Marco Pierre White - The Rock N' Roll Chef

Marco Pierre White made history by being the youngest British Chef to be awarded with 3 Michelin Stars at the age of 33.

Born in Leeds in the north of England on December 11th 1961, Marco Pierre White had cooking in his blood. His father Frank was a chef, as was his grandfather. His mother Maria Rosa White was Italian, and her sad passing when Marco was only 6 years old has affected his life deeply.

He is often known as The Rock N' Roll Chef as he doesn't always play by the rules, at least not in his early career. Marco Pierre White has been known to immediately eject patrons from his establishments if he took offense to their comments about his food. In the 1980's a city trader dining in one of his restaurants enquired about a side order of chips. Marco personally hand cut and cooked the chips, then charged £25 for the priviledge.

It wasn't just customers who experienced White and his fiery side; a young chef who had complained about heat in the kitchen, had the back of his chef's jacket and trousers cut open by White who at the time was holding a pairing knife.

Young Chefs who have trained under Marco Pierre White include Gordon Ramsay.

Although White was at the top of his profession, in 1999 he decided to give his 3 Michelin Stars back and retired from the kitchen. He was quoted to say:

"I was being judged by people who had less knowledge than me, so what was it truly worth? I gave Michelin inspectors too much respect, and I belittled myself. I had three options: I could be a prisoner of my world and continue to work six days a week, I could live a lie and charge high prices and not be behind the stove or I could give my stars back, spend time with my children and re-invent myself."

Marco made a welcome return to the world of cooking with his appearance on ITV's Hell's Kitchen in 2007.

Marco's Great British Feast is set to air on ITV Summer 2008. Over 4 episodes, Marco will be travelling the UK in search of ingredients and rediscovering all that is great about British food.

In 2009 he will be the Host of The Chopping Block, a reality show where 8 couples will compete for the chance to win a restaurant to run. 2 teams comprising of 4 couples each will both run restaurants in Manhattan, and their skills will be judged by Pierre White and a panel of experts. Each week 1 couple will be voted off, until the winning pair remain. The show will air on NBC. There is a similar format shown here in the UK, hosted by Raymond Blanc (one of the great chef's Marco learnt his craft with). It's called The Restaurant and the first series was shown on the BBC in Autumn 2007.

Marco Pierre White will return to UK screens in April 2009 with a new formatted series of Hell's Kitchen.

For anyone who is remotely interested in Marco Pierre White or classic cooking, I have made a bit of a cool discovery on YouTube.

In a series simply entitled 'Marco' we see a 28 year old Marco Pierre White cooking for the world renowned chefs who trained him. The series features, Raymond Blanc, Albert Roux, Pierre Koffman and Nico Ladenis.

It's a rare insight into Marco before he obtained his Michellin Stars and is filmed at his then restaurant Harvey's. The show also features a young Gordon Ramsay who was training under Marco at the time. Excellent viewing!