The Devil in the Kitchen | Marco Pierre White | Talks at Google

Welcome, everyone. Today I have the distinct pleasure to introduce Britain's renowned, extremely famous chef, Marco Pierre White. Marco was introduced to me via White Heat, probably in the late 80s when the book came out, when I was cooking in San Francisco, along with Chris and a lot of other colleagues at the time the book came out, it was a very cutting edge approach to not only food looking at food, more of an approach to, as he called it in his book, Nouveau Cuisine, taking classic ingredients, classic dishes, and really simplifying them down to the roots of what was important to him. The book hit the scene, made a huge impact. Since then, he's opened numerous restaurants. He's got a huge, huge following. We're going to talk a lot to him, specifically on a few questions that a lot of the chefs had, which I wrote down, and then we'll open it up for discussion after that. He's obviously here to talk about his latest book, Double in the Kitchen, which I had the pleasure of cramming in my head this week as it came out. It's a great, great piece. And wanted to just have everyone put their hands together for Marco White.

Do I have a mic or anything?

I think we're all mic'd up. I think we're ready to go. We're gonna keep this super casual as we do at Google. I jumped at the chance to interview you. A lot of chefs are in the back cursing my name right now, but that's okay. Again, thank you so much for coming and welcome. I know that you're a busy guy. I would say that the book that's out right now, Devil in the Kitchen. If anyone needed to educate a future spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend about them getting into the food business, the Devil in the Kitchen would be a great book to give somebody to educate them as to what your lifestyle could be. If you want to achieve as much as Chef White has, it's a great tool to basically let you know what he went through achieving his Michelin stars. And I'm going to start it off with a little bit first quote out of the book, which was starting off with, what's that?

Which quote's this one?

The first thing you see in the book here, which is a little introduction, is what do Mario Batali, Heston Blomthal and Gordon Ramsay have in common? The answer is that they've all survived tours of duty in the kitchen of Marco Pierre White in the uk. White's brilliant cooking and high wattage antics have made him a legend. The first British chef and the youngest anywhere to win three Michelin stars. I won't agree with the next part because it may be sensitive, but we're going to say it anyway. The chain smoking, pot throwing, multiple married culinary genius whose fierce devotion to food and restaurants has been the only constant in his life of tabloid turmoil. I wanted to start off with some questions of chefs that were not able to make it here. And then we're going to open it up for some very casual question and answering. The first question I had for you is you mentioned in the Devil's Kitchen almost a whole page devoted to the word why. And I found that very endearing and educational because I find myself asking that question a lot more specifically. You mentioned in the book, why am I doing this with the food? Why do I serve it this way? Why do I do it this way? Why do I cook it this long? My question to you is educating cooks as to why food does what it does and why you do the things you do to make you great. Have you always been an educator while in the kitchen explaining to young cooks the answers to why, or was there just no time and they had to develop that and figure that out on their own?

I think firstly, you have to question everything you do and why you're doing it. And this morning, for example, I sat with a chef and I said, if you really want to understand what you're working with is when you've cooked it, sit down and eat it. You have to eat your own food. If you don't eat your own food, you don't know what you're really doing. You have to question everything you do. And so I had a dinner with him the other day, and he served a pigeon, which was delicious, perfectly cooked, but it was impossible for me to eat. And so it's not just about cooking something, it's about why you're cooking it and what you're trying to achieve. You have to question that. And, you know, it's. I think there's a lot of great chefs out there, and they'd be greater if they just started to question why they're doing it and for what reason are they doing it and put themselves on the other side of sitting down and eating it, like you do when you're in a restaurant. When it leaves the kitchen, it always looks fantastic, but does it eat elegantly? How many times do you get a plate of food and you start to eat it and within two mouthfuls it's turned into a mess? You have to, in my opinion, allow food to present itself and accept that Mother Nature is the true Artist, let her show herself off.

There's one quote in your book that leads to the next question. It kind of parallels with what you just mentioned about having that whole big picture of a perfect dish. And the quote or the question, in other words, was that you had dubbed the tag the tell of oysters, a perfect dish. The question from one of our chefs, Jean Pierre, Jean Claude, that couldn't be here today was, do you still consider this just as perfect as when you created it?

In many ways, it's perfect for the simple reasons, because firstly, it presents itself, it shows itself, it's visually beautiful. And then when it comes to the concept of eating it, and the whole way I used to eat it was I'd pick up the shell and eat it like I would a raw oyster. I'd take it in my mouth and then go through the textures and the flavours. And for me, textures, flavors are very important and the visual side as well. And I think I don't like overworked food or contrived food. I like things which show themselves off.

