Why Did Marco Pierre Return His Three Michelin Stars

[Music] Marco Pierre White is a British chef and reality TV star who is often dubbed the first celebrity chef in the world after becoming the youngest chef to be awarded three Michelin stars chef Marco retired from behind the stove instead becoming a restaurant owner and a TV star famous for his appearances on programs like MasterChef Australia and Hell's Kitchen he has also trained many other celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Mario Batali we met chef Marco on his visit to India and asked him a few questions about his life so you very much are a master of the art of the restaurant right now where do you think the future of the restaurant lies because with delivery being so much easier with apps with people living faster lives do you think there is still a future for the experience in the art of restaurant there'll always be a place after a restaurant people like going to restaurants at whatever level but what I've noticed in my 40-plus years have been in the industry people now want to buy a night out food is only one element of that evening and the most important aspect of any restaurant is the environment you sit in people to sit in environments where they feel comfortable then they want a service with a smile rather than formal service and then food now that might sound bizarre coming from a chef but people want a night out everyone works very hard and when they want to take a night off and go to a restaurant they want to have fun so really we're in the business of selling fun in the business of selling night out is you know every so often we might go to a gastronomic restaurant and do I like those restaurants I like the old-fashioned ones because when you're walking to those old-fashioned three-star missions it's like going to the theater you see the show the modern ones it's all a bit too precious they tell you what you're having they tell you how many courses 12 14 20 24 and they give you no choice for me that's like going to help to be told that I've got to have 18 courses 26 courses that's not my idea of fun because I'm being interrupted so many times the waiter brings you your food tells you what it is tells you how to eat it and a minute later is asking you if you enjoyed it I didn't go to have dinner with the waiter I don't want to be told what I'm eating and so I like casual with delicious food I don't want to be dictated to I don't want to be told what I'm eating I mean what in this these high-end restaurants in Europe now I don't know if this is happening in India where you're told you're having X amount of courses when I get bored I get very bored but what chefs have successfully done in Europe is if 10 canape parties into a dinner party how can something so small have retention of heat and they're always trying to impress you what I've noticed in India they don't try to impress you they look after you and everything's generous their presentation is their generosity and food is hot and the one thing I know about Indian food it has to be served hot it served hot you get that glow of the warmth of the dish you smell the spice and no one in this world understands spice or the usage of spice like the Indians they're amazing they really are you said you got a star Michelin that's wrong so you'll famously give back your mission it starts back in the day I died in 2018 you refused I'm wishing inspection of uneven properties in Singapore no the Michelin was coming to Singapore yeah and they wrote me a letter saying they'd like to include me in their guide yeah this is not the Michelin I knew right when I was a boy Michelin were anonymous rate today they want to make friends with chefs because the business it's a marketing tool do you think the Michelin star as a marker of prestige for restaurants is outlived its usefulness there'll always be a place to mish them and let's not forget Michelin I've done more for gastronomy globally than any individual or any other institution young Chefs dream of winning style but like I once dreamt of winning stars and yeah I will one star I want to style I want three stars Michelin in those days were a very different monster to the mission of today the criteria was different the chef's had to be behind the stove today you can go to a three-star Michelin and very rarely as a chef there you don't speak room the night he's in America is in Australia he's in Singapore wherever around the world but I always spent my life behind a stove because I entered the world of Escoffier I saw the tail end of a scoff his world and a chef's place was behind his stove was in his kitchen and that's now changed a lot of chefs are in their kitchens but I will make three styles and yes it was very important to me but winning three stars is a very boring job which you've got your three cells it's boring because you're not playing the attacking game anymore you're not playing a creative game in defending you're defending you're protecting your reputation yeah and by the time you get to three stars the strugglers gone I think because when I started out in my little hole-in-the-wall hobbies there was me in two teenagers and we worked very hard with the dream we won once down we want to start and then we won three stars but what happens is when you win freestyles you have this enormous infrastructure by then you've got all these people around you you just just like conveyor belt cuisine you just turn it out every night ABC ABC ABC and after five years it was boring and you start to question the point of Fodor leg work where's the art and this was the oil in Yunnan China spoon I wasn't enjoying being in the kitchen anymore and but my job was in the kitchen yeah to be behind my stove not to be anywhere else in the world people are paying there's very high prices to eat my food yeah not to eat my food cooked by somebody else yeah it's like you and I buy tickets to go and watch Elton John yes yeah with our friends yeah we sit down the curtain opens these number two comes out and plays his piano and sings his songs yeah do we want our money back yeah absolutely what's the difference yeah and so therefore I felt that I had three options option number one stay in my kitchen work a hundred hours a week yes retain my status and my position within the industry option number two live a lie pretend I cook when I don't cook question my integrity and everything I ever worked for charge high prices when I'm not there option number three pluck up the carriage from within tell Michelin that on the 23rd of December 1999 I'm retiring lose my status and accept that tomorrow morning I'm unemployed they were my three options you've got the road less traveled as this one Sunday morning I'm fishing on the river banks I used to go fishing every Sunday morning for two three hours this little thought came into my head that I was being judged by people who have less knowledge than me so if I'm going to be brutally honest with myself which I believe in that I have to accept that those Michigan stars have little value because the people who gave them to me have less knowledge so you and your various Protege is that revolution like revolutionised TV cooking at the turn of the century right so you have all these reality shows you have all these cooking shows that became very popular two decades on do you think that format is nearing its end and what do you think the future of cooking on video looks like there's only one thing in life which never dies romance romance and am i a fan of reality not really I've done reality it was and like what I've done holds kitchen in the past I'm very protective over my team my job is to bring the best out of them and sometimes to bring the best out of people you have to be very firm with people you have to push people because when people come to work for me they're not my friend right they're there