FOOD & DRINK: TIME TO TAKE STOCK WITH MARCO

MASTERS OF MODERN COOKERY; 4: MARCO PIERRE WHITE; A monthly series in which the country's leading cooks share their expertise and inspirations. This week Marco Pierre White talks to Michael Bateman about stars, steaks and sauces

MARCO PIERRE White has long been considered the best cook in Britain. Last month he was revealed to be the richest, with pounds 30m to his name.

"I became a businessman by default," he says, showing me around his newest enterprise, the Mirabelle in Curzon Street, Mayfair. A few weeks ago, the Mirabelle was unfinished and it seemed inconceivable that it could open on schedule. None of the dining-rooms were completed and the garden was still a muddy space (the 200-year-old vine and mature fig trees yet to be shipped in). It was hard to hear Marco over the screams of drills and the carpenters hammering parquet down. Was he talking of the menu or the decor when he spoke of sharkskin pillars (sharksfin pilau?), trompe- l'oeil and murals (trompettes and morels?). Was he referring to the artists Bugatti and Pierre Le Tan or the pasta special, spaghetti with pear tatin?

Without deserting the stove of his flagship Oak Room at Le Meridien, Piccadilly, Marco has been taking time out to relaunch a series of restaurants, as a partner in a venture with Granada Hotels. Marco is bringing along his expertise and skills, not to mention staff who have worked with him since his earliest days. His style can be admired at the relaunched Criterion Brasserie at Piccadilly Circus and The Grill Room, Cafe Royal.

This new role translates the chef into a major restaurant player alongside Oliver Peyton (Atlantic Bar and Grill, Coast, Mash, first in Manchester, and now just opened on London's Great Portland Street), following in the steps of the big daddy, Sir Terence, who blazed the way with the 700-seater Mezzo in Soho, Quaglino's, Bluebird in Chelsea and lately, The Orrery.

Marco built his name with openly luxurious food. And lavish decor. He admits that The Oak Room is very exclusive (even if most customers don't run up a pounds 1,800 bill for four like his pal Michael Winner). But his new restaurants are intended to be affordable, though no less lavish.

Nowhere inspires Marco more than the Mirabelle and he has a tremendous sense of pride in assuming the mantle there. For in its day it was Britain's most fashionable restaurant. In his very first restaurant guide (in 1961) Egon Ronay named the Mirabelle one of London's best restaurants along with the Caprice, Coq d'Or, L'Ecu de France, Prunier's and the Savoy Grill Room. "It has the smartest and richest clientele," Ronay observed. "It has to be both: smart, to fit into this gleaming decor accompanied by heavy silver, crystal, and all the miscellaneous catering trinkets of luxury. Rich, for this is the most expensive restaurant in town. A double- edged asset this, and if you are only in the mink class and not the sable set, the place may give you a mink-ferior complex. The staff is of such skill and so smart that you suspect their motor cars are longer than yours. The cooking is very good. The wine list gives unqualified pleasure to all and overdrafts to some."

The Mirabelle opened in 1940 during the blitz, to a background of shortages and ration books, emerging within a decade as the unashamedly elitist dinner destination. Table One was reserved for the wealthiest client of the night. Table Two always remained open till 9pm, just in case royalty made a late appearance. Then the Mirabelle fell on hard times, changing hands and character until, refused a casino license, it closed down completely. Marco bought the lease two years ago, vowing to see this phoenix rise from the ashes.

There's a word Marco uses to describe a trend in modern food, and it's not one he means kindly: minimalist. It's a word he conjures with, evoking a picture of the modern architect-designed restaurant, a sparse room of white on white, furnished with tables so small there's hardly space for more than two plates. And minimalism in the kitchen - chefs employing techniques so minimal they barely extend beyond chargrilling a tuna steak or chicken breast, or tossing a salad of rocket.

There's nothing in the least bit minimalist about Marco's approach, as we have seen in his restaurants, and shall see in the bases he patiently prepares for his incomparable sauces (opposite page).

TWENTY STEPS IN THE RISE AND RISE OF MARCO PIERRE WHITE

1 Brought up on a Leeds council estate, son of a Scottish father and Italian mother.

2 Wanted to be a gamekeeper, but an enlightened careers officer directed him into catering. His first job was at Hotel St George in Harrogate.

3 He chose his mentors shrewdly, working with chefs high on the Michelin scale. He started in the kitchen at the Box Tree, in Ilkley -the first country restaurant to win two Michelin stars - under self-taught chefs Malcolm Reid and Colin Long.

4 Worked with Raymond Blanc at the Manoir aux Quat' Saisons (two Michelin stars), Nico Ladenis (three), Pierre Koffman (three) and Albert Roux (three).

5 Albert Roux called him "my boy who does the work of three men." Roux also described him as the best natural cook he'd ever worked with.

6 Marco opened his own restaurant, Harvey's, in Wandsworth, with a only pounds 20,000 business grant and just two chefs.

7 It won immediate critical acclaim and recognition with a Michelin star.

8 Created a stir with his first book, White Heat, with dramatic action pictures by Bob Carlos Clarke.

9 Won second Michelin star and gained a reputation for being a stormy character, scattering the paparazzi keen to chart his swift marriage to (and extremely speedy divorce from), model Lisa Butcher.

