Marco Pierre White, the original enfant terrible of the kitchen, has grown up. He talks about his life, his loves and, of course, food, with at home's features editor, Jo Willacy.

You'd think it would go without saying that food is a passion for Marco Pierre White. But not so. Food is now a passion for the 48-year-old restaurateur and TV personality, but that hasn't always been the case. ‚'When I was young, winning my Michelin stars, food was an obsession not a passion,' explains Marco. ‚'Now it's a passion not an obsession. It's gone full circle. Finally.

 'As a young man in the kitchens, my ambition was fuelled by my insecurities and by my obsession. It was never a passion for food.' Intrigued that the original enfant terrible of the kitchens ‚Äì the man oft named a ‚'monster', renowned for his fiery temper, volatile outbursts and his steely-eyed stare - admits to having had insecurities, I delve further. What were those insecurities?

'Well, the same insecurities as most men have. It's peer pressure isn't it, all the time. It's deep-rooted in my childhood really. It goes way deep into my childhood and six pages is not enough to clarify the complications of a young man! [For] most young men and most young women in the kitchen, it's an obsession not a passion. Your obsession may be interpreted as a passion but certainly it's not. It's quite dysfunctional, quite unhealthy.

'All insecurities are about trying to prove yourself. As I've always said, ambition is, without doubt, the most dangerous occupation in the world. And I was never driven by pure ambition. If anything, I was ambitious by default - just by wanting to learn my craft, learn my trade, do my job well.'

High emotions, high achiever
So does Marco think it was this dysfunctional obsession that led to him gaining the long-held reputation of being a somewhat difficult, dare we say rude, character - an image that he almost denies now? 'I would never deny anything. But what I would say is that I was fuelled by pure emotion. Maybe raw emotion, but that's what I was driven by. And I never set out to be a star. I set out to do my job well and do my job very well.

'And there's absolutely no denying that he achieved that. At 33, Marco was the youngest ever chef to have been awarded three Michelin stars. He gained his first in 1987, soon after opening Harvey's in Wandsworth Common, London; his second came a year later and his third was awarded during his tenure at his eponymous restaurant at the former Hyde Park Hotel. But in 1999, at a mere 38, Marco retired from the kitchen and handed back his three stars. Does he still feel that was the right course of action to take? 'I achieved the top accolade in every guide, the two French guides, the Michelin and the Gault Millau and all the English guides. I've proven myself, to myself. There's nowhere else for me to go, apart from down.'

Back to basics
But down is definitely not the direction Marco is currently heading. Following hot on the heels from the ITV1 reality show Marco's Kitchen Burnout, in spring this year, September will see the publication of Marco's next cookery book, Marco Made Easy - Three-Star Chef Makes It Simple (£20,Weidenfeld & Nicolson). 'It's basically cooking at home with Marco. It's very easy, very straightforward. It dissolves all the myths of gastronomy. No technical ability required. It's about confidence and confidence at the stove. Minimal ingredients, and a lot of the time it's about showing how to cook to your personal taste and your palette, rather than with measured ingredients.'

Home, which Marco shares with his two sons, Luciano, 16, and his namesake, Marco, 15, is where Marco (senior) does most of his cooking. 'I do a lot of cooking at home. But, remember, cooking at home for me is not a job, it's a pleasure. For most people it's stressful. For me, it's easy, it's simple and that's what the book's all about. 'I like peasant food. When you cook in a pot, it's very simple. In my opinion, you get more flavours out of a pot than you do a pan. I prefer braised dishes in a pot rather than fried things from a pan.' Other than home, the only other places you're likely to find Marco eating are his own restaurants.

Home from home
'I very rarely dine outside of my own restaurants or my home. But I enjoy them both equally. Let's not forget, my restaurants are an extension of my front room.' No front room could feasibly house the vast collection of restaurants Marco currently presides over but, metaphorically, it would need an Italian corner for Frankie's, the Italian restaurant chain he co-owns with his good friend, jockey Frankie Dettori; an area for his gastro-pub The Yew Tree Inn in Highclere, Berkshire; his steak house restaurant The Swan Inn in Aughton, Lancashire and the City of London Steak & Ale House. Then there are the London favourites, Wheeler's of St James' (a collaboration with Sir Rocco Forte), Soho's L'Escargot and Holland Park's Belvedere, not forgetting a corner for Chelsea football fans who visit his restaurant, Marco at Chelsea. He even needs to cram a cruise liner into his front room, with his restaurant The White Room on board the P&O cruise liner, The Ventura.

An inspirational force
It's on-board this cruise ship that Marco spends quite a bit of time, either training his staff in the kitchen or running cooking courses for adults and children who are holidaying on the ship. 'I enjoy teaching every age group. It's about inspiring people. It's about assisting them and helping them to dissolve their fears when it comes to cooking. If you can do that and you can get people cooking, then the next step is that they start to enrich their lives and the people around them.'

