Marco Pierre White underestimates the value of front-of-house staff
Few would dispute that the publication of White Heat by Marco Pierre White in 1989 helped create the phenomenon of the celebrity chef.
Moody black and white portraits of a sullen, hollow-cheeked Marco glaring at the camera, cigarette dangling from his lips suddenly made cooking the new rock and roll and encouraged a whole generation of chefs into the industry.
Those same portraits decorated the set of the current series of Hell’s Kitchen, which finished its run on ITV on Monday with 66-year-old former Dynasty actress Linda Evans emerging as the unlikely winner.
Marco might look a little different these days – those hollow cheeks are long gone – but underneath he’s still as fiery and controversial as he was back in the day, mercilessly turfing customers out of Harveys into the cold Wandsworth night. With Marco running a service, even in the make believe world of Hell’s Kitchen, you would expect to see some fireworks and he didn’t disappoint. Celebrities including Danielle Bux and Niomi McLean-Daley visibly quaked in their clogs as he barked out demands for crab, veal, cockles and mash and dismissed a complaining customer with the withering instruction to “go back to Surrey.”
So far, so entertaining. But when Marco told celebrities that working as a waiter for a night was their punishment for a poor performance in the kitchen, he did himself and the industry no favours at all. There is no front-of-house equivalent to White Heat to inspire young people to become waiters. So, to deliberately demean the job in front of an audience of 5 million people is at best thoughtless and at worst damaging to the image of the whole industry.
Fortunately, not everyone agrees with Marco’s view of front-of-house, and there are a number of initiatives that celebrate excellence in service and hopefully attract people into hospitality.
Since 1980, the Academy of Food & Wine has held its annual Sommelier of the Year competition, won last year by Irishman Gearoid Devaney of Tom Aikens restaurant. As one of the judges of that year’s competition, I can personally attest to the knowledge, skill and attention to detail displayed by the finalists. From correctly opening a bottle of Champagne so that the cork doesn’t pop (a trick I’ve been trying and failing to replicate ever since) to identifying wines in a blind tasting, the competition demonstrated that the role of sommelier is a complex and highly technical one, and not to be sniffed at, even if your initials are MPW.
Now in its third year, the Galvin Cup will offer the opportunity for professional mixologists (that’s barmen to you and me) and catering college students to strut their stuff. The competition was created by chef Chris Galvin and Galvin at Windows general manager Fred Sirieix because “they felt it was about time that bar staff, like chefs, received recognition for their efforts and a chance to shine.”
Sirieix is also the driving force behind the Galvin’s Chance charity that initially plans to give 12 youngsters from deprived backgrounds the opportunity to work front of house in Park Lane hotels and gain an NVQ qualification in the process. (Sirieix has organised a Park and Tower race on 17 June that will see celebrities and well known chefs race around the Serpentine and up 28 flights of stairs to Galvin at Windows in order to raise funds for the charity).
There are rumours that Hell’s Kitchen will be Marco Pierre White’s final TV appearance. If that turns out to be true then it will be a shame. I, for one will miss his larger than life on-screen persona that Hell’s Kitchen contestant Ade Edmonson summed up beautifully as a mix of “PT Barnum and Confucious”. But I’m sure I won’t be the only one glad to see the back of those un-gentlemanly digs at the fine work that goes on in restaurant dining rooms across the country.
Do you know of any competitions or schemes that promote and celebrate front of house disciplines? Click the add a comment button and let us know