The devil in the kitchen Sex, pain, madness, and the making of a great chef

Enfant terrible of the kitchen, White earned three Michelin stars leading the restaurant at London's Hyde Park Hotel, the very first British chef so lauded. Yorkshire-born into a sad childhood dominated by the early loss of his mother, the teenage White found his vocation working in a local hotel's kitchen. In uncensored prose, White portrays the arc of his career as it passed from this provincial dining room up to the pinnacle of culinary accomplishment at London's legendary Le Gavroche. Utterly focused on learning his craft, White absorbed the examples of master French chefs. Beyond White\xb6 s personal triumph, his memoir documents the rapid evolution of British taste in the 1970s and 1980s, when growing affluence and sophistication among the British public encouraged restaurants to dump stodgy British cooking and welcome French-disciplined young chefs who could cook at least as well as their neighbors across the Channel. --Mark Knoblauch Copyright 2007 Booklist

The world's most celebrated chefs are divided into two opposing camps these days. In one, there are the do-gooder humanists like Alice Waters of Berkeley's Chez Panisse. In the other, there are the self-avowed holy terrors like Britain's Marco Pierre White, author of this plodding autobiography, co-written with James Steen and originally published in the U.K. in 2006 under the untoward title White Slave. An influential figure in English cooking in the 1980s and '90s, White built an empire of London restaurants that included Harveys (where he became the youngest chef-at age 28-to win two Michelin stars), Mirabelle and the Oak Room. Famous folks like Michael Caine and Prince Charles were admirers of White's smart, decadent interpretations of classic French dishes. But while White was widely lauded for his culinary skill, it was his flamboyant temper that most frequently earned him headlines. An avowed proponent of tongue lashings (White calls them "bollockings") toward kitchen staff for all manner of infractions, the chef claims that such harsh behavior is justified in the pursuit of excellent dining. "If you are not extreme then people will take short cuts because they don't fear you," White explains. What he dubbed his "theatre of cruelty" extended beyond his kitchen. During White's glory years, getting thrown out of one of his establishments by the enfant terrible himself was considered a badge of honor by some Londoners. White recounts in the book one such eviction, of a patron who had criticized his meal: "Staring at this dwarfish, patronizing man... I found myself saying, `Why don't you just f- off?'" Scenes like this make up the lion's share of The Devil in the Kitchen; indeed, after a point, they become dirge-like in their predictability. Why, I asked myself midway through this book-right around the time that my discomfort at White's antics gave way to boredom-would readers, much less diners, want to be in the company of such a gregariously antisocial character? As is the case with virtually any autobiography, the answer is that we are seeking a window into the subject's soul, no matter how, well, unsavory that subject might be. His book, unfortunately, provides no such insights, offering readers little more than a continual, atonal concerto of scuffles with customers and insults to co-workers. Please, I wanted to say to White as I was reading, stifle all that alpha male stuff and just cook. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved