The Editor's Hospitality Blog

This week, Caterersearch features an exclusive interview with arguably the UK's greatest ever chef, Marco Pierre White.

Marco's attentions might these days be focused more upon his expanding restaurant empire; but he will be forever remembered as the first British chef ever to win three Michelin stars, and the world's youngest ever chef to do so. To read his thoughts on Ramsay, handing back Michelin stars and and his decision to head up the third season of TV's Hell's Kitchen, click here.

Forthcoming Caterer and Hotekeeper guest editor, Marco Pierre White has been over in the States recently, promoting the US release of his autobiography and, rumour has it, progressing the launch of a Frankie's restaurant in Las Vegas.

Marco's book - called White Slave over here but rebranded as Devil in the Kitchen for our transatlantic chums - has gone down very well. The New York Times review called it a "moving, unaffected, delightfully honest book", and his tour has drawn a lot of media attention.

Most of the journalists despatched to interview the chef have had their questions politely answered and have then headed back to the office to file their copy. But a few, such as Bethany Jean Clement of Seattle's free weekly alternative arts and culture newspaper the Stranger, have been 'Marco-ed'.

Bethany's tale of a boozy session with Marco is sure to enduce alcohol-related flashbacks in anyone else who has spent an evening with the former three Michelin-starred chef and lived to tell the tale. Her description of Marco administering his 'house cocktail' bears repeating.

It involves a champagne flute full of sambuca set afire, extinguished by clamping one's hand over the glass; then the entire contents are gulped down, followed by the inhalation of sambuca fumes through a straw. "Mario [Batali, one presumes] says it's like drinking liquid heroin!" he proclaims more than once. Dinner's over, a crowd of admirers is circled around, supplies materialize, the PR people look stricken, and Marco demonstrates as cameras flash. I sit to his right; it takes very little goading for me to follow suit. It's exhilarating, disgusting, idiotic. During the sucking-of-the-fumes part, Marco leans in, his face inches from mine, shouting, "SUCK HARDER! YOU'RE NOT SUCKING HARD ENOUGH!"

As someone who has carried the Mark of Marco - a champagne flute-shaped blister - on my palm, I can well appreciate how her head felt the following morning.

I'm off to the Hospitality Action Question of Sport dinner at Wembley Stadium tonight. The idea is that guests get wined and dined, check out the stadium's makeover and test their knowledge of sporting trivia, while the industry's charity makes pots of cash.

I'll report back tomorrow on what goes on. Meanwhile, to get in the mood, a few of us have racked our brains to contrive a 'top ten' of sportstars with hospitality connections.

Can you think of any we've missed?

Gordon Ramsay seemed set for a career-making sign-up to Rangers FC, before a cruciate knee ligament changed his plans. Lucky he could cook a bit ...

Terry Venables Current England assistant coach, El Tel once owned a nightclub called Scribes West on Kensington HIgh Street.

Lee Dixon Former Fat Duck shareholder Lee Dixon still co-owns the Riverside Brasserie on Monkey Island.

Frankie Dettori This year's Derby winner lent his name to the chain of restaurants he launched in partnership with Marco Pierre White.

David Coulthard co-owns Monaco's "chic, affordable and accessible" Columbus Hotel with Malmaison mastermind, Ken McCullough.

Sir Alex Ferguson managed Fergie's pub after his playing career ended. Downstairs bar, the Elbow Room was apparently named in honour of his robust style of play.

Together, Sir Ian Botham and Alan Lamb (AKA Beefy and Lamby), are the face of British meat.

Shoeless Joe's Bars may not have worked out, but Victor Ubogu now runs a corporate hospitality company firm that's got a packed summer and autumn schedule.

Roberto di Matteo followed his Chelsea career by opening two restaurants, Friends and Baraonda, a stone's throw from Stamford Bridge.

(... to sound of barrel being scraped ...) Christian minister and erstwhile heavyweight boxing champion of the world, George Foreman is now making the world a thinner place, thanks to his Lean, Mean, Fat-reducing Grilling Machine.

After a week defined by the Cateys, it's nice to be able to sit back and enjoy a couple of bashes laid on by other organisations this week. Last night saw the Craft Guild of Chefs' annual awards at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London; tonight, it's the turn of the Academy of Culinary Arts, at Claridge's. Tomorrow, I diet ...

