Marco Pierre White - "Everything I do is rebuilding my childhood"
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Marco Pierre White, you're very welcome. It's nice to be with you again. So you're in Ireland because you're launching a supper club at the Marco Pierre White Courtyard Bar and Grill in Donnybrook and you're also going to ultimately today you'll tell us how to cook a perfect steak. But let's catch up a bit first because you're a fascinating individual. You've had a kind of a It's a mythical life and career. Like people remember, you were the rock star chef, the so-called on-front terrible of British cooking. You were the youngest chef ever to win three Michelin stars. You handed them back and gave up cooking. So how are you? What's your current phase of life like? I
have a hotel just outside of Bath. It's the most challenging job of my life. When you build a restaurant, it's a front room with a kitchen. When you're building a 60 bedroom hotel and you've made that decision that every individual item has to be chosen, it's a
massive job. Why did you take this on yourself at this stage of things? When I started my career,
I worked in a hotel, live-in, and hotels were a very natural place for me to live. And so then, later in life, the opportunity arose I took on the challenge and I have to say it's the biggest job of my life, but the most satisfying job of my life. So what I do with food, I now do with design. So I collect furnishings and I build these giant jigsaws. It's like I'm working on a room now and the artwork I've chosen for it is Andy Warhol from the 60s, his Chairman Mao collection. And so then everything will be built around that. All the furniture will be Mausman. Mausman was the man in the twenties, decided to carve a mouse as his signature on the furniture. So all the furniture has a little mouse. It's quite magical.
And so therefore, what I do is I build nests. I don't build bedrooms. I build
nests. And you are clearly bringing to this the kind of mildly mad obsession you have brought to everything all your life, yes?
That's a very good way of putting it, Brendan. I can't stop. I am what I am. I was made the way that I was made. My mother made me.
Why did Marco Pierre White shift from restaurants to building a hotel?
And I used to watch my mother make toys. I used to watch her make clothes. I used to watch her make quilts, patchwork quilts. And so therefore, in a strange and bizarre sort of way... Even with the grounds, what I'm rebuilding is my childhood. It's very weird. But when I sit by myself, that's where my inspiration comes from.
So you are still, and it's 10 years since we've spoken, I'd imagine, you are still reliving... Your mother, who
snatched
away from you, died in front of you so cruelly, you're still in that loop, are you? I don't want to
leave it. Really? I think by talking about my mum, by continuing my mother's work, she still lives within me. If you don't talk about your mother when she's gone, or your father, then they die slowly. So I think what's important is for me, as an individual, and to deal with it still, it's a form of therapy.
But are you ever actually, are you going to keep repeating the cycle? Is it ever
going to
work? Or is it the repetition of the cycle that is?
But what's interesting, I slowly discover myself that little bit more. Every year that goes by, I understand myself. So now I'm at one with myself. I've never been happier within my life.
Really, I'm almost disappointed to see that you've mellowed.
But I shouldn't
be. Material is not great.
But I'm not a
materialist. So the kind of torment and the conflict and all that has abated for
you, has it? I find what I do now, it's an extension of what I did as a cook. So I put the same amount of energy into everything that I do. And I find it very cathartic. It's all about unraveling those confused emotions, untangling everything, and finding yourself. And I think that's what was important to me. I've never been an ambitious man. Ambition, in my opinion, is the most dangerous occupation in the world. If you're going to be ambitious, then be ambitious by default, by doing things well, really well.
OK, so you are you are doing, in fact, like the therapy with your hands. That's
right. So therefore, as a cook to do as a cook, I spoke with my fingers.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:23
2
Why did Marco Pierre White shift from restaurants to building a hotel?
2:23–8:50
3
How is Marco rebuilding his childhood through the hotel project?
8:50–10:10
4
What role does his mother’s memory play in his current work?
10:10–13:22
5
How does Marco define success and ambition after giving up Michelin stars?
13:22–15:05