Pierre White's book: self serving cobblers? It's been an interesting week for Marco Pierre White. A few nights ago he was setting fire to himself and bleeding all over the pavement at the Spotted Pig, Manhattan's take on the gastro pub. Now his autobiography gets a rave review from the New York Times. I am intrigued by this because I reviewed the same book, titled White Slave in the UK and The Devil In the Kitchen in the US, and I thought that, for the most part, it was a pile of self-serving, bombastic old cobblers.
The man comes up with any number of excuses - though mostly the death of his mother when he was child, to which he returns time and again - to explain why he was a) so tough on so many of his cooks, including Gordon Ramsay and b) why he keeps getting in fights with people. The conclusion I reached was that actually these things happen to him because he isn't a very nice person.
I am, however, willing to accept that I did not simply review the book, but the man I know as well. I have spent time in Marco's company for a profile - boy, was that a long afternoon - as well as time around chefs and restaurateurs who have fallen foul of him and his temper. I also spent one very long day attempting to untangle the knots of his financial dealings, to no avail
By contrast David Kamp, the reviewer for the New York Times who so enjoyed the book, is probably meeting him here on the page for the first time. It is, frankly, the only explanation I can find for why he should describe Devil in the Kitchen as 'a moving, unaffected, delightfully honest book.' Yee gods, he even says that 'At times it's almost sweet.' The only thing about Marco that has ever been sweet is his deserts. Kamp appears to be buying into every myth about Marco ever launched by, well, Marco.
And perhaps that's why he is going down so well in the US. Marco is not just self-made. He's self-invented. Over here he has been tumbling towards has-been status. Over there he may well become a star. Marco Pierre White: the Simon Cowell of British cooks.