10 Teamed up with actor Michael Caine to open The Canteen in Chelsea Har-bour, London.

11 Joined forces with Sir Rocco Forte to open The Restaurant in Hyde Park Hotel (following the example of superchef Nico Ladenis, who'd opened his own restaurant within the Forte flagship hotel Grosvenor House Hotel).

12 Published his second book, Canteen Cuisine, based on the less elaborate food offered at The Canteen. By the publication date, he and Caine had fallen out.

13 Now, at the age of 36, he has become the youngest chef to win three stars in the history of the 95-year-old Michelin guide. It didn't stop him from treating restaurant critics who criticised him with lofty disdain. He ejected one with the words: "You don't like me and I didn't like you. Please leave now, no bill will be submitted."

14 His third book was the sumptuous Wild Food from Land and Sea. In the introduction, Marco fired off a provocative broadside at British restuarant critics, saying they lacked both knowledge and style.

15 Linked up with Sir Rocco Forte to relaunch The Criterion Brasserie, Piccadilly Circus. And he opened a re-vamped Quo Vadis in Soho (with artist Damien Hirst).

16 A hiccup. The Forte Group was taken over by Granada, who sold the Hyde Park Hotel to a Hong Kong-based conglomerate. But Marco negotiated to move his restaurant to The Oak Room in Granada's Le Meridien Hotel. By default he found himself a businessman, taking a 50 per cent share of a joint venture with Granada Hotels, relaunching existing restaurants at hotels within the group.

17 He opened MPW Canary Wharf, relaunched The Cafe Royal Grill Room. Now the Mirabelle.

18 Still to come this year: The Palm Court at Le Meridien Waldorf in The Strand; The Titanic at Regent Palace Hotel and Randolph Hotel in Oxford. Next year, restaurants at The Bath Spa Hotel and The Queen's Hotel, Leeds.

19 Hobbies: shooting and fishing. Featured on Angling Times cover last year holding one of season's hugest pikes.

20 Family. Daughter, Letti and two sons, Luciano (five) and Marco (three) by his Spanish partner, Matilda.

HERE'S SOME MARCO MADE EARLIER

THE SCENE: the airy kitchen of The Oak Room at 10am, quiet as a library, neat as a laboratory. Marco Pierre White in whites, a towering 6ft 3in, 17 stone, wielding carving knife and carving fork.

Ready waiting are two very wide, highly-polished stainless-steel pans in which he'll prepare the bases for some of his meat and fish sauces for the day. The fish and veal stocks have already been made. Marco says with so many good versions available in supermarkets today, you don't have to make your own. But a fish sauce only takes 20 minutes (indeed, if it takes any longer the flavour starts to spoil).

Marco has a very modern view of sauces. He doesn't accept the French tradition that the sauce is a blanket to be poured over everything, filling the plate. For him, the sauce is an additional element to a dish, an intense refine- ment of its flavour, and you might only use a spoonful. "Fish is moist when well-cooked. It doesn't want a flood of sauce round it."

An assistant chef is pulling a tray of roast chickens from the oven. Not for Marco a metre-high stockpot of chicken bones, carcasses, vegetables - these chickens will be placed in a container and covered with clingfilm (so the delicious volatile odours do not escape). When cool, the juices are collected, the bones removed from the meat, and the flesh crushed to extract the juices. These are the essences added to sauces at the last minute to create richness, "with a spoonful of rendered chicken fat".

So, essence of flavour is what Marco is seeking to achieve as he works. "Everyone knows what good flavour is. They know when a tomato is good and when it's not. They know that when it's grilled that the acidity turns to sweetness, and the acidity of onions turns to sweetness when they are cooked."

So, the first stage is create a base of sweetness by cooking sliced shallots until they caramelise. He slices shallots, tosses them into the pans with clarified butter (at this stage unclarified butter will burn, but he will add some later, for additional flavour). Then the mushrooms, sliced, then garlic.

Into the fish sauce base, called veloute from the French for velvety, goes white wine and Noilly Prat in equal quantities, and it is left to bubble and boil down rapidly. "Always boil fast to keep the taste fresh," Marco advises.

Grasping three bottles of Rhone and another of port by the necks, he bubbles them into the pan for the red wine sauce.

Then pepper. Like a conjuror demonstrating a favourite trick, he shakes peppercorns from a jar on to the chopping board. He flips up the skirt of his clean new apron over the board and brings down the heavy base of an iron pan and rolls them flat, pulling away the cover to reveal two dozen crushed peppercorns. He tosses them into the bubbling sauces.

For the first 40 minutes he doesn't taste them. He tells his chef to call him when they have reduced and we retire to chat about this and that. He reveals that now in his thirties he's stumbled on the secret of a less stressful life, having been cursed with ulcers for many years. Chefs are notoriously bad at looking after themselves, he says, though he has never been a drinker or done drugs. Smoking he gave up some time ago (he gave up his wife and gambling on the same day, he says). Now he's given up sugar, and suddenly, bingo, gone are his mood swings. He realises now that he was drinking litres of sugary tonic water a day, not to mention lumps of sugar from sugar bowls, and four servings of ice-cream a day.

