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Marco Pierre White: "To eat with your fingers is the greatest compliment"
As a young chef, Marco Pierre White terrified his staff – now he’s eschewed Michelin stars to be a mellow mentor on the high seas.
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- Tom Loxley
Published: Monday, 2 November 2026 at 5:00 pm
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This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
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Marco Pierre White, once the enfant terrible of fine dining, now the 64-year-old éminence grise of a generation of British chefs, is messing with my béchamel sauce. “No, no, no, no!” he says, tutting his way to my workstation to inspect, owl-like spectacles enhancing a look of benevolent erudition, his posh Yorkshire drawl now delivered softly at 33rpm.
Forget everything your mother ever told you about slowly pouring in the milk. It seems you chuck in butter, flour, olive oil, milk, cream and tomato purée all at once and let it simmer down for the alchemy to happen.
We’re making mac and cheese the Marco Pierre White way, with a lobster twist – appropriately enough considering we’re ploughing across the Baltic on P&O Cruises’ liner, Britannia.
For 20 years Marco has put his cheffing skills at the disposal of passengers, who sign up for his cooking masterclasses on a P&O Food Heroes cruise. Today, en-route between Copenhagen and Southampton, I’m lucky enough to receive one-on-one tuition in Britannia’s magnificently appointed cookery school as a special treat to mark White’s 20th anniversary on board.
Marco Pierre White. Christopher Ison
There was a time when such hands-on attention might have come with a health warning. Because as the first – and youngest – British chef to win three Michelin stars, at the age of 33 in 1995, he always had culinary magic at his fingertips, but he also possessed a five-star reputation for unleashing withering invective and the occasional physical rebuke.
His targets were rude and rowdy customers (whom he would eject from his restaurant), restaurant critics and jealous rivals, but most memorably anyone who messed up among his brigade of chefs. Google Marco Pierre White and a young Gordon Ramsay and you will see what I mean, as the original master chef puts the hell into the kitchen in his restaurant, Harveys.
It’s that testosterone-fuelled environment that’s the subject of the documentary series Rise of the Rockstar Chef, which examines a hyper-masculine world in which Harveys played a starring role and Marco was the lead man.
“Look, we were a bunch of kids trying to take on the heavyweights. I came from the old world of gastronomy and in the modern world my methods weren’t conventional. But they worked. Just think of the chefs who came out of that kitchen. Gordon Ramsay, Heston Blumenthal…”
Did it take much to convince him to take part? “I said no to begin with,” he says. “I was the fourth person they asked. Gordon was first, because it’s made by Studio Ramsay [his production company], but then there was Heston and Jamie Oliver. So I said, ‘Not interested.’ And they said, ‘But we can’t do it without you. Because you’re the original. Why not, Marco?’ I said ‘Heston worked hard for his three stars. Gordon worked hard for his three stars. I worked hard for my three stars. How many stars did Jamie Oliver win?’ He’s not part of our jigsaw. Not to take anything away from him, but you don’t mix water and oil together. So they rang me the next day and said, ‘Marco, if we drop Jamie, will you do the gig?’ And I said yes.”
Gordon Ramsay. FOX via Getty Images
Unlike Jamie, he wowed the Michelin inspectors and learnt at the feet of the Roux brothers at their famous London restaurant, Le Gavroche. But France didn’t make him.
He grew up in Leeds, brought up from the age of six by his father after his mother died of a brain haemorrhage. He didn’t start cooking until he was sent to work in a hotel in Harrogate aged 17, and had barely spent time in France, let alone eaten there, when he began winning accolades in the late 1980s.
“The first time I dined at a Michelin-starred restaurant in France was this year in the Loire,” he says. “The arrogance… When I got my bread I asked for some butter and the waiter said, ‘The bread’s so good we don’t serve butter with it’. I mean, how f**king arrogant! There’s the bread. Serve it with butter!” A flash of fire appears behind his specs.
Heston Blumenthal Sky
Now, White is back on our TV screens recalling a cultural revolution that arguably changed British restaurants for ever. Will he be watching? Perhaps with dinner on his lap? “I don’t watch TV and eat at the same time. I think they conflict with each other. Eat first, then watch TV.”
Not even a sandwich? “Even if I make a sandwich it has to be constructed correctly. The ratio of filling to bread is really important. The way you butter the bread is really important. And the way you cut it. It’s the whole ritual of eating something. Although I like to eat with fingers where possible. It makes everything taste more delicious.”
Although perhaps not in restaurants? I imagine eating with my fingers would once have had me ejected from Harveys. “No. I’d be very happy if someone ate with their fingers in my restaurant. I’d just get them a finger bowl. To eat with your fingers is the greatest compliment. Because you are saying you enjoy it. Let’s indulge.”
The latest issue of Radio Times is out on Tuesday – subscribe here.
Rise of the Rockstar Chef airs Thursday at 9.00pm on BBC Two. Catch the whole series on BBC iPlayer.
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Tom Loxley
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