The Devil in the Kitchen (23 page)

The cops turned from Nicky to me, the monster in the darkness. Let’s be honest, I don’t suppose there was the slightest possibility of the question being retracted. One of them sneered, “Come again?”

I said, “I think it’s unnecessary to ask her if she’s been smoking drugs, and I think you should retract the question and apologize for asking it.”

They told me to get back in the car. They didn’t want trouble. “No,” I said, “not until you apologize.” I think it was probably three seconds later that I found myself facedown on the warm hood of a police car, handcuffed and heading for a cell at the Battersea police station. They locked me up for seven hours, then released me and told me to be in court at ten
A.M
. I failed to keep the appointment. Instead I went to my solicitor and told him what had happened, and when I said I’d failed to present myself at court, he was sick with worry and angst. “You can either become a fugitive or surrender yourself,” he explained.

“This is all a bit serious,” I said. “I mean, all I’ve done is ask a policeman to say sorry to a lady.” Anyway, I surrendered myself, got locked up for another couple of hours, and then made my appearance at the magistrates’ court. I was bound over to keep the peace for six months. One of the three magistrates said, “We’d like you to sign the book on the way out, Mr. White.” I assumed she was referring to
White Heat,
which had recently been published.

“I’m terribly sorry, Your Honor,” I replied, “but I didn’t bring a copy with me.”

The magistrate was puzzled. She turned to the judge on her right and they whispered for a bit before turning back to me. “Not
your
book,” she said impatiently, “
our
book.” She pointed toward the clerk’s office, where reprobates have to sign various court documents.

T
HE PRESS COULDN’T
get enough of it. I was in the papers every day. One minute I was “the enfant terrible of haute cuisine,” the next I was “the enfant terrible of British cooking,” then I acquired global domination by becoming “the enfant terrible of the culinary world.” I was the “anarchic Byron of the backburner,” who was “almost psychopathic.” Most of them saw me, unequivocally, as “London’s rudest chef,” which had no detrimental effect whatsoever on business.

Women who had seen my picture in the papers, or observed my mug on the telly, felt compelled to raid their drawers and send me explicit letters along with their knickers. Chefs aren’t supposed to receive knickers in the post, no matter how many Michelin stars they’ve won. If I’d kept the contents of those Jiffy bags, I could have opened an underwear shop.

Instead I used to auction the knickers in the kitchen before service. I’d start the bidding at a pound and invariably it was the young Gordon Ramsay, emotionally battered and bruised by my bollockings, who outbid the others and ended up with these mementos—perfumed, lacy souvenirs of his life with the man he later described as his mentor.

Even after a seventeen-hour day at Harveys, I didn’t particularly want to go home and sleep. I was both an early bird and night owl. Several years earlier, when I’d first come to London, I had headed to the King’s Road and hooked up with the postpunk crowd. But during my Harveys days I went from socializing with the Chelsea set to mixing with the Mayfair mafia (affluent young people, rather than gangsters) and I moved into a flat in Pavilion Road, Knightsbridge.

I would go to Tramp, the renowned rock-star-crammed nightclub in Jermyn Street, just off Piccadilly, which was owned by the so-called King of Clubs, Johnny Gold. I didn’t dance and I didn’t drink, but I liked the place, nevertheless. Johnny was very kind to me, and although I wasn’t a member, he allowed me to come and go as I pleased and always invited me to join him at his table of beautiful people.

To keep things interesting, I would flick french fries across the room at famous people, though obviously not when Johnny was sitting beside me. One night I spotted the Rolling Stones’ Bill Wyman and I thought I’d chip him. He was moving in to chat up a blond, and just as he put his arm around her waist, I flicked the chip. It hit him hard on the hand. Bill snatched his hand back and ran off, probably thinking the girl had smacked him.

Tramp was the setting for an encounter with Lisa Butcher, the woman who would become my second wife. I was walking into the club one night in late 1991 when three young ladies were getting a hard time at the door. Johnny didn’t like Tramp to be seen as a pickup joint—it was there for couples and friends—so single-sex groups were usually turned away. As I passed reception, I felt sorry for the girls and said, “They’re with me,” and as a result they were allowed in. I carried on walking down the stairs when one of them said, “Hello, Marco.”