You had mentioned in, I think it was in the last book, in Devil in the Kitchen, that you constantly were recreating dishes. When you were going through your rise up your ranks, did you find that you found a lot of dishes that you were very content with or were you always reworking them? I mean, obviously the oyster you were very happy with. Were there a lot of dishes that.

You were happy with? I believe that first we're in a world of refinement, not of invention. I think all those great classical dishes have been done, and I think what we have to do is stick to the classics and work with them and refine them, but without actually over refining them. You find a lot of time, people over refine things. For example, a souffle should be light, but it shouldn't be too light. It still needs texture.

Sure. This chef was. The next question was Chef Brian Maticly, who is here today. And I've reworded it slightly, but the question still remains the same. Now that you have hung up your apron, so to speak, does your breakfast still consist of a smoke and a coffee?

Well, as I always say, I have a three course breakfast.

Beautiful.

A cigarette, a coffee and a cup of coffee. Things don't change.

Yeah. That question was partially answered as I saw Chef walk in. I saw the cloud of smoke above his head. It's beautiful.

I needed a fan. It's a long journey with a lot of traffic.

Absolutely. Before you can achieve greatness with the dish, you must first, understand the science of food and cooking. Too many cooks nowadays are very interested or more interested in how something looks on a plate or how much truffle or how much fog are. You add to it the two pages of detail of how to cook the perfect fried egg is brilliant. It is so simple and so to the point. Yet it was two full pages on how to cook that fried egg just perfectly. And I would bet that 9 out of 10 cooks that read that or would read that, would learn something from it. Your philosophy of cooking, to me, seems to stem from a very deep knowledge of. Of the understanding and the science of food. Who, if anyone, was your mentor in the science of food? Or did you just pick it up from just getting in there and getting your hands dirty?

Again, it's about questioning what you're doing. It's about understanding. If you, for example, take a tomato, you cut a simple tomato in half, and you put half on the plate, you put the other half under the grill, and then you eat the two tomatoes. You've got to ask yourself, which one tastes more of tomato? The one that's cooked. And then you've got to ask yourself, why does it taste more of tomato? Well, by cooking the tomato, what you're doing is removing the water content. By removing the water content, you remove the acidity within the tomato and allow the natural sweetness of the tomato to come through. And that's just a simple tomato. But if you take that same philosophy and that same understanding all the way through your cooking. I'm not a scientist, but you have to question why we're doing things and what's happening.

Of course. Was there a catalyst or someone that was responsible, in your opinion, for sparking your creativity?

I think, as I always said, that because I have this enormous respect for Mother Nature and for natural produce. That's where my respect for food came from. And I think if you take great produce and just cook it very simply and just allow it to show itself off, you don't have to be an artist.

Mother Nature's that artist Devil in the Kitchen was really, really well written, in my opinion. And my question to you is, because I have often thought of contributing something into a book in the future. Was it hard to get your thoughts on paper? Did you have a lot of people having to rework reedit how it sounded?

Well, the person who I did the book with is a man called James Steen, who wrote the book for me. And I've known James 20 years. And what was very nice is by the time James had finished he'd actually written my story in my words. And how many people come to say, marco, it was like talking to you, reading the book? So he, like certain biographers, they regard themselves as being the important one, not the subject, where James was the right person. I think if you're going to do a biography, if you're not going to write it yourself, you have to have someone who will respect you and what you represent.

That's great. I have a couple more that I want to open up for some suspension discussion. You set huge precedent, taking on the initiative. And this is where a lot of people know you from, in educating and keeping your guests in the dining room managed by confronting them in the dining room from time to time, possibly asking them to leave if deemed necessary. Do you ever feel that you made a bad call when doing this? When actually escorting guests out or asking them to leave? Did it ever bite you in the arse by kicking somebody out as being obnoxious or rude?

No, it's. Firstly, I asked people to leave my restaurant because one of two reasons. Firstly, they were rude to my staff, which I don't think is correct. And secondly, that they were making so much noise or they were being badly behaved in the restaurant, which starts to affect other tables. And when I was charging, see, eight years ago, seven years ago, when I used to cook, we were charging equivalent to $600. That was the average dinner bill. And when some of those people who came for dinner, they saved up. It was their special occasion. And you've got a table behaving badly, you have to ask that table to leave. You can't have them spoiling other people's evenings.

Did the media blow this out of control, in your opinion? Did it happen frequently? Did you find people coming in just to get thrown out?

You kick one table out, they repeat it 20 times. Is the English press. They're a different monster. They have their pets, and I happen to be one of their pets.

Okay, you mentioned that after having stepped away from the stove, your understanding of food became far greater. I can definitely relate to that. But my question is of the restaurants that you own now, do you find yourself passing on this greater understanding and knowledge to the chefs in your restaurant, or do you let them kind of figure that out?

