JAMIE Oliver says Marco Pierre White, the large chef in the Dear Hunter headband on TVâs Hellâs Kitchen, is âa psychological bullyâ.
White is, of course, the chef unafraid to call mashed potato âpotato mousselineâ and was never going to take Oliverâs heat without making reply.
âIâd like to see him call me a bully to my face,â says White, a challenge reproduced on the Sunâs front cover.
White is no bully and the thinly veiled threat that he will beat anyone who says otherwise into a mousseline is testament it.
And White will not leave it there. Thatâs just for starters. Over two pages (âHELLâS BITCHINââ), White delivers his call to the Celebrity Chef Smackdown.
âGo and win your first Michelin star, Jamie, and then I might take you seriously.â White, admirably, resists all temptation to punctuate his pep talk with âgrasshopperâ, astutely observing that that would over-egg the pudding, or Jamie.
White has been there and done it. Heâs not only on barking terms with stars like uncomplicated comic Jim Davidson and 80s singer Paul Young but remains the youngest chef to have earned three of the coveted Michelin stars.
But Oliver is a star in his own right, a legend in his own lunchtime. But White is unimpressed. He says Oliverâs school dinners campaign was a âcheap publicity stuntâ.
And chucks in for good measure: âIâd rather be who I am than fat chef with a drum kit.â
White would, one suspects, grudgingly acknowledge that you can only make something with the ingredients to hand. And if Oliver is a fat chef with a drum kit is because he has not bought a guitar or, say, a saxophone.
White also has words for the Hellâs Kitchen maĂŽtre d’ Angus Deayton, still seeking a comedic role in a presenting setting.
They did not get on like peas in a pod, nor a Domaine Lafage Muscat Sec 1999 with surf ânâ turf. âITV didnât want me to batter him,â says White.
Indeed, not. Best stick with the mousselineâŚ