Synopses & Reviews
What do Mario Batali, Heston Blumenthal, and Gordon Ramsay have in common? Answer: They 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 chef anywhere) to win three Michelin stars, a chain-smoking, pot-throwing, multiply married culinary genius whose fierce devotion to food and restaurants has been the only constant in a life of tabloid-ready turmoil. In The Devil in the Kitchen, he tells the story of his life in food, spanning his apprenticeship with Albert and Michel Roux, his wild years in the bacchanal of 1980s Chelsea, his ferocious pursuit of the highest Michelin rating, and his "retirement career" as a hugely successful restaurateur. With cameos from the likes of Michael Caine, Madonna, and Damien Hirst, The Devil in the Kitchen leaves no dish unserved, relating the backroom antics, the blood feuds, and the passion for great food that have driven London's greatest restaurants for decades.
Review
Praise for The Devil in the Kitchen: "A moving, unaffected, delightfully honest book. At times it's almost sweet. The culinary memoir it most recalls is, of all things, Jacques Pepin's "Apprentice." Like Pepin, White grew up in a family that had little but appreciation of good food. And like "the apprentice," white's book has early moments of heartbreaking privation and loss that give way to happy momentum-a dawning on the protagonist's part and eventually, on that of his bosses, peers and public, that he is perpetually gifted at cooking...Even as White recounts these tales, though he does so without sensationalism or self-congratulation...he may have been one of the most disagreeable bastards ever to command a kitchen brigade, but in the same guileless, unfiltered way in which he cursed out sous-chefs, he's told one hell of a story."
--David Kamp, New York Times Book Review "Marco will always remain the epitome of the wicked, talented, flamboyant chef--the archetype made flesh. And really, would we want him any other way?"--
Independent"There hasn't been a food memoir this deliciously wicked since Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential"...but White's story ultimately proves more compelling because he's willing to expose his flaws instead of hiding behind cynicism. And I learned more about what it's like to cook in a restaurant kitchen than from any other book I've read."--Portland Oregonian
"The original enfant terrible of the kitchen....One can feel White's influence not only in his gastronomic legacy, but also in the wild-boy posturing of the volatile celebrity chefs who now populate our televisions."--Guardian Praise for Marco Pierre White: "Marco Pierre White was the original rock-star chef--the guy who all of us wanted to be. From the moment my chef pals and I got a look at his first cookbook--and at photos of the Man Himself, in all his haggard, debauched-looking, obsessively driven glory-- we dreamed of nothing more than to be just like him. He made history."--Anthony Bourdain "Marco is a gift to humanity, with more passion per pound than anyone else I have ever met. His story is genius, his voice his own and the tale retold is just as much fun as it was watching the whole chaotic conundrum evolve the first time around. His sophisticated cooking came out of nowhere but inside his rock star head, and this autobiography makes it all clear in the juiciest and most delicious way. After all these years, Marco is still my hero."--Mario Batali "Marco is probably the most charismatic chef of the twentieth century: the last of the romantics, a brooding Bryon of the kitchen, the most creative person you¹ll ever meet and the most self-destructive, a self-described monster and an unrecognized poet, and, without question, the most influential British chef since the invention of fish and chips. Nobody has found so much meaning -so much passion and outright an intensity of feeling - in a plate of food." - Bill Buford, author of Heat
Synopsis
White, the first and youngest British chef to win three Michelin stars, tells the story of his life in food, relating the back-room antics, the blood feuds, and the passion for great food that have driven London's greatest restaurants for decades.
Synopsis
“There hasnt been a food memoir this deliciously wicked since Anthony Bourdains Kitchen Confidential.”—
Portland OregonianThe Devil in the Kitchen is legendary chef Marco Pierre Whites memoir of growing up working-class in Leeds and going on to become a king in the culinary world—the original celebrity chef. The first British chef (and the youngest chef anywhere) to win three Michelin stars—and also the only one to ever give them all back—is known equally for his astonishing talent and for being a chain-smoking, pot-throwing enfant terrible of the kitchen. In The Devil in the Kitchen he takes readers on a revealing and raucous ride, featuring some of the biggest names in the food world and beyond. Its truly a decadent feast for anyone who loves food or just a great story.
About the Author
Born in Leeds in 1961, Marco Pierre White was the first British chef (and the youngest chef anywhere) to win three Michelin starts. His gastronomic empire—Luciano and Marcos restaurants, among others—is rapidly expanding to include ventures in Las Vegas, Shanghai, Jamaica, and Dubai, with more in the
works. Through he retired from the kitchen in 1999, White recently returned to the stove to serve as the host of Hells Kitchen. He lives in West London with his wife, Mati, and their three children. He also has a daughter by his first wife.
As a gossip columnist in the late eighties, James Steen phoned Harveys to speak with Marco Pierre White. A maître d answered the phone and ranted on in a strong French accent about how White was “a monster, a crazy man, a lunatic to work for.” The “maître d,” it transpired, was White. The relationship went from there. Steen, a freelance journalist, lives a short stroll from what was once Harveys, with his wife, Louise, and three children, Charlie, Billy, and Daisy.