The Guild put on their usual uptempo evening. Host with the most Alan Dewberry, who MC-ed as energetically as ever, introduced Guild stalwarts David Mulcahy and Steve Munkley as the Ant and Dec of the chef world when he invited them on stage to run through the shortlist. Later, Lilia and Darren from Strictly Come Dancing lent a little Latin pizzazz to the evening.

The Guild has a lovely tradition of giving winners a dinner jacket with its motif on the left lapel, when they go on stage to receive their award - a nice bit of theatre that reminds me of the moment the winner of the US Masters dons the green jacket.

I was thrilled to see Simon Young of the Jumeirah Carlton Tower pick up the conference and banqueting award - he did such a sterling job for us when he hosted our Chef Conference a couple of months back.

All the winners were present except Marco Pierre White, who picked up the Special award at the end of the night. There to receive the trophy for him was Marco's group exec chef, Callum "I get free psychoanalysis as part of my salary" Watson.

I've just got in from the Academy of Culinary Arts' 25th annual awards of excellence, which were held at Claridges. What a spectacular night!

I need to get to sleep soon (I am meeting Marco Pierre White for lunch tomorrow to discuss his forthcoming Caterer guest editorship, and that'll require all the energy I can muster) but I'll briefly fill you in on the event.

The awards, which reward the best young people under the age of 26 working as chefs, pastry chefs or in service, were co-hosted by Brian Turner and Ritz Hotel Exec Chef, John Williams, who did a nice Two Ronnies turn onstage.

Sometimes you have to pinch yourself when you see your table plan: I was sat with Ramon Pajares, Michel Roux, Richard Shepherd, Jane Asher and Gerald Scarfe, among others.

I've now finished The Perfectionist, Rudolph Chelminski's account of the life and untimely death of three-starred French chef, Bernard Loiseau. What a sad story.

In my first posting, I described how the first half of the book introduces Loiseau within the context of the great French chefs of the past fifty years. In the second half, the author cements the image of a chef whose gastronomic confidence and lack of personal self-confidence seem to flourish in tandem. We learn of his invention of a system of binding sauces with vegetable purées; and one of his defining creations, frogs' legs with garlic purée and parsley juice, is described in enlightening detail. But at the same time we witness him working ever harder to hone his offering, becoming overly embroiled in building works at his restaurant and incurring mounting debts ("Bernard had mortgaged his future to Michelin").

Catering colleges have suffered a few body blows in the pages of Caterer and Hotelkeeper over the past few months. First, Marco Pierre White brands them "the biggest waste of time", in an exclusive interview with the Caterer. Then, Oliver Peyton calls college "a stop-off before you're sent to prison".

As you can imagine, letters and emails have been flooding in as a result. The following excerpt is representative of the many responses we have received:

"Making sweeping statements such as this is reckless and irresponsible. If I were to say that all restaurants in this country were a disgrace ... people would consider me an idiot. In reality, there are some excellent restaurants in this country but many more that need to improve".

Where do you sit in this debate? let us know either way.

Not much time to post this morning - I'm up to London to interview Marco Pierre White and Raymond Blanc together for the September 6th issue of Caterer
, whichMarco is guest-editing. Together, the two can boast five Michelin stars. Marco spent some of his formative cheffing days at Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, but the two superchefs haven't met for over a decade, so there should be lots of stories to tell when I get back to the office ...

My roundtable discussion with Raymond Blanc and Marco Pierre White, which I referred to in my last posting, was as high-octane and eventful as you'd expect from two such big, impassioned personalities.

I've yet to write up the notes I scribbled through the lunch, and when I make sense of them you'll be able to read my account of the day in the September 6th issue of Caterer and Hotelkeeper, which Marco is guest-editing. Meanwhile, one snippet of conversation springs to mind.

The two chefs are no strangers to catering for - and hobnobbing with - stellar celebrities nowadays. But both could remember the first time they ever catered for a star. For Marco, the star in question was Sasha Distel, for whom he cooked a full English breakfast at the George Hotel in Leeds. Marco admitted that he waited around all day to cook a dinner for the French crooner upon his return from the local theatre where he was performing. Sadly, Monsieur Distel went straight to his room, leaving White desolate.

Raymond's first celebrity diner was the rather more A-list Charlton Heston. "He filled up my tiny red-and-white tablecloth restaurant in Oxford, but he was just a normal guy," reminisced Blanc, who resolved never to be starstruck from that day on.

Who is the biggest star you have ever cooked for? And have you ever been left tongue-tied by seeing one of your idols walk into your restaurant or hotel?

