Marco Pierre White has banned Michelin inspectors from visiting his restaurants, escalating a long-running feud with the popular dining guide.
“I don’t need Michelin and they don’t need me,” he said in an interview with an Asian lifestyle magazine. “They sell tyres and I sell food.”
Pierre White was speaking to CAN Lifestyle in Singapore ahead of the launch of The English House in the island nation. The famously irritable chef was asked by Michelin inspectors if they could include the restaurant in their 2019 guide and his answer was a simple “no”.
The feud dates back to 1999, when Pierre White returned his three Michelin stars because “they didn’t mean that much anymore” and that he found “maintaining three stars is pretty boring.” He was the youngest chef ever to be awarded three stars, aged 33 at the time, and is one of only nine chefs in the UK to ever be awarded three stars.
However, Pierre White is not the first to eschew the guide in favour of taking their own direction. Earlier this year Le Suquet in France requested to be removed from the guide so that chef Sebastian Bras would be allowed the freedom to focus on what he felt was more innovative cooking. In 2012 Petersham Nurseries had head chef Skye Gygnell quit, citing the ‘curse’ of Michelin stars as making service nearly impossible in her small London restaurant.