No, I'm more an investor in businesses now. My investments go in many places, but I still get involved. I still sit with chefs and I still talk to them. I still share my philosophy, my understanding. And, you know, is what I want to achieve today is not. I don't want to Win Michelin stars. Because I've done that. My ambition today is to create an environment which delivers food to a standard which you can take across the country. I want to feed lots of people at a price point within glamorous surroundings.

Another reference to your current book, you mentioned that the constant intimidation back when you're achieving your stars, the constant intimidation over your cooks kept order and discipline in your kitchen, but it did curb their creativity. Did you lighten up on any specific chefs, maybe Ramsay or anybody else, to foster and build their creativity while they're under your rain?

It was my name above the door. It's my food. My customers are coming and paying the money they're paying to eat my food. You have to suppress everybody and force them to focus and to concentrate on what you're trying to achieve. When they've done their training and they bought their own restaurants, invested, then they can do what they want to do.

Sure. Who are you most excited and or nervous to ever cook for in your career? Most intimidated.

To be quite honest, most of them were intimidated by me.

Yeah, that's kind of what I thought.

I wasn't intimidated by them. But I think when I first started, I think when Egon Ronnie came all those years ago to inspect me and this little man who was of a certain age walked in, I was terrified because he was the first famous person within the restaurant industry I had to cook for. And so I was quite nervous, so I cooked for him. And then I had to go and meet him and we had a chat. He was fascinated by my name and so I told him about my name. Da da da da. And I thought I was going to get this glowing review on food in the Times. And all he did was write about my name. It was weird, but he was a nice man.

We have a slight similarity in the name. You are half Italian and half English and I am the exact opposite. My mother is fourth generation English and father is fourth generation Italian. To find a little connection there, that's a good mix. Not that it's going to get me any points up here, but the last question I have for you is we all know about your average or the average 16 day hour in a kitchen when you're achieving your stars. What does your average day consist of now? And hopefully you're enjoying life and smelling the flowers.

Well, what I say is, and I am serious when I say this is that I'm only capable for being serious for one hour within every day. I can't be serious for any more than one hour. I hope this is the hour.

Are you still a prankster? Are you still the prankster?

Yeah, I still play as soon as my eyes wake. I'm like a child. I want to play. I mean, suffering from jet lag. The first day I was here, I arrived in the afternoon and by 9 o' clock I had to go to bed and I was sleeping. And I wake about 2:00 in the morning. I think, now where can I go and play? I go downstairs into the hotel, there's no one there. I'm thinking, cool. But I forgot it was a Monday night, so I had to go back and watch some movies.

I'd like to open it up for questions now.

Yes. What chefs and restaurants do you like right now? Sorry?

What chefs or restaurants do you like right now?

I'll be quite honest. I like to go to restaurants and they don't have to have Michelin stars. I like to go to restaurants which are family run. When you go to those little restaurants, like, for example, one of the restaurants I go to in London is Nancy Lam, and she and her husband work in the kitchen and the three daughters are out front working. And when I sit down there, what I like about it is, number one, I'm stepping into her world. It's her front room and she gives me an insight into the world that she came from in Thailand. And her food's very authentic, it's very real. And you know, for an hour, two hours, I'm there, I sitting there with Nancy. I might as well be in her front room having dinner with her. So I like those sort of restaurants. I'm not really into the big, posh, showy restaurants. I get bored of them.

Do you cook at home still?

No. The wife does.

Comment on our cooking. Be nice.

Sorry.

Your wife's a very good cook.

Well, she's Spanish, is my wife, but her mother is a great cook. Her mother's Spanish and she's about 70 now. But what she cooks is that sort of Spanish peasant food, which is delicious, it's really good. And she is one of the best cooks I know. And everything she does is an extension of herself and everything. What I love is when I sit down and eat her food. You know that 60, 70 years ago in Spain, that's what they were eating. It's that insight into the world that she came from. And that's what turns me on, really.

Yes. Barry, we're very blessed here in this area. And at Google, our chefs are able to get an enormous variety of beautiful produce and meat and fish and cook it wonderfully for us. And you expressed an interest in bringing what sounds like that sort of your sort of cuisine like that. It's beautiful when it comes in. Just don't screw it up across. How do you deal with problems of produce unavailability in places that are further north? I mean, it's hard to get a tomato most of the time that's local in most of the world.

What I would recommend anyway is build your menu around the produce that you can get locally of a very high standard.

So you wouldn't be opening a restaurant anywhere in Iowa, would you?

I don't know where Iowa is. Where is it?

It's in the Corn Belt. Called that for a good reason. It'd be corn menu.

That's about it. Yeah. I have lots of corn and chicken. Nice bit of syrup.

Talk about. If you could talk about the whole Michelin. I don't want to say Michigan thing, but basically when you would obtain the Michelin stars, and then you had referred to your wife and gave your wife great credit in the fact of her kind of convincing you that when you had decided you weren't going to be cooking professionally anymore, that she had talked you into giving the stars back. I think that's something that you've never heard of before. And if you could just talk about that a little bit.

Well, my wife knew that I was unhappy. My wife didn't force me to give back my stars. What my wife realized was that I was no longer happy cooking six days a week. The hours I worked, leaving home in the morning, kissing my children goodbye while they were sleeping, going off to work, coming back home in an evening, kissing my children in their beds good night. It's not a life. And I'd proved everything I'd proven, had to prove. You know, I was fortunate to win stars at a very young age. I'd realized my dream and she knew I was unhappy. She knew that I just didn't want to do it anymore. And the world that I was in was changing. People would come to me for a job and they would interview me as a person. How many hours am I going to do? How much money am I going to earn? And this was a very different philosophy to what I was when I was a boy. When I was a boy, I never asked how much money I was going to earn or how many hours I was going to work. I just prayed that I got the job. And so I was sort of playing with it in my mind and I realized that I had three options. My first option was to Continue to be a prisoner of the world that I created, working six days a week and lots of hours, not seeing my children, but having my status. My second option was to live a lie, like a lot of chefs do in this world, and pretend they cook when they're not cooking, charging high prices, which I think is. I disagree with that. And questioning their own integrity and everything they've ever worked for. And the third option was to pluck up the strength within myself to give back my stars and let go of my status and just go and do my own thing in life. And one day I was fishing, and I'd caught a salmon. And as I always do, I let the fish go, light a cigarette, sit down, rest the pool for 20 minutes. And while I was sitting down having my fag, this little thought came into my head that I was being judged by people who have less knowledge than me. So I'm really honest with myself. What is it all worth? Not very much. And that's what gave me the courage to give back my stars and then realize the next day I was unemployed.

Yes.

How do you ensure consistency? Okay. How do you ensure consistency of food across? Because, for example, I'm very sensitive to salt, and something that may taste salt salty to me may not taste salty to the cook. So how do you ensure that going across? And how can you stay sensitive to, you know, certain spices? Consistency with seasoning. That's the question you're asking, Pat, is. Well, firstly, you have to accept. And let's say you're making. Where chefs tend to over season is with their saucing. When they make it alimenut, that's where they tend to do it. It's a tough one, but you have to adjust your sauces at the last minute. So, for example, say, for example, you're making a sauce. You finished off your sauce, and you're doing Alamuda. It's one portion or two portions in a pan. What I would do is I just take some cold water and just with the tips of my finger and just throw it in my pan. So what that's is just taking a bit of the heat out of it, and it's just diluting it. So that 30 seconds it takes me to dress my plate, and then source, it's just evaporated that little bit more. And, you know, it happens. But, you know, you have to be careful. And as I said the other week in the English press that I use Canor. Do you have Canor in America? Nor stock cubes?

Oh, we have. Not here, but we have It.

Yeah, we have something in England called Knorr, and they're stock cubes. And I'd prefer to use something like a Knorr stock cube as a tiny bit of seasoning rather than salt. Because if you season something with salt, if you over season it, it's not very forgiving. It kills everything. With quinoa, just a tiny bit of canor in there, it's more forgiving. So if you slightly over season it with quinoa, just a pinch of it, you can always stabilize your sauce again. You can always add a little bit of your juices to it. So you have to. It is a problem, but you have to get your timings right, and you have to know what you're doing, doing. And only the people in my kitchen who would touch any sources were people who've been with me 10, 12 years.

Are you still an avid fisherman?

You still fish? Well, I fish now with my children. I mean, that's my real pleasure is I take my boys off fishing. I take them off deer stalking. And that's what I love. I love spending time with my children. That's great. Yes.

In the front. So I heard a while ago that you were named the new host of Hell's Kitchen in the uk. And I was just curious, if you've started filming that already, how's that going? And if not, how do you plan on approaching it?