Hot on the heels of Raymond Blanc's new kitchen reality show, The Restaurant, which began last Thursday, tonight sees the start of the new series of Hell's Kitchen, in which Marco Pierre White tries to impart cheffing skills to a hapless bunch of celebs.

I'm going along for dinner tonight, courtesy of Hobart, who have supplied the kitchen equipment used by Marco and his students. I'll tell you how it goes when I get back. Meanwhile, check out this interview with Marco on the Mirror's website. It sounds as though Marco is getting off on the wrong foot with the national press already ...

I've just got in after dining at Hell's Kitchen (courtesy of Hobart) and I'm determined to tell you what it was like to be fed by Marco Pierre White and his ragtag band of celebrities before I hit the sack.

Filming is taking place in a pretty insalubrious part of East London. As I drove past kebab shops and derelict tower blocks, I became convinced I was in the wrong part of town. But then the cluster of paparazzi around the doorway into the studio told me I was in the right place. Remarkably, their lenses all seemed to be lowered as I swept past them. I guess they were all changing films rolls, and must have missed me ...

Inside, we were whisked past an imposing, wall-high image of Marco wielding a meat cleaver and to our table by an ITV producer, who explained en route that all phones were to be turned off and no visits to the toilet were to be paid between nine and ten pm.

As we walked through the dining room to our table, I spied Marco, sporting a kamikazi-style bandana, barking orders from the pass at a wan-looking Anneka Rice. Stopping only to marvel at how tall Paul Young is, I passed on to our table.

Once sat down, we immediately began celeb-spotting. I spotted George Galloway sporting a rather poor beard. A fellow diner pointed out Carol Thatcher. Does one have to have been in a reality show to eat out Hell's Kitchen? If so, what was I doing there? A small boy with a jet-black quiff the size and shape of a duck breezed in. "He's off Pop Idol", a companion told me, "or was it X-Factor?" Show host, Angus Deayton wanders from table to table filming links to camera. Ooh, isn't he small, people whisper, as he passes.

Dinner was excellent: ragout of shellfish, pig's trotter in a morel sauce and blackberry souffle. But sadly, there were no screaming matches at the pass, no tears, wailing or gnashing of teeth from humiliated celebs; and no forcible ejections, by Marco, of diners daring to ask for the salt cellar to pep up their meal. In short, the service went by calmly and uneventfully. Didn't anyone bother to brief Chef that slick service makes for dull telly?

A trio of small girls with big hairdo's swang past to the loo. Are they married to footballers, I wondered, or in a pop band? Or perhaps both? Who could say. Either way, they were probably in junior school when Marco last stepped behind the stove.

By ten thirty, all diners had been fed and watered. I grabbed a few words with Marco, who was beaming with pride at the slickness of the operation, and did the universal chefs' signage for hard work: the clenched fist pumping horizontally backward and forward from the tummy button.

As I left, a text came through on my mobile from a friend. "Punch George Galloway in the face and I'll buy you a pint". But George, Carol and the bloke with the black duck on his head had already left the building, leaving me to wonder how I would ever get home from the arse-end of nowhere on the night of a tube strike.

Clearly the season of the hospitality TV show is upon us. Joining Raymond, Jamie, Marco and Nigella this Thursday is Ruth Watson, whose third series of The Hotel Inspector starts on Five, on Thursday evening.

The show sees Ruth attempt to reverse the fortunes of ailing British hotels and B&Bs. In advance of the first episode, Ruth has sent us her ten top tips for improving your hotel. Here are five of her ideas, to whet your appetite for the programme.

* Keep all external signs clean and have up-to-date ratings information on them.

What other tips would you add to this list? Let us know.

Last Friday I witnessed the unlikely spectacle of Marco Pierre White and Sunday Times restaurant critic AA Gill comparing leg hair, and saw a member of the aristocracy dressed as a tramp - all courtesy of Hospitality Action.

White and Gill were joined by food columnist and son of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Tom Parker Bowles at the shooting of the latest Hospitality Action awareness adverts. This ongoing series of adverts depicts top chefs suffering the sort of life-altering set-backs often experienced by beneficiaries of HA funding. Previous ads have portrayed Raymond Blanc being led by a guide dog, Heston Blumenthal living rough and Anton Edelmann languishing in a hospital bed.

Gill arrived on set first, sporting a stained and raggedy jacket and trouser combo that looked as if he had lost one of his review-lunches down the front of it. "I borrowed one of your suits, Marco", he claimed, when the Hell's Kitchen supremo appeared. Marco exemplified Oxford Street doorway-chic, his Robinson Crusoe-style trousers exposing his ankles and calves. After a few moments spent gauging who had the fuzziest legs, they slumped onto a park bench, vodka bottles in hand, singing "underneath the arches" and laughing like drains.

