We know him as a Masterchef judge and also youngest chef at 33 to receive three Michelin stars. But to anyone from the culinary world, Chef Marco Pierre White is a magician who can take a few simple ingredients and turn it into something out of this world. His love and passion for food has brought him to where he is today.
The chef was recently in namma ooru as part of the fourth edition of World On a Plate. Marco entered the culinary world to please his dad. “It was my father’s decision to make me a chef and naturally, I was expected to follow in his footsteps. As a young boy, I really just wanted to make him proud,” he adds that his mother was his biggest motivation and inspiration.
This rock-star chef never wanted to be one initially. He wanted to be a river keeper. On his thoughts on fusion cuisine, for chef Marco, it’s all about flavour. He explains, “I like food that is real. Nature and its produce inspires me. If you look at something that’s timeless, it tends to be classical and honest.” A Michelin star is considered to be the crowning glory for any chef and establishment. Marco says, “What the Michelin star used to represent in the past and what it represents now are entirely different. I just feel, when you are working at that level of three stars, a chef’s place is behind his stove. Achieving three Michelin Stars was a very exciting journey. Retaining them was the most boring job on earth.”
He is sometimes called the ‘Godfather of Modern Cooking’, but Marco doesn’t look at himself like a legend. He says, “I am not different from other chefs. I have learnt to put my skills to the best use, which has brought me here today. I believe that most essentially, one has to learn to keep their head down and learn the craft without counting hours. It’s important to be brutally honest to yourself and question everything you do.”
This was Marco’s first visit to Bengaluru. Talking about the city and India in general, “Not just Bengaluru but all of Indian cuisine is intelligent with a lot of history, heritage and tradition as the cooking styles are passed on from generation to generation. I ate everything and it was all delicious.”
With the HUG Foundation, Marco will also headline an initiative to fight hunger. “I think it is our responsibility to feed as many mouths as possible. So here I am, committed to the Pledge undertaken by WOAP to raise 50,000 meals this year,” he concludes.
