Product Description

When Marco Pierre White's mother died when he was just six years old, it transformed his life. Soon, his father was urging him to earn his own keep and by sixteen he was working in his first restaurant. White went on to learn from some of the best chefs in the country, such as Albert Roux, Raymond Blanc and Pierre Koffmann. He survived the intense pressure of hundred-hour weeks in the heat of the kitchen, developed his own style, and then struck out on his own. At Harveys in Wandsworth, which he opened in 1987, he developed a reputation as a stunning cook and a rock 'n' roll sex god of the kitchen. But he was also a man who might throw you out of his restaurant, and his temper was legendary, as younger chefs such as Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal would find out when they worked for him. He eventually opened several more restaurants, won every honour going and then realised that it still wasn't enough. Here Marco takes the reader right into the heat of the kitchen with a sharp-edged wit and a sizzling pace that will fascinate anyone brave enough to open the pages of this book and enter his domain.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17921 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
"This book should serve as a primer to young men on the make" (GUARDIAN )

Review
'Inspirational' (THE SUNDAY TIMES )

'Utterly unputdownable' (GLAMOUR )

'if you really want to know what the chefs get up to in the privacy of their own pantries, pick up White Slave, a tale of violence, genius and sex amongthe pans.' (THE SCOTSMAN )

Chris Evans, Radio 2
It's fabulous. Brutally honest and very funny.

Customer Reviews

fiendishly good
Prince of lies, lord of the darkness, Mephistopheles, Miss Stanley, call him what you will, the devil has always been closely associated with the culinary arts. How else can one explain the transformation of the good (egg, flour, beef) into the evil (omelette, pastry, mince)? Marco Pierre White has been recreating eternal damnation and torment on television for the last few weeks (successfully), and the pages of this book, reeking of sulphur and burnt at the edges, are a testament to his efforts. What is more diabolical than a whisk? All the more surprising when one considers that part of his skull is made of papier maché.

Have you heard the one about the pig's trotter?
For some reason I ignored this book when it first came out in hardback. Not sure why. Perhaps Marco Pierre White was a name from the past and someone I knew very little about . . . except perhaps that he was rude, abusive and violent in the kitchen. How's that for prejudging someone?

Don't make my mistake, this book is not to be missed. From the time I opened it at the first page until I had finished I couldn't put it down. It is well written and a fascinating account of a chef's life, albeit a pretty unique chef.

Someone who has won three Michelin stars, and is the youngest chef at the age of thirty-three to have ever achieved it, has to be a very unique person. The first British Chef to win three Michelin stars.

The start of the book takes you back to when Marco was just six years old and facing up to life after his mother's death, growing up in the male dominated world of his father and two older brothers. It then moves quickly through his formative years in Leeds, not particularly happy years, where his greatest pleasure was been able to escape fishing.

The heart of the book is of course the time at Harveys which culminates in his winning his second Michelin star before moving to open Restaurant Marco Pierre White at the Hyde Park Hotel in Knightsbridge where he wins his third Michelin star.

There is a lot more to the book than I have described. Even if you are not into cooking it is a great insight into the professional kitchen with its stress and anguish. It might also help you to understand what makes the greatest living British chef tick. Remember when he started on the road to becoming a chef he was not passionate about cooking it was just a job . . . he grew to be passionate.

The book is full of stories of the high jinx that went on in the kitchens and the restaurant. From a restaurant designer getting his Gucci suit ripped apart to a chef having his whites cut up because he complained it was too hot in the kitchen . . . he was still wearing them at the time!


And if I have not convinced you that The Devil in the Kitchen is worth reading then let me say it is worth reading just for the laugh you will get from the story about Raymond Blanc and the pig's trotter!

The original and best
Marco Pierre White put chefs on the map without meaning to. His reputation whilst at Harveys in the 80s filled many a column inch in the London and National Press and yet refrreshingly, he wasn't courting fame, he simply wanted to feed people the best food they could possibly imagine. Before reading this book I had heard of his fearsome reputation, his genius, and his regular appearances in gossip columns (again, not something he courts). When you understand from the early chapters of this book that this is the story of a boy who lost his mother at age six, then you begin to understand the man behind the myth. To say he was passionate and driven would be to understate the case dramatically. He was a loner, being motherless, and later, estranged from his father. Food was everything to the point where he barely had time to eat it any more, let alone sleep or have a life away from the kitchen. Its a gripping story with cameos from various famous faces and a fascinating historical snapshot of London in the Eighties. Its a story of how hard work maketh the man, a story sadly seen all too rarely amongst today's fame hungry consumerism.

Marco himself remains a likebale enigma. He has been rude, unpleasant, violent even, and has the decency to admit it and explain why without offering excuses for his past mistakes. He appears awkward with women, understandably so since he wasn't brought up around them, and spent his adolescence in front of a hot stove. He is almost pathologically sensitive and proclaims his affection for a friend in one chapter before stating in the next "we havemn't spoken since". This has happened to just about every mentor and friend he has comes across and perhaps reveals a fear of getting close to anyone in case they leave as his mother did. Or maybe he's just picky, who knows? Its a shame though, as he appears to inspire great and deep affection in those who know him.

Its hardly surprising that having been the youngest and first British chef to acheive three Michelin stars, he hung up his apron in 1999 whilst still in his thirties. He is now married with a total of four children and more of a businessman than a chef today. However, if you saw him in Hell's Kitchen earlier in 2006, you will see, as I did that there is an unmistakable charisma there and a code of honour and respect that is positively Sicilian.

I will also mention that this is edited (or ghostwritten) but I sense that this could be because Marco is dyslexic and has never switched on a computer in his life. His turn of phrase, from the humourous to the downright poetic, is unmistakeable and his vibrant rumbling tone, with just a soupcon of Leeds, is heard loud and clear throughout. As you can probably guess, this book made a huge impact on me and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone, regardless of their usual reading preferences. I am sure you, like me, will agree that this motherless boy deserves his happily ever after with his wife and family.