I turned round and stared at her face, but I couldn’t put a name to it. In fact, I didn’t recognize her at all. “Who are you?” I asked.

She said, “We met at Harveys. I’m Lisa Butcher.”

Then she reminded me that she had been one of the guests at photographer Norman Parkinson’s birthday party, held at Harveys in 1990. Bob Carlos Clarke, who was also at the party, had brought her into the kitchen to introduce her. I remembered the occasion then. She was an eighteen-year-old model, dressed glamorously in a sailor suit. She was a big name; people had been talking about her. While in school she had won the
Elle
Face of the Year competition, and when she arrived at Harveys, she was something of a celebrity because Parkinson had recently photographed her and publicly predicted that she was “the face of the nineties.” I suppose Parky had done for her what Ronay had done for me. It had been a brief introduction at Harveys and now, on the stairs at Tramp, our conversation was equally short. I didn’t see her again that night.

The next day Lisa phoned me at Harveys. She wanted to say thanks for helping her and her friends get into Tramp. She suggested coffee sometime. “I’m at Harveys all afternoon,” I said. “If you want to come over, I’d love to have coffee with you.” I couldn’t let a beautiful girl get in the way of Harveys. That afternoon we had coffee at my restaurant, followed by a walk on Wandsworth Common. It was all quite romantic. A dinner date was fixed, and the next thing I knew, we were partners.

Lisa was undoubtedly one of the most exquisite-looking women in the world. I was enchanted by her beauty, and that was the problem.

I was a young man who was visual and found her looks intoxicating: The mere sight of her was so amazing that I completely forgot to think about her personality. But if I’d thought about it, it would have dawned on me that we weren’t a good match because we had so little in common. Within three weeks of meeting her at Tramp, I had proposed with the line, “Do you fancy running off and getting married?”

What on earth was I playing at? I thought I was happy, but I was lonelier than I had ever been. If I’m honest with myself, I never had any emotions for Lisa. It wasn’t her fault. Apart from having nothing in common, there was also a big age difference: she was twenty-one and I was thirty. Of course, I didn’t step away from my one true love. I continued to work like a dog at Harveys while Lisa set about organizing the wedding, a Catholic number at Brompton Oratory in Knightsbridge, followed by a reception for seventy guests at the Hurlingham Club, beside the Thames in Fulham.

The night before the wedding I had a memorable meeting with a man called Rafiq Kachelo. Rafiq had been a regular at Harveys since the early days and was such a big spender that he was single-handedly responsible for keeping us going in the days before Egon Ronay’s glorious review. I think I’m right in saying that he was the world’s richest mango grower and he could torch money like no other person I’ve known. We all adored him.

He would arrive at Harveys and order a £2,000 bottle of Pétrus ’55—and that was just as an aperitif. There had been weeks when Rafiq alone was accountable for 50 percent of Harveys takings. When I was married to Alex, Rafiq took us and another couple for lunch at Michel Roux’s Waterside Inn. The bill for five was an astonishing £10,000. He spent big, seven days a week. He looked the part too, and was always immaculately dressed. Although he could drink huge quantities, Rafiq never appeared drunk and the waiters used to say he never left the table to go to the loo. He gave new meaning to the phrase “hollow legs.”

Anyway, the night before my wedding, I was sitting with Rafiq and for some reason he asked me what sort of cuff links I would be wearing for the wedding ceremony. “Oh my God,” I said. “I haven’t got any cuff links.” I’d never needed cuff links before. Rafiq removed the ones he was wearing and handed them to me. They were monsters: heavy, large and with fifty diamonds in each of them. They were beyond vulgarity because they were so beautifully crafted.

Before I left Rafiq that night, he said, “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?”

Of course I was doing the wrong thing, but I didn’t have the courage to accept it, so I replied, “Yeah.”

He was continually spouting words of wisdom, and one of his favorite sayings was “Never let an illusion turn into a delusion.” Those words came back to me in the Brompton Oratory on August 14, 1992, as my bride walked down the aisle toward me and my best man, Albert Roux. It was all so showbizzy, the rock star chef marries the upmarket young model. The illusion that I could be as successful in the home as I had been in the kitchen was rapidly turning into a delusion.