The sauces have boiled down now, reduced to a syrupy base half an inch deep. Marco starts tasting them every 30 seconds or so, sharing his spoon with me to check the flavours as they sweeten and intensify. Every last vestige of acidity must be banished. What we taste is sublime, surely alchemy. Base metal has been turned to gold.

The sauces must reduce no more, he declares. To each base, cream must be added to stabilise them (cream being neutral in flavour). Some chefs add butter, but this interposes its own flavour.

What you do next depends on the dish. The fish veloute can be thinned with a little of the liquid in which the fish is cooked. Stir in a little diced but- ter, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and chopped fresh herbs, flat-leafed parsley, chives, sorrel or tarragon.

For a dish of scallops you could add to the base the liquidised trimmings (the skirts or muscles) of the scallops. With oysters, a few millilitres of liquidised oysters, with a little chopped basil, chives or chervil, lemon juice and butter.

For a meaty fish such as monkfish or sea bream, make up a sauce base using half fish stock and half meat stock.

The red wine base is perfect with seasoned steak grilled in a ridged pan (about three minutes each side, depending on thickeness). Add cream and butter and seasoning to taste. As a sauce for venision, strain out the remains of the cooked shallots, and stir in a splash of red wine vinegar and a square of bitter chocolate (Menier is fine).

VELOUTE

BASE FOR FISH SAUCES

6 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced

15g/12oz unsalted butter

500ml/17fl oz Noilly Prat

500ml/17fl oz white wine

1 litre/134pints double cream

1 litre/134 pints fish stock

Cook the thinly sliced shallots in the butter until softened, without colouring. Deglaze with the white wine and Noilly Prat, and boil to reduce to a syrup. Add the fish stock and cook until reduced by half. Add the cream, bring to the boil and simmer for five minutes to reduce to a coating consistency. Pass through a fine sieve. Covered with clingfilm and chill if not using immediately.

FISH STOCK

Makes about 2 litres (312 pints)

1.8kg/4lb fish bones

white of 2 small leeks, finely chopped

1 large celery stalk, finely chopped

12 onion, peeled and finely chopped

12 fennel bulb, finely chopped

12 whole head of garlic, cloves peeled

1 tablespoon olive oil

200ml/7fl oz white wine

2 litres/312 pints water

1 lemon, sliced

2 sprigs parsley

Wash the fish bones very thoroughly, and chop up.

Cook the chopped vegetables and garlic in the oil for a few minutes to soften, but without colouring them.

Add the fish bones and white wine and cook, without colouring (the bones will turn white), for about five more minutes, then boil for a few minutes to reduce the wine a little. Add the water, bring to the boil and skim well. Then add the sliced lemon and parsley, and simmer for 20 minutes. Pass through a sieve and leave to cool. Store in the fridge for a day only, or freeze (but for no longer than a month).

BASIC RED WINE SAUCE

500ml/17fl oz red wine

100ml/312fl oz port

500ml/17fl oz chosen stock

50g/2oz hard unsalted butter, diced

Pour the red wine and port into a suitable saucepan and boil to reduce by one third. Boil the stock down to reduce it to a good coating consistency (when it lightly coats the back of a wooden spoon).

Add the red wine and part reduction and the butter dice, and allow to melt.

HOLLANDAISE SAUCE

Hollandaise is the basis for bearnaise and paloise sauces, both wonderful accompaniments to meat.

4 portions

100ml/312fl oz white wine vinegar

10 white peppercorns, lightly crushed

a few parsley stalks

1 shallot, peeled and chopped

50ml/2fl oz water

1 tablespoon white wine

juice of 12 lemon

2 egg yolks

salt

cayenne pepper

250g/9oz clarified butter, at blood temperature

Put the vinegar, peppercorns, parsley stalks and shallot into a suitable pan and boil to reduce by about half. Leave for 24 hours to infuse, then add the water and wine and strain.

Place the egg yolks in a bowl with the lemon juice, and salt and cayenne to taste. Whisk together, then gradually whisk in the strained vinegar reduction until you have a nice sabayon. The liquid must be added slowly; as it deflates the egg yolks, it strengthens them.

After 10 minutes or so of whipping, put the bowl over a bain-marie, and add the butter gradually. Whip until all the butter has been added and you have a good emulsion. The sauce should be thick and to the ribbon (when the lifted whisk leaves a ribbon-like trail on the surface of the sauce). The sauce can now stand for up to two hours if kept in the bowl in a bain-marie, with the water not exceeding 122F/50C.

SAUCE BEARNAISE

Add several stalks of tarragon to the Hollandiase vinegar and other ingredients before boiling, reducing and infusing. Then make the sause as above, but add about 25 very finely chopped tarragon leaves to the sauce just as you serve, not before.

SAUCE PALOISE

Make as for Hollandaise sauce above, but add about 25 very finely chopped mint leaves just as you serve, not before.