Well, it's a live program in the uk. I don't know if it's live over here, but I've got three weeks of it in September. And at this moment in time, there's a lot of groundwork to do before you actually do the filming. But we do little bits of filming more for them to get an understanding of how I work. So, like, if you look at someone like Mr. Ramsey, he's quite static. He stands there and shouts and swears, but that's fine. That's his way. And so I tend to be quite active and move. And I work very hard. I like to get involved. I don't like to just stand on the pass and scream and shout. And an extension to your question is when they approached me, because I turned them down three years ago, they came back to me and I said, so they sent me some DVDs, and I looked at the DVDs, and the one thing I never saw on Hell's Kitchen was food. And I thought, this is a very strange program because I'd never watched it before. And so before accepting, what I said to them was, I said, I'll only do this program. If we have three things within that program, it's one, it's got to be inspirational, it's got to be interesting, and it's got to be educational. If it's not those three things, then I'm not interested in doing it. So with it being inspirational, with it being educational, you're talking about produce, you're talking about cooking, you're talking about food. I think that's really important for the viewer. Do they want to look at someone scream and shout for an hour every night and swear? Not really. Would it encourage you to put your children in the industry? No. So, as I said, I'm there to inspire people, not belittle people. So that's why I'm stepping back into the ring, is because even though I've retired, I'm very happy to step back inside the ring because I think that individual has done more damage to our industry than good. I think it's important for people at home to actually see what goes on in the kitchen. Of course there is. Well, you don't use the word bollocking over here, do you? Brian will know the word bollocking, but, you know, there's nothing wrong in a bollocking. We all get them. But there's a lot of love in a kitchen. There's a lot of comradery. There's a lot of romance in a kitchen. I think you've got to put that across. So if I'm sitting at home with my wife and I've got a young boy or girl and thinking, what am I going to do with them? Which trade am I going to put them into? If I saw a program like Hell's Kitchen done well, I think that that'll suit my child. I think it's about encouraging people into the industry, not pushing them away. And so that's why I'm stepping back in the ring.

Do you enjoy being around food as much as you used to?

Yeah, I like food. I like eating. I'm more of a professional eater than I am a cook now. I get turned on by produce. And as I say, because I'm no longer in the kitchen like I used to be is. I look at food a different way now compared to what I used to look at it years ago. When you're in that kitchen with those four white walls and a stove in the middle of the kitchen, all your energies tend to go into what you're doing, and you can't. It's very hard to step back and look at what you're doing and question what you're doing. I think it's important. So in a way, now is I cook with my mind now I cook with my head.

Beautiful question, Brian.

I love multi dimensional questions. Just a heads up, everybody. Marco and I used to work together years ago. It was a long time ago. Albertu, what kind of influence did he give you in your career and life? Did he give you a bollocking and do you stay in touch with him? Number one, Albert opened the door in London for me and I'll never forget that he gave me a great opportunity. Secondly is I stepped into his world and I spent a lot of time with Albert and became a very good friend of Albert. He was my best man at my wedding. You know, sitting with Albert in the countryside, spending time with him and telling me his story, sharing his philosophy. So to sit with Albert, to be told is his story, to share his philosophy with you, and then to work in his business. It was like a beautiful jigsaw. It all worked, it all stacked. Do I speak to Albert now? No, I don't. I'll tell you why, very simply is Albert and I had a problem. Albert went from three stars to two stars, and I went from two stars to three stars. And Albert found it very difficult to accept that, that I was now the big boy and he was no longer in that position of power. But it didn't affect me because he was still my chef. It's like I walk in today, we say, hi, chef. Hi, chef. Hi, chef. It's the way we are in the world of gastronomy. And they have like the Oscars in Britain called the Katie Awards. I don't know if you know them. And Albert was on the panel of the Katie Awards, and someone within the Katie sat on that panel. And they were quite disgusted by Albert's views on me as a person. And Albert prevented me from getting Chef of the Year because he bullied them. And so I walk into the Mirabelle in London and I go into my office and say, albert's been in for lunch today. Okay, that's nice. Then I got this phone call from a friend at the caterer, and they told me what had happened. So I'm a person who likes to deal with things, because if you deal with things, they're dealt with is, I think if you don't deal with the problem, it magnifies. So I ring up Albert. He said, hello, Marco. I had a fantastic lunch at the Mirabel today. It's a pleasure. I said, albert, it's been brought to my attention at the KT judging that you said A, B, C about me. He said to me, he said, marco, I signed a confidentiality. I said, alba, I didn't ask you if you'd signed a confidentiality. I asked you if you'd said those words about me. He said, marco, I don't want to have this conversation with you. So I said to Albert, albert, had I said what you said about me, about you, I don't think I'd want to have this conversation. And that was the last time I spoke to him. But it was his choice. And that's in the book. If you read what I said about Albert in the book, I say it with great affection. And that little bit he can't complain about because he chose to break our friendship. Had he said to me, marque, yes, I did say it, maybe it came out wrong. Who knows? I can deal with that. But to try and hide behind a confidentiality, it's not good enough. And he put a very small value on our long friendship. But that's Alva. Do you still support Leeds United and what happened to them? I support Arsenal, love Arsenal, but I have an emotion for Leeds. You're from Leeds? I'm from Leeds. But I started supporting Arsenal when I was 10 years old. Who'd you support? Brian Leeds. Don't go into it. I'll tell you about Kannor Cubes. I had a meeting with them the other day, Oxo. And the guy who came, the executive chef from Kannor was called Lorimer. When I was a kid, you had Peter Lorimer. Peter Lorimer, but he was called Hotshot Lorimer. I remember him. So I said to him, when I left, it was shaking. Sorry about this. I was shaking goodbye to him because he was Scottish and he was called Lorimer. I was shaking goodbye with him. I said, hot stock Lorimer. And so he sent me a little text later on that day, signed it off Hot stock rather than Hot Shop, because he was the lead supporter as well. Sir. Sorry. Thank you, Brian.

