Quote · The Louis Theroux Podcast
S8 EP2: Marco Pierre White discusses his rift with Gordon Ramsay, retiring from cooking, and having lunch with Margaret Thatcher
Where this was said
Winning Three Stars — and Losing the Will to Cook
At 37:40 · chapter starts 37:30
The apex of Marco's culinary career — three Michelin stars in 1995 at 33, the youngest ever — contained the seeds of his undoing. He describes working 100-hour weeks in a state of joyless vigilance, touching every dish that left the kitchen either with his fingers, his eyes, or his palate, but feeling nothing of the creative excitement that had driven him there. [1] — Marco Pierre White "I wasn't happy being in the kitchen. It no longer excited me. It was conveyor belt cuisine. It was cooking by numbers. It was all about def…" 37:40 Winning one star was perhaps the most exciting of all; winning two more thrilling still; three stars extraordinary. But defending them turned the kitchen into a fortress. The food became defensive — 'cooking by numbers', 'conveyor belt cuisine'. Marco had come from a world where a chef stood behind the stove; now he stood there not creating but protecting. He watched Albert Roux lose a star first, then Pierre Koffmann. He understood then that the game could not be won indefinitely, and that the cost of trying was everything.
Winning one star is thrilling. Two stars — more exciting still. Three stars — extraordinary. But then you spend the next years playing defence, cooking to protect rather than to create. Marco calls it 'cooking by numbers' — and it bored him into retirement.
Marco described winning each successive star as increasingly exciting, but said that once you have three and must defend them, the creative thrill evaporates into a tedious, defensive grind.
Gordon Ramsay's father-in-law was a publisher who knew which Michelin guide was coming. Gordon told Marco. When Albert Roux rang asking if Marco had heard anything, Marco had to tell the godfather of British gastronomy he'd lost one of his three stars. Albert had been the first person ever to win three.
