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COMPLIMENTS FROM THE CHEF

Just completed a long, stormy interview with Marco Pierre White – the “original bad boy chef”™ – for the Irish Times. The interview was conducted in his new restaurant on Dawson Street and, at one point, I really thought he was going to tell me to get the fuck out. (This man once stormed out of a Radio Times interview, for Christ’s sake.)

White is a combative character, but I thought I gave as good as I got. I asked him, for example, why chefs were allowed more latitude to be pricks than hairdressers or landscape gardiners? Anyway, when the interview was over, he stood up, shook my hand and (I have this on tape by the way!) said….

“I respect people who are good at their job. And you’re good at your job. I’d be delighted if you and your lady wife would come back here this evening as my guests.”

Maybe he says that to all the writers. I don’t know. But you could have knocked me over with a baseball bat.

UPDATE: My mother tells me he said something similar to Pat Kenny on the Late Late Show last night. Well, that’s the wind fairly comprehensibly taken out of my sails right there.

UPDATE #2: You can now read the interview here.