Who, in his career, is he most proud to have trained?
'I don't think like that. There's lots of people who've gone on to do very well, but who aren't famous. They just chose to go down another road. When you have a three-star Michelin restaurant, the one thing you can't do is turn someone into a three-star Michelin chef, but what you can do is give them three-star discipline. And that's what I would like to think people left me with‚ 'three-star discipline.' Despite no longer cooking, Marco is certainly no stranger to his kitchens - and his discipline is something he still aims to impart. 'I still work in the kitchens, but I don't do the service. My day is spent training people, inspiring people and sharing my knowledge. If I was in a service, I'd be teaching nobody. I enjoy being a teacher, rather than a leader of a large brigade. Today I just like doing my job. I like working, I like sharing my story with the young.'

A tantalising tale
There's little doubt Marco has a fascinating story to tell, both personally and professionally. It's been a life well-worth documenting (his autobiography, The Devil in the Kitchen, makes for a tasty read), starting with the early tragedy of his Italian mother, Maria-Rosa, dying from a brain haemorrhage when Marco was just six years old. This was followed by his years of success as a chef which led to him being named the godfather of haute cuisine, with a few bits of added spice along the way - including three marriages, one of which, to model Lisa Butcher, ended immediately after the honeymoon - a costly divorce and custody battles, as well as his successful TV career (taking over from Gordon Ramsay on Hell's Kitchen, and most recently hosting his own show, Marco's Kitchen Burnout. So, does he have any regrets?

'No. If it wasn't for all the mistakes I've made in my life, I wouldn't be the person I am today. I wouldn't be as wise as I am today and have the stability that I have within my life today.' Is he now a changed, more mature, man? 'Well...' and Marco pauses for the longest time throughout our entire interview. And that's saying something because he's a naturally slow speaker, thoughtful, and with somewhat unnervingly lengthy pauses dotted throughout the conversation. 'That's not for me to answer that question,' he says finally. Despite Marco's calm attitude while we speak on the phone, it's still easy to tell there are two things he's passionate about - his children (he refuses to answer any questions about them, explaining that he resolutely won't use them in any form of publicity) and his current role as brand ambassador for Bernard Matthews, a topic that has seen him come under a certain degree of criticism.

Standing firm
Justifying his position, he's previously been quoted as saying that we have to live in the‚ 'real world'. I ask him what the‚ 'real world' is, in his opinion, when it comes to food? And so begins an impassioned, five-minute monologue. 'It's not about the real world when it comes to food, it's about the real world and what people earn. A lot of people can't afford organic or free-range food, they really can't. That's the real world. And if it wasn't for farming, modern-day farming, there wouldn't be a lot of the items on the fishmongers stall or in the supermarket. Think about it, the prawns are farmed, the sea bass is farmed, the trout's farmed, the salmon's farmed. And a lot of the meat on the shelves, they're produced by modern-day farming methods. It's not all organic. It's not from individual little farms. So that's what I say when we talk about the real world. It's to do with what a person takes home.

'When people attack me for associating myself with Bernard Matthews, what people must remember is that they don't just attack me, they attack the consumer, they attack every employee of Bernard Matthews, and they don't have that right. Because those people who work for Bernard Matthews, who in my opinion is one of the country's great farmers, they work hard for their money at the end of the month and that money assists them in bringing up their families, in putting rooves over their families' heads, in putting food on the table. 'I hate this snobbery from individuals who mainly attack me to try and elevate themselves in some way or another. And don't tell me that everything in their pantry, everything in their fridge, is organic. No. I hate hypocrisy and I hate snobbery.

'How many of those individuals have sat down at a business meeting and there's a plate of biscuits on the table and they've taken one. A sandwich at lunchtime. Those loaves of bread, were they all made with free-range eggs? It's an ignorance on their behalf. I'm a great believer in realness. I was brought up in the most humble side of society and I'm very happy flying the flag for the working class man.' So how does he feel about the demise of the Labour party at the last election? 'A Labour government is good for the working man, but not for the man who wants to work.'

Deep-rooted passions
Marco is proud of his working class roots, brought up in a council house in Leeds by his father, Frank, also a chef, following his mother's death. When I ask Marco to describe himself in just three words, this time, he takes no time to answer at all. It's his quickest, most straightforward reply yet. 'Council house toff.' Certainly no longer a council house resident, Marco's nod to the‚ 'toff' lifestyle comes, most obviously, in the form of his long-lasting love for game hunting and freshwater fishing.

'Ever since I was a young boy, I've liked the outside life. I like being alongside the river bank, in the woods, in the fields. I search to surround myself with Mother Nature. If I'm given the option to wrap myself up in Mother Nature, walking down a river bank, through a field or a wood, or go to a cocktail party, I prefer the former.' And when he's walking down that river bank, does Marco still feel that‚ 'madness' follows him around, as he's been quoted as saying in the press before?

'I think madness follows everyone around. There's an element of madness within everyone's life. I live my life and I do what I do, and there's madness everywhere we go. Gastronomy is the greatest therapy any misfit can ever be exposed to. It's just whether we choose to engage with it. I'm always fascinated by madness. I believe there's a lot of logic within madness. I like sitting in the company of mavericks and mercurial characters.' And, on those occasions when Marco does surround himself with others, I get the feeling he's no longer the most mercurial of them all.

Pictures: david bentley