It just occurred to me you might have opinions on this, I suppose.

Sorry, I can't hear you.

What is the best food to serve to celebrate a good football victory?

Depends who you support.

Arsenal, for example?

Well, you'd have to have something kosher because they're a nice Jewish club. A few matzo balls, nice roast chicken. Very nice. I don't know. I haven't got a clue. Thank you. I wanted to ask what you your thoughts were about the celebrity of cooking. Now it has changed a bit. And so I was interested in your opinion of It. Well, when I was a boy, when Brian was a boy, we went to work to learn our job. There was no such thing as a celebrity chef in those days. You went to work, you worked long hours to obtain knowledge. I think one of the problems today with, with the celebrity chef is firstly, it keeps the chefs out of the kitchen. And just touching on that point, when I won my three stars in the Michelin, Derrick Brown, who was the head inspector of Michelin, who came to tell me that I'd won my three stars. Before the guide came out, I walked him to the door, I shook his hand goodbye, and he said to me, he said, marco, never forget what made you great. What he was saying is, stay behind your stove, which was 100%. But today, what celebrity chefs has done, number one, it keeps them out of their stoves, sorry, away from their stoves. And secondly, a lot of young kids, boys and girls, come into the industry with the wrong attitude. They want to be stars, they want to be celebrities. As I say to young people who come into the industry, forget about all that. Just put your head down, learn your job, do your job, obtain your knowledge, build the foundation in five years time, six years time, then decide what you want to do. You want to go with Michelin stars, then fine. You want to go into industrial catering, then fine. You want to set up your own business, fine. But get your knowledge and you know, if you cooked the best fish and chips in Britain, you'd become famous. If you have the best tea rooms in San Francisco, making the best sandwiches and the best cakes, you'll become famous. Put your energies into your work. If people acknowledge you, I'm fine. So I think it's done a lot of damage. I think it's done a lot of good as well, but I think it's done a lot of damage.

Based on that same question, do you find a trend emerging that with almost a loss of value, work value, do you find it becoming a huge challenge for future chefs to come to the level that you achieve? Just because people are looking at food differently, they're looking at the scene. More importantly, a lot of them are than the actual food itself.

A lot of young people aren't prepared to put in the hours. And Brian and I worked 25 years ago together. And you know, Brian, if you had to work 20 hours today for Alba, seven days a week, you didn't question it, did you? You kept your head down and you did something wrong, the chef shouts at you, you didn't walk out, you just said, yes, Chef. Sorry, Chef. And there's been this whole breakdown within the industry. In my opinion, people go into the industry with the wrong attitude of mind. Now, of course, there are a few who go with the right attitude, but I think what TV has done, I think TV has done more for the viewer at home than it has done for our industry.

Hi.

Do you think that your Italian background played a role in your decision to become a chef or later in your career? I'm Italian, as you might have detected from my accent, and I think we are very interested in food. And I lived in Brisbane for a long time and there isn't the same interest, even a family level, in food. So I was wondering. My memories of my mother before she died was I used to sit in the kitchen, she used to sit me on the table while she made whatever she made. So even as a young boy, I was surrounded by food. But my father was a chef and my grandfather was a chef. My uncles were butchers and pastry chefs. So all my life I was surrounded by food. I was very fortunate that I was brought up in the north of England, on the outskirts of Leeds, where I was surrounded by nature. And I think that nature had a big impression on me. But, you know, I like the way the Italians, the Spanish, they eat, they put it in the middle of the table, you sit around and you eat your food. In England, they put everything on the plate and then give you the plate, sort of almost like a canteen service. But I like the Italian, the way the Italians eat it. It's a way of life for them. It's an extension of them as a person. And as I've always said, the difference between the Italian cooks and the French is the Italians, it's from the heart, the French way. It's intellectual. There's a difference. I know what I prefer to with speaking of intellectual, two of the trends.

That are out there in cooking and.

