Devil in the Kitchen
The long-awaited autobiography of the archetypal kitchen bad boy - Marco Pierre White
When Marco Pierre White's mother died when he was just six years old, it transformed his life. Soon, his father was urging him to earn his own keep and by sixteen he was working in his first restaurant. White went on to learn from some of the best chefs in the country, such as Albert Roux, Raymond Blanc and Pierre Koffmann. He survived the intense pressure of hundred-hour weeks in the heat of the kitchen, developed his own style, and then struck out on his own.
At Harveys in Wandsworth, which he opened in 1987, he developed a reputation as a stunning cook and a rock 'n' roll sex god of the kitchen. But he was also a man who might throw you out of his restaurant, and his temper was legendary, as younger chefs such as Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal would find out when they worked for him. He eventually opened several more restaurants, won every honour going and then realised that it still wasn't enough. Here Marco takes the reader right into the heat of the kitchen with a sharp-edged wit and a sizzling pace that will fascinate anyone brave enough to open the pages of this book and enter his domain.
Marco Pierre White was born in Leeds in 1961. After learning his trade at the Box Tree in Ilkley, Le Gavroche, Tante Claire and Le Manoir, he opened his first restaurant, Harveys, in 1987. He went on to open several more restaurants before becoming the first British chef to win three Michelin stars at Hyde Park Hotel. More honours followed before, at 38, he retired from the kitchen and began to build a career as a hugely successful businessman.