to do a job emotions are for the bedroom not the kitchen they become my friends when they leave my job is a very simple one that by the time it comes to leaving me you are a better chef than when you came your knowledge in your understanding of life is greater and these are the skills that you have to require in life obtain to find happiness because success is self-discovery because if you don't discover yourself you will never find happiness you'll never discover true love and so the only thing that doesn't date in life is romance so do I want to watch people being ridiculed ya know do I like negativity no I don't like it but you know reality TV has contributed to the world of gastronomy of course more people want to cook now of course whether it's at home or professionally so you have to look at the positive of TV not the negative it inspires young people young people sometimes need a hook to hang their coat on they see a reality show think I want to be a chef right how many families now buy better produce spend more time cooking at home because they have a love affair with food because let's be brutally honest what is life without delicious foods of course it's quite one-dimensional of course you delicious food love romance the impact of life so you've came up through the rags so to say in the kitchen that is done a very certain way like you said you're not my friend you work for me my job is to get you to do your job do you think it's any different for young Chefs to starting out today be that here be that in Europe do you think the kitchen is still run the same way as it was in your heyday as a young chef or do you think it's changed well I can speak for Europe when I started in the industry everybody was from a council estate everybody was working class you came from a hard world you arrived in the kitchen and that was a hard world and today I'd say majority of people are middle class in the kitchen not working-class it's really interesting and Management has changed people today want you to like them like you call managers by their Christian name good morning Brian for example good morning Kevin we always it was mr. Schindler it was mr. Abel and so how management has changed and also I don't think the young fear being sex anymore I don't think the young fear failure very good thing at about I was fueled by that fear of failure as fueled and driven by that fear of being sacked the thought of having to go home to my parent my father and tell him dad had been sacked remember today there's a lot more restaurants of course you get sacked today you knock on the net the restaurant next door not at all you've got a job it wasn't like that when I was a boy and also to go back to your counselor state and tell your father you've been sacked then everyone in the street - no you're being sacked here was humiliating and so that fear was so enormous and my insecurities because of the tragedies in my early life I used to drive and I used to push I never walked I run everywhere I used to feel tired that's fine push on push on get knocked down pick myself up and so therefore the world is very different you know and would you would you say that's a good thing or a bad thing is that just how things are and value judgments are not applicable here the modern world some things about us something's armed his workers it is what it is and you have to accept it but you know would I change anything of my past no I'm glad I got that hard time I'm glad I was pushed I'm glad I had those hard bosses do you want to be my friend I was there to do a job it's on the 20th of March at 6 p.m. in 1978 I was standing on the starter section of the hotels in George in Harrogate and my chef de Partie said to me to mark him the first thing you must learn about service if service is service I said Michael what does that mean he said when the chef screams at you what he swears that Yui throws something at you but he tells you to run just say yes chef in those days no one was late for work no one turned up to work with unpolished shoes without starched chef's whites you turned up before your start time discipline was a virtue well discipline without discipline there's no consistency that's what I was taught at the hotels in Georgia consistency I was taught I was taught how to run I was taught how to use a knife I was taught how to say yes chef and the truth is it was a three-star Hotel the food wasn't very good but I might not work for that head chef I would never have won free cells because he pushed me and pushed me and pushed me in 2019 you're quoted as saying that you don't think women perform as well as men in the kitchen do you stand by those comments no if you look at what I said uh-huh if you look at what I said huh is a now this is a very easy question to answer last year I was asked that question I see and the truth is women they're more consistent in many ways number one they're always on time that punctual number two they always present themselves well number three they don't take shortcuts number four they're more consistent on a plate than a man is number five they've got a better sense of smell in fact by only better sense as well they have a better palate they're not as fast as men mmm they're not as physically as strong as men on the whole so like in my kitchen we do it would you say you were miss courted or the intent of behind your statement well I think I said is they take things out of context so what they did was they didn't place all the compliments I said about girls in the kitchen and they cherry pick the and they took the two comments I said out of the men sir the English press is a mouth the English press are masters of manipulation and so what they said is markedly I said men of his you stronger and they're faster which is true it's 100 century who set the world record for a hundred meters I think it was usually both was there yeah am I wrong is you the shot book can a man throw a shot put further than a woman yes he can because our upper body strength is 60% stronger than a woman's and you think that's directly applicable to the kitchen or the fine dining kitchen as well no no no that I think kitchens I think men are physically stronger look we are bigger and our upper torso strength is greater so like in my kitchen under the grounds of Health and Safety a lot of girls of 5 foot 5 5 foot 4 mend I'm 6 4 3 how can a woman lift a pan off a stove which may weigh 25 kilos at boarding water we always lives it off the stove for the ladies health and safety my thing when I walk through that door say you're a girl I step to one side and hold the door open for you do I not it's called etiquette it's called good manners would you walk through the door let the door close on a woman I wouldn't when I walk down stairs I always walk before the lady in case she falls then I break her fall when I walk up stairs I let the lady to go first it's etiquette it's good manners but do you not think there's a place for a woman to be even the chance if she could lift that ban a woman who's amended is its health and safety it's good manners I think if you think it's fair for a woman to lift a 25 kilo product on and she's 5 foot 3 tall do you think that's safe and at the end of the day I think it's politeness I think and as I say men tend to like a lot of the woman I meet in India they're 5 foot tall yeah how hides a stove how high is it 25 leads of Panem that I it's at the back of the safe girls would always ask us to meet them so is I have more respect for women in the kitchen that I tend to have for men because they don't take shortcuts and they're not lazy they do their job and they deliver consistency and women women are emotionally stronger than men in my opinion

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Id: m2MnwhjncjA

Length: 18min 34sec (1114 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 11 2020