I do remember thinking I shouldn’t be there, but there was something inside me that said that rather than cancel the whole thing, it was better to go through with the wedding, let Lisa have her big day and then let it break down naturally afterward. It seemed like an easier blow, though I accept that many people might be appalled by my rationale.

It didn’t take long for it to break down. Right from the start the signs were obvious to the outside world. A reporter had asked for my opinion of the bride’s dress—a floor-length, backless white dress designed by Bruce Oldfield—and I mumbled something about how she looked like she had dressed to go down the catwalk rather than the aisle. My unkind remark spawned newspaper features along the lines of, “How would you feel if the man you were marrying hated your dress?” Even at the reception, as guests relaxed and chatted over champagne, I disappeared into the kitchen of the Hurlingham Club to check up on my brigade of boys, who were preparing the wedding breakfast: Terrine of Salmon and Langoustines in a Sauternes Jelly followed by a Fillet of Scotch Beef en Croûte with Pommes Fondants, Haricots Verts and Sauce Périgueux. Amid the heat, the smells, the noise and the pressure, I felt secure.

I don’t remember blazing rows with Lisa; it just fizzled out. I was at Harveys much of the time and Lisa was working abroad a good deal. Within fifteen weeks we had separated. Let it break down naturally, I had told myself before taking my vows. And it did.

I promised to return the cuff links to Rafiq after the wedding. When that moment came, however, he refused to take them back, saying, “I meant them as a gift.” Months later, when I asked Lisa to rummage through my belongings and give the cuff links back, she said they were lost.

About five years ago I was in the Pharmacy, in Notting Hill, with my wife, Mati. We were having dinner with Jane Proctor, then editor of
Tatler
magazine, and Jane’s husband, Tom. A woman walked into the restaurant and all heads turned to observe the apparently striking blonde. She was with a group of friends and they walked over to a table and sat down.

Customers were transfixed by the woman, muttering, “Wow, who’s she?” and that kind of thing. I glanced at her but couldn’t see it myself; I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Then I found myself studying her and thinking, I know those expressions, I know those looks; I’ve seen them before.

A few minutes later the woman who’d caused the commotion walked toward our table. As she got closer, she said, “Hi, Marco.” It was only at that point that I realized it was Lisa, my ex-wife. Just like that night on the stairs in Tramp, I had failed to recognize her. Had she really played such an insignificant role in my life that I didn’t have a clue who she was until she spoke?

She said, “Do I get a kiss from you, Marco?” and bent down to kiss me, but my immediate reaction was to recoil. I moved my head to avoid her pouting lips and said, “Please don’t, Lisa.” My marriage to her had been a mistake and I don’t have many good memories of the experience. Lisa didn’t say another word, she just walked back to her table and that was the end of it. A couple of minutes later, though, I felt a thud on my chest as I was hit by a missile. Someone from Lisa’s table had chucked an ice cube at me. Mati, Jane and Tom were horrified. In the old days, the days when I did spontaneous things like marrying Lisa, I would have responded rock-star style by charging over to the table with a bucketful of ice. But then I did nothing. Lisa—or another good shot at her table—had finally exacted her revenge.

SEVENTEEN

Not a Lot of People Know This

I
WAS IN
the kitchen at Harveys one day in March or April 1991 when I got a phone call from Steven Saltzman, the son of Bond movie producer Harry Saltzman. Steven had been a Harveys regular since the day he’d phoned to book a table after reading a
Sunday Times
article about the restaurant. In the article I was quoted as saying something controversial like, “Everyone who eats at Harveys is fat and ugly.” So when I told Steven there were no free tables, he’d replied, “What if I tell you I’m fat and ugly?” After that amusing remark I found room for him on that evening and any subsequent evening.

On this particular spring day Steven called for a chat and, apropos of nothing, he asked what I’d been up to. I mentioned that I’d nipped over Wandsworth Bridge to look at a potential restaurant site in Chelsea Harbour and we talked for a minute or two about the area, how it was up-and-coming with luxurious, expensive apartments, a few boutiques and a couple of so-so restaurants. Princess Margaret’s son, Viscount Linley, and the aristo photographer Patrick Litchfield had opened a burger bar called Deals, which seemed to be doing well and was getting heaps of publicity. There was also a nice hotel where punters could sit and have a cocktail on the terrace while admiring the yachts in the marina.