenchmen.
White didn’t tell Koffmann he worked at Le Gavroche. Instead, White told Koffmann he would work for free. In three weeks, Koffmann told White he would pay him.
White planned to go to Paris to work at Lasserre (three Michelin stars). All three Michelin-starred chefs were either French and/or cooked in Paris at the time. But White decided to forego that trip and help out a chef friend who was struggling.
He worked for his friend for free for six months until the restaurant went belly up. He cooked dinner for two clients every day during that time.
Eventually, one of the two clients came to White asking if he would become the head chef of his new restaurant. Harvey’s opened in 1987 and it struggled from the get-go.
White said what saved his restaurant was when Egon Ronay, whose guide he had read in St. George to start his culinary journey, walked into his restaurant. Until then he was Marco White. But Ronay asked him about his name.
Marco told Egon his full name was Marco Pierre White. That became the centerpiece of Ronay’s review on Harvey’s. About a chef with long hair who had three names —Italian, French, and English. Ronay gave White his name.
It was at Harvey’s that White went onto earn three Michelin stars and five red knives and forks.
“In January 1998 we won three stars and five red knives and forks. The truth is, I never won 3 stars. I didn’t. I was the composer, the conductor. The chefs behind me, they were the ones who won the three stars. Not me. They realized my dream. In return, I showed them what was possible. It’s about honesty…. Dreams can come true. A lot of them don’t but you have to keep on persevering.”
“I’d realized my dream all those years laters. That dream I had when I was 17. I was now 37 years old. So for 20 years I had worked to realize my dream. Things don’t happen overnight. You have to make the emotional and personal investment to make your dreams come true.”
After realizing his dream. White gave the stars back and retired from running a restaurant for ~15 years. Maintaining the stars would’ve required creating a factory that churned out the standard and he didn’t want to do that.
“Winning three stars has got to be the most exciting journey of a chef’s life. Retaining them is the most boring job in the world.”
“Winning three stars was just a stepping stone to where I wanted to be in life…..I was never ambitious. If I ever was ambitious then it was by default from just doing my job….. My entire motivation was to be accepted…..We have to question ourselves, especially if we want to turn our dreams into reality.”
Dreams and Introspection
“If you have a dream, then you have a duty and responsibility to yourself to make it come true.”
It was also in achieving this dream that White learned to examine himself. To be honest with himself to see how he got the dream in the first place. What he actually wanted and who he was.
“I had worked 22 years for something that I had never wanted.”
“By discovering yourself, then you have the opportunity to accept yourself. Through acceptance you do things for the right reason….you have the opportunity to realize your true potential. But you have to go deeper and really question everything.”
“It’s about self belief, at whatever cost.”
Success, Luck & Opportunity
White looks at his career as a mix of luck and his ability to maximize the opportunities he seized. Opportunities are boundless and it’s those who take advantage of them that succeed.
“It’s all been about luck…it’s about luck. Success if born out of luck. It’s awareness of mind that takes advantage of that opportunity….. If you don’t take advantage of your opportunity you will never realize your dreams. Whether you want them or not is an irrelevance. You don’t know that until you achieve it.”
Strategy compensates for talent but not the other way around. Strategy is how you get consistent. Consistency is what a pro does. Emotions are for the bedroom, not the kitchen.
“Albert Roux [of Le Gavroche] once said to me ‘I can’t create a three-star chef. Three-star chefs create themselves. But what I can give you Marco is three-star discipline. The secret to everything in life is discipline.’”
On Food & Cooking
The environment, the company you sit in, and the service with a smile are what take precedence over food. The most important things about restaurants are:
environment
service
Food
In that order.
Three things common in a great chef
They accept and respect that Mother Nature is the true artist and they are the cook
Everything they cook is an extension of themselves as a person
They give you insight into the world they were born into, the world that inspired them.
Pierre Koffmann inspired White the most. After achieving his three Michelin stars, Koffman gave them back to run a small restaurant.
“Today he has a restaurant in London with no stars. But you know something? It’s my favourite restaurant in Britain. You know why? Because he cooks food you want to eat.”
Michelin stars are not what’ll make the restaurant your favourite place. I think if you liked two restaurants equally and one had Michelin stars while the other didn’t, you probably like the one without it much more. The one with stars just has the prestige “bump” to mess with your psychology.