Fiery Marco Pierre joins Hell's Kitchen

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Jamie Oliver: not 'admired' by Marco Pierre White

Marco Pierre White: the new Hell's Kitchen star

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Marco Pierre White was unveiled as the new star of TV show Hell's Kitchen today - and immediately laid into fellow chef Jamie Oliver.

White dismissed Oliver's school dinners campaign as a "cynical" publicity stunt which has failed to improve children's food.

He also stoked up his simmering feud with Gordon Ramsay, saying: "He doesn't enrich my life in any way."

And he slammed celebrity chefs who put their names to expensive restaurants but never cook there.

White will put 10 celebrities through their paces in the new series of ITV1 reality show Hell's Kitchen, to be broadcast later in the year.

He announced details of the show at Luciano, his restaurant in St James's, central London.
And it wasn't long before he was taking a swipe at hit Channel 4 show Jamie's School Dinners.

Oliver campaigned for junk food to be banned from schools.

Following his TV series, the Government pledged an extra £280 million for school meals.

But an unimpressed White said: "I don't actually admire him. I like Jamie. But I think when you walk down Downing Street to Number 10 with a camera crew at the gates, it's a bit cynical.

"My kids are at school and nothing has changed. As long as companies like Sodexho and Compass are controlling school kitchens, nothing is going to change.

"It's very easy to highlight something. But if you're going to stand up for a principle, you have to keep on going back and keep on working at it."

Oliver delivered a petition with over 270,000 signatures for his Feed Me Better campaign to Prime Minister Tony Blair at Downing Street.

But White said: "To fill a box up with people signing whatever - big deal."

The Leeds-born chef - whose own children attend boarding school - proposed his own plan to revolutionise school dinners.

"You should get 1,000 chefs in the UK to look after certain areas and give their time, even if its a few hours, for nothing. I would put my weight behind something like that."

A young Gordon Ramsay learned his trade with White and the pair are said to have fallen out.

White confirmed the pair are no longer on speaking terms.

"If someone doesn't enrich my life, I don't want them to be part of my life. He has nothing to contribute to it," the star sniffed.

Ramsay starred in the first series of Hell's Kitchen.

And there seemed little doubt to whom White was referring when he explained his reasons for appearing on the show.

"I'll be very honest, I don't like the way my industry has been portrayed by certain people on TV.

"Young boys or girls should be inspired to go into the industry, not feel pushed out. This industry is like the Foreign Legion - it accepts everybody. A kitchen is a special place.

"My approach on Hell's Kitchen will be about inspiring people and helping them, not belittling them and putting them down.

"When people talk about Hell's Kitchen, one thing they never talk about is the food. One of the aspects of what we are going to do is to teach people how to cook."

Asked if he had Ramsay in mind, he replied: "I couldn't pass comment."

He refused to name names when criticising chefs who open restaurants but are never in the kitchen.

However, Ramsay's empire includes several restaurants in London and he recently opened a new venture in New York.

"Ask the question: when you go to a restaurant, do you expect the boy or girl with their name above the door to be behind the stove?" he said. "People are stepping into an illusion.

"The problem with a lot of chefs is that they are into being a celebrity. What they should do is choose what they wish to be - do they want to make money from being a celebrity or from being in the kitchen? There's a whole load of them."

White said that when he decided to quit as a chef "I could have charged high prices and put my name above the door and pretended that I was cooking when I didn't cook. But I could not live that lie.

"When you take your apron off and walk around in a jacket and charge high prices and you're not there - I think you're cheating."

White insisted he will be nothing like Ramsay when he takes over Hell's Kitchen.

He said: "I have never seen the programme and I'm not here to be contrived. I'm not here to follow in someone else's footsteps. I never have and never will.

"I'm here to do a job, and that is to feed 70 people every night and train 10 celebrities."

The show will feature five female celebrity trainees and five males.

The last series starred Gary Rhodes and Jean-Christophe Novelli.

ITV's head of factual entertainment, Richard Cowles, said: "Marco Pierre White is a kitchen legend and we are very excited to have coaxed him out of retirement and into Hell's Kitchen.

"He is the man responsible for teaching some of the country's greatest chefs - Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal both worked in his kitchens.

"Now a group of celebrities will get the chance to be taught by the original super chef. It's going to be fascinating to see whether, after seven years away from the kitchen, Marco's fiery passion still burns bright - I suspect that time hasn't mellowed him."

 

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