Gastronomy today are molecular gastronomy and sous vide. And do you have anything to say about these? Do you have personal reactions to these techniques? The former rather than the latter is. I think it's quite pointless. I mean, my friend Heston, who started with me many years ago, he makes his veal stock, his stocks in a pressure cooker. He'll tell me all this about the science of it, but actually the difference is none. I don't get it really, you know, is, what's it to do with flavour? You know, it changes nothing. And what was the second part of your question that was about it? Your sous vide and sous vide I think sous vide's very good. I mean, I think sous vide's very good. I mean, sous vide is basically boiling the bag. You know, it's how you use sous vide. So, for example, say I was. Say I was cooking a pigeon. If you just cook a pigeon classically, where you brown it in the pan and put it in the oven, you get a nice pink breast, but the skin's not cooked enough. So by taking your pigeon and putting it in your sous vide bag and gently suck it and then poach it, say, for five, six minutes at 85 degrees Celsius, then let it rest in the bag and then cut it open and then brown it in the pan and finish it in the oven. What you have is a pink breast with a cooked skin. Otherwise, it's like eating an elastic band. There's no way the skin of that little pigeon can render and cook properly by the time the breast is pink. So, for example, say we were doing ducks in the old days. Years ago, they'd stuff ducks and stitch them up, and the reason why they stuffed them was to slow down the cooking. So the duck cooked from the outside in. What a lot of people do today is they take a duck and they. They roast it. But what happens is the duck cooks from the inside out. So therefore, you've got a pink breast, but the skin's not cooked enough. So what we used to do to compensate for that, say when I was at the Malware Katzezon, we take the breasts off the bone, take the skin off the duck, cut away the fat, roll it up, season it and slice it up and just finish it under the grill, because there's no way you can actually cook that skin and have a pink breast. So sous vide has its purposes. It's like, say you do a daube de boeuf, like we used to do at the Gavroche, you put it into a sous vide bag. It's in your fridge. It's maturing. It's not going off. And when it's on order, you heat it up in the bag, cut it open, take the meat out, and then make your fresh sauce with your braising liquor and maybe freshen it up with a bit of red wine, and then pour that over and then put your garnish over it. So I think sous vide's very good. I think it's really good. But it's how you use it. It's like anything. It's like microwaves. They're fantastic. If you Know how to use them. Do you like microwaves? Pardon me? Do you like microwaves? But they're exactly. You had a question, you had a question. Oh, no, I was making. How about German? Well, I like a bit of shoe crew. I like a hot dog, I like a sausage. Is that what else they do? Red cabbage, gherkins. Yeah, I love all that stuff. Bit of rye bread, bit of mustard. Yeah, that's dinner. I like it.

Other than Italian, French, English, is there. Is there a favorite cuisine or there that you steer away from?

No, I eat most things. I like going and eating Chinese, I like Japanese, I like all food. I wasn't like that when I walked into the industry. When I walked into the industry, there was lots of foods I wouldn't try or taste because, you know, from the world that I came from, we never saw them. But I'm sure you're the same that you eat most things.

Yeah, I can't think of anything I don't like.

And even if you don't, even if you never had it, you'll still have a go at it.

Right, right.

That's the great thing about it, isn't it? We eat everything, really.

Exactly. Always got to eat. Yes, sir. Your first restaurant, Harvey's, is it still around?

Yeah, it's called Chez Bruce now. It has one star in the Michelin Guide. They've still got my stove, so I hear, all those years later. Nice Maltini. I've never been back since I left, but I've driven past a couple of times and sometimes when I'm just sort of a bit bored, I'll drive over to Wandsworth and just walk down memory lane and have a fag on the common. I just think that's where it all started. I'll just get back in my car and drive away. I never want to go back inside it, so it's like an old girlfriend. It's nice to look at them but, you know, that's enough. I've got a fine, outrageous girl in the front there. Question. So I missed the beginning. Somebody might have done this.

But if you came to Google and.

You were cooking a meal for us, what would you do?

For a few thousand?

I would do something very simple. Do you all eat at once or do you have. Do you stagger your sittings?

Everyone sits at different times and the chefs basically do batch cooking for the most part. They'll send out a little bit, a little bit for the two and a half hour rush. So people kind of come when they.

Want to, as I always Say, build your menus around one, what's possible, and secondly, what people want to eat. And if I look at my menus, when I used to cook, I look at my menus, I'd always work out what people responded to and how they responded. I'd build my whole menu around my punters. There's no point giving them things they don't want to eat. And say, whatever you wanted to eat, I'd build it round you. What was possible with the infrastructure. There's no point trying to be too clever because you'll struggle.

You opened up a lot in the last book that you wrote about yourself. Was that something that was very hard for you to do, or have you always been someone to express yourself?

I think what's important is, when I was in the kitchen, I found it quite hard because when you spend your life in the kitchen, for example, when I left the kitchen at 38, I was quite socially inept because all my life I'd been inside this environment, which was a world which I felt comfortable within. But I didn't have to express myself verbally, I just expressed myself through my hands, through my food. And, you know, it's. But I think when it came to doing the book, and I was asked is, I think if you're going to write your memoirs, I think what you have to do is you have to be honest. And as I've always said, if you've been given opportunity, create opportunity. If you've been given a story, if you've been told a story, tell a story. If you've been given a talent, share that talent. I think we have a moral duty. So when it came to doing the book, I spent two years. And, I mean, I know the book's only that big, but there's about that much stuff and all you can do, you've got 85,000 words, 90,000 words, to give people an insight into your life. So you have to touch people in a certain way and sort of pull them in, draw them in, so they get a little bit of understanding and about you as a person, you did.

A great job, in my opinion.

That's very kind of you say, but, you know, it's. You can just scratch the surface and if it inspires someone to go off and cook, if it helps someone unravel and maybe a bit of confusion they suffered as a child, then you've got to do it for yourself. And I've got to say, I think everyone should write their memoirs, because I think at the end of it, you come out a Better person. You have a greater understanding of yourself.

Sure.

Very tiring.

One final point. One thing you mentioned in the book that I thought was really important for chefs to understand and to realize is when you are a chef in the kitchen, depending on whatever level you're at, when a cook comes to you, I think the words you use is they're putting their lives in your hands. And it's very important for you as a chef, or chefs in general, or managers, whatever you're talking about, to really understand that and take that to heart and put a lot of focus into building on them and working them.

I think it's important. It's like, I'll use Brian again as an example. Nearly 30 years ago, Brian put his career in Alberu's hands. When Brian had done his time in the Gavroche, he sent Brian to Alain Chapelle, which is a restaurant which had three stars in those days outside Lyon. And so when someone puts their career within your hands, you have to respect that. And if it's for a year, if it's for two, two years, you have to share your knowledge with those people. And sometimes you have to be a fatherly figure because a lot of young boys, they get very tired and they're quite emotional and sometimes the pressures of the kitchen can be very hard on them. And so you have to sometimes take them by the hand and sort of pick them up. Or sometimes you have to, you get a few characters in the kitchen which are quite bullheaded, they're a bit strong, you have to sort of knock them down a bit, sort of bring them back in, rein them in and sort of guide them. But I think you have a duty. When someone's prepared to work those hours and say, here's my career, I think you have a duty to look after them.

Absolutely. I agree. Thank you.

We have time for maybe one more question.

1.

Sorry, I can't hear you.

You mentioned for getting trained as a.

Cook, you need to, you know, work.

In a restaurant long hours. But I was wondering what you think of, like, self taught chefs like Heston Blumenthal.

I don't think there's. I don't think there's anything. We'll use Heston because Heston's first day in the kitchen was with me.

Yeah, and I thought you told him that he wouldn't learn anything shelling green beans. Sorry, I thought you told him. I read that you told him he.

Wouldn'T learn anything stringing green beans. I can't remember. But we'll talk about Heston. Firstly, I don't believe anybody is self taught. For example, Heston, who I've known for many years, he's one of my great friends, one of his father's obsessions was eating in two and three star Michelin restaurants in France. So every summer, Heston would go off for six to eight weeks as a young boy, dining in all these restaurants where they. Whether it was Chapelle, whether it was the Oster de Bermagnier in Beau Provence. And so you are learning through vision. And then Heston came to work for me at the memoir when I was working for Les Mont Blanc, and then Heston worked for me in London. And no one is truly self taught, but I think great cooks do teach themselves. But you need that foundation, you need that understanding, you need that platform. And so if I pick up a cookery book written by you, for example, and I read that book, I am now buying into your knowledge. Someone who's truly self taught is someone who never reads a book, never dines in someone else's restaurants and never spends a bit of time working for other people. So I don't buy into self taught. I think what happens is you obtain knowledge when, whether it's through a book, whether it's through working with others, whether it's dining in restaurants, and then when you're a boss yourself, then what happens is you bring it out of yourself. So when someone says they're self taught, call them a liar.

How long did Heston work for you? Because I thought he never worked in a kitchen.

That's a fib on Heston's behalf. Heston worked the summer of 85 in the manwater cats, as on. And then about three years later, four years later, he came to work for me in London for about six months, eight months. But you know, if you walk into Heston's house, you'll see 250 cookery books. Well, if you're self taught and if you're saying you're self taught, but you've got 250 cookery books in your house, don't tell me you didn't take knowledge out of that method, out of there. Of course you did. So there's no such thing as self talk. He didn't work in a kitchen. Sorry, he didn't do most of his training.

That's what I had thought.

No, I mean, Heston is. As I said, what's happened is he had a basic knowledge, opened up his first restaurant and with the help of books and with the combination of his hard work, the two put together. It comes together.

Chef, thank you for coming.

Thank you. Pleasure for having me.