Capital plan for Hell's Kitchen star

Three Michelin stars are given to a restaurant whose food is worth making a special journey to. And although Marco Pierre White returned his 10 years ago, Dubai residents will certainly want to travel to The Fairmont Bab Al Bahr in Abu Dhabi, where he opens two restaurants in October – if only because of his legendary fiery reputation.

White was the original celebrity chef, an enfant terrible renowned for his mercurial temper; who established the kitchen as no place for the lily-livered; who flung a full cheeseboard against the wall in a disagreement over the shape of a piece of Brie; who charged a patron £25 (Dh150) for a side of chips ordered off-menu; who made Gordon Ramsay cry (and some say taught Ramsay the hardball tactics he uses to make TV so entertaining).

But anyone looking for a live-action piece of this White-hot, SAS-bootcamp atmosphere would best look elsewhere. "Most of my reputation is a product of exaggeration and ignorance," the chefpreneur tells Emirates Business rather dismissively. "If you've seen me on television, on Hell's Kitchen, I never shout, I never scream, I never bully.

"I like to think customers come to my restaurants for many different reasons – who am I to judge? My job is to feed them and water them and create an atmosphere for them to relax, where they can entertain their friends, or have a quiet romantic dinner – as formal or informal as the customer wishes."

This is White speaking as a businessman; he hung up his chef's hat in 1999 and returned his stars to focus on his family and his businesses.

"I was 38 years old and I had three options," he says of retiring at the top of his game.

"I could continue spending six days a week behind the stove, charging high prices and retain my status. I could live a lie, pretend I cook when I don't and continue increasing my prices, or I could pluck up the courage and let go of my status, accept unemployment but regain my freedom and spend time with my children – they're more important than Michelin stars.

"I was being judged by people who knew less than me; I didn't want to continue that dance to the Michelin drum."

Our conversation, then, does not revolve around tarragon and leg of lamb, instead we talk risk factors and the recipe for success.

At the Dh800-million Fairmont Bab Al Bahr, which opens next month near the capital's exhibition centre, White's outlets are in the final stages of preparation.

The Marco Pierre White Steakhouse & Grill seats 56 and will serve an eclectic combination of innovative grills and classic English fare, says Bastian Breuer, Director of Food and Beverage at the hotel. White simply says it will be "great cuts of meat that are cooked very well and served in a great environment. With that [formula], you're there, aren't you?"

And Frankie's, the second in the UAE after one at Dubai Marina, is part of a chain of Italian family restaurants he created with Godolphin horse jockey Frankie Dettori.

"As Dubai has the likes of Gordon Ramsay, Gary Rhodes and Pierre Gagnaire, we are proud to complement these efforts in the capital with unique, value-enriched dining experiences for the everyday occasion. We hope to set a precedent wherby Abu Dhabi attracts those in the culinary profession of similar calibre," says Breuer.

Walter Hall, Chief Operating Officer at Rmal Hospitality, which owns the hotel and the Frankie's franchise in the UAE, says White's name will undoubtedly entice potential customers, "but Marco understands and we understand that we must over-deliver on the anticipated expectation if we are to truly succeed.

"The success of any restaurant depends on the attention to detail and offering the diner an experience that makes them crave to return. In this respect Marco is a joy to work with. He is a perfectionist and is also very aware that a restaurant must be geared to the local market."

White is unashamedly optimistic about the new ventures, which open in one of the best places on the map to sit out the recession. "If Frankie's in Dubai is anything to go by, that's always packed," he says, arguing that if he gives the public what it wants at a reasonable price point, the restaurants should do phenomenally. "There are no guarantees – if there were, how boring!"

So what can punters expect? Describing his involvement, White says he is "one link in the chain" alongside chefs and restaurant management. While he says it is necessary to respect others' individuality and talent, it is he who finally signs off on the menus. "Success has many fathers," he trots out, "Failure only one".

So he isn't cooking, but customers will see him at the restaurants six times a year, for about a week at a time.

Don't expect him to replicate the Michelin experience either. His may be the brand above the restaurant door, but he doesn't cook professionally any more – and he believes a chef cannot truly serve up three-star Michelin quality remotely, offering the example of French chef Marc Veyrat, who runs two three-star restaurants, but closes one when he moves to the other. "Look at the posh restaurants in the Middle East – they're not that busy; that's because they're giving the customers what they want to give them, rather than what people want. People want to be pampered and loved; the great French restaurants of the 1950s and 1960s weren't trying to be posh, they weren't sterile places that told you what to do," he said.

"I think the future of dining out is affordable glamour, people want to enjoy themselves when they're dining out, not be told by the waiter what to eat and how to eat it – you might as well ask the waiter to take a seat at your table in that case."

But Michelin stars, I say, are what bring the punters in; don't celebrity chefs fill restaurants? "Don't tell me that Gordon Ramsay in Dubai is as good as in London," he exclaims. "It'll be watered down – necessarily so. If you paid to see Elton John and then, when the curtain went up, it was his right-hand man, you'd ask for your money back. When things are that personal, it's very different."

I proffer, instead, the argument one-star chef Gary Rhodes gave me: you don't expect Giorgio Armani to cut every suit. White goes one better: "Gary Rhodes comparing himself to Giorgio Armani – that's a bit precious. He's deluding himself. That's like me comparing myself to Picasso. For a suit personally cut by Armani himself, you'd pay thousands of pounds more, wouldn't you?

"The most poisonous sauce in the kitchen is the chef's ego," he adds.

The son of an English chef and an Italian woman who had come to Britain to learn English, White grew up in a Leeds council house, arriving in London at 16 with "£7.36, a box of books and a bag of clothes". He began his training under Albert Roux and Michel Roux at Le Gavroche and opened his own restaurant in 1987. By 1994, he was the youngest chef ever to win three Michelin stars (at the age of 33), and before "abdicating" as he calls it, he had trained several of today's top talents, such as Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal.

His chef's whites are now only worn as host of Hell's Kitchen, the series he took over from Ramsay. He says he doesn't miss his glory days and only cooks for family.

So what's the plan, then? He's expanded into Ireland, runs restaurants on P&O cruise ships and wants to open in Las Vegas and India – but how many does he want? "That's not the way I look at things," he dodges the question. "If I said 30, that measures your ego. Let's just live our lives and if the opportunity arises, fine."


Friends and enemies

- Frankie Dettori: First opened a restaurant with White in 2004; they now run seven Frankie's Italian Bar and Grill outlets. 

- Lisa Butcher: White proposed to the model, his second wife (right), within three weeks of meeting her. At the wedding he reportedly said she looked dressed for the catwalk rather than the aisle. She has said White told her he didn't love her on the first day of their honeymoon. 

- Gordon Ramsay (left): Trained under White at Harvey's, where White famously made him cry. "Gordon made himself cry." White tells Emirates Business. "A lot of young chefs – myself included – have cried over service." They fell out when Ramsay turned up at White's wedding to Butcher with TV cameras in tow, without informing either bride or groom.

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