Marco Pierre White
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 2 June 1991
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week has been described as the 'enfant terrible' of the restaurant world. Marco Pierre White opened his first restaurant at the age of 27, where he established a reputation both for extraordinary culinary expertise and for outrageous behaviour.
He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the route which took him from the Leeds council estate where he was born nearly 30 years ago, to the moment when he became the youngest chef to be awarded two Michelin stars at his restaurant, Harvey's.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 1991, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is a chef. Born nearly 30 years ago on a Leeds council estate his intention on leaving school |
| 0:34.7 | was to break free and enjoy himself, certainly not to cook for the enjoyment of others. |
| 0:39.6 | He took a job as a kitchen hand and slowly an obsession with food developed. |
| 0:44.8 | Determined to learn the art through experience rather than formal training, he begged a job |
| 0:49.4 | in a top London restaurant working under Albert Roo. From there he went to Nico and on to |
| 0:55.0 | Raymond Blanc absorbing the repertoire of Britain's top chefs. Today he is their rival. |
| 1:00.3 | He runs his own restaurant in South London, is the youngest chef ever to win two Michein stars, |
| 1:06.0 | and he holds the other qualification of many a successful restaurateur. |
| 1:10.1 | He has a reputation for being less than polite to some of his customers. |
| 1:14.0 | He is Marco Pierre White. |
| 1:16.4 | Shall we deal with the reputation first, Marco? |
| 1:18.8 | When are you rude to your customers and why? |
| 1:22.0 | I don't believe I'm rude to my customers I believe my |
| 1:25.6 | customers are rude to me and that's why I politely ask them to leave my restaurant |
| 1:31.5 | I don't like people who click fingers I don't like people who click fingers. I don't like people who |
| 1:34.2 | mimic my French staff or have laughs at their expense, especially when they're |
| 1:38.1 | working long days. They should be just left be. And what a lot of people don't |
| 1:41.9 | realize is enjoyment in a restaurant is a two-way street. |
| 1:46.8 | They have got to come in to the restaurant and sit down and enjoy themselves and they've got to give |
| 1:51.3 | off niceness and they've got to be polite with my staff and show |
... |
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