Only last week, Gill wrote in the Sunday Times: "I always book under a false name, but I never wear a disguise. Getting into a wig and a costume and talking in a funny voice to eat dinner is weird and way too self-obsessed – it’s the sort of thing they do in America." According to HA chief exec Penny Moore, he broke that rule last Friday, when he and Marco left the shoot to review a nearby restaurant in full down-and -out garb. Considering that he had sportingly given up a day of his life to support HA, I think we can forgive him ...

Tom Parker Bowles took longer to emerge from make-up than his fellow tramps. "It's hard to make an aristo look rough", quipped Marco.

Look out for the resulting adverts in future issues of Caterer and Hotelkeeper.

In a recent blog I reported on how Marco Pierre White, AA Gill and Tom Parker Bowles had linked up for a photoshoot in support of industry charity, Hospitality Action. this week's Mail on Sunday published the fruits of their labour.

The three agreed to pose together for the latest HA awareness advert. This ongoing series of adverts depicts top chefs suffering the sort of life-altering set-backs often experienced by beneficiaries of HA funding. Previous ads have portrayed Raymond Blanc being led by a guide dog, Heston Blumenthal living rough and Anton Edelmann languishing in a hospital bed.

Once they had finished the shoot, AA Gill and Marco went out to lunch at a restaurant Gill was reviewing for his Sunday Times column, still in full tramps' outift. In the column - which is well worth a read for a first-hand account of the day - Gill describes being "dressed up in a vomitous suit by Detritus and Garbage and a stinking, slimy shirt and dead man’s shoes. My face was distressed and my ankles blackened, and snot was rubbed into my hair."

I'll be interviewing Marco Pierre White onstage at this year's Chef Conference - but I need your help with writing my questions.

What burning issues would you like to hear Marco address? Or what episodes in his colourful career would you like to hear more about?

To make things more interesting, there's a great prize for the best question we receive. The person who sends in the question that the Caterer team judges to be the most thought-provoking will receive a free ticket to the 200 Chef Conference, plus a place at the conference dinner - a package together worth £250.

Submit your question to Marco by responding to this blog posting. Good luck!

Anthea Turner has been sacked from Hell's Kitchen. Marco Pierre White's final sacking - the show now moves to a public vote for its final period - saw the TV presenter join her husband, Grant Bovey, in the also rans of the 2009 ITV series.

A rather relieved Ade Edmondson, who'd been warn down by Turner's incessant chatter, was left with Gary Linekar's fiancee, Danielle Bux, Dynasty star Linda Evans and Ms Dynamite, aka Niomi Daley, to battle it out for the overall title.

Meanwhile, we're all wondering what the body snatchers have done with the real Marco as the man on the pass tonight seemed rather too warm and cuddly to be Britain's first enfant terrible of the kitchen.

Dynasty star Linda Evans, aka Krystle Carrington, has clinched the title of overall winner of Marco Pierre White's Hell's Kitchen following a closely fought battle with Young Ones star Ade Edmondson.

The celebrities were allowed to bring back two sacked contestants each to help run their half of the kitchen for the night as Evans and Edmondson ran two separate services simultaneously.

Edmondson re-employed Ms Dynamite and Danielle Bux, while Evans brought back workhorse Bruce Grobbelaar and organiser extra-ordinaire Anthea Turner.

If you can't bear the thought of no more Hell's Kitchen and you're missing Marco already, you might want to enter our competition.

It appears that 2009 Hell's Kitchen star Linda Evans found herself in hell well before filming even started on the ITV hit series.

According to "celebrity channel" Eleven, Evans, who played filthy rich Krystle Carrington in 1980s cult soap Dynasty, couldn't bear the thought of leaving the Dorchester and sharing digs with her fellow contestants in a flat next to the kitchen.

Eleven says: "Evans threw a Dynasty-style strop and quit the programme when told by bosses she had to leave the hotel and move into the flat adjacent to the show's kitchen.

It goes on to quote a source in The Sun who said: "She is not used to slumming it and wasn't about to move in with eight strangers. As she saw it, ITV had already got her at a cut-price fee and this was taking the biscuit."

Clearly someone talked her in to changing her mind as she managed to muck in the rest right up until yesterday when she cooked lunch for Raymond Blanc before beating Ade Edmondson in the final service.