Longing For A Modern Day Harvey's

I recently finished reading The Devil in the Kitchen, an uncensored memoir written by the infamous British chef Marco Pierre White.

Chef White's career preceded my awareness of great restaurants and chefs, as I was just a teen when he became the first British born chef to earn three Michelin stars. But I had tracked down his first book, White Heat, which I had heard was unlike most cookbooks I had previously owned.

The food wasn't a huge focus for me when I first read White Heat.  Rather, I found myself fixated on the raw, brutal, unrefined nature of Chef White's writing and appearance.   Equally perplexing was the elegant, refined and thoughtful approach to cooking that contradicted his brutish nature.  I remember reading White Heat and catching myself with my mouth gaping (sometimes smiling), as if watching a train wreck heading for a crash that's somehow avoided.

When The Devil in the Kitchen landed in my lap (thanks Laren), I was skeptical about the quality of the story Marco was going to tell.  I pictured an inarticulate, slightly emotionless, brutal behind-the-scenes story about how White used to torture his kitchen staff in the pursuit of perfection.  I'd read about Mario Batali's abuse at the hands of White (in the book Heat), as well as Gordan Ramsay's war stories with White and wondered if this would be a shallow, surface level book that you'd read and forget about weeks later.

To some extent, this book is just that.  The difference is that the restaurant war stories are absolutely hilarious and shockingly unbelievable.  I've personally never seen or heard of someone getting kicked out of a restaurant by a superstar chef for complaining to a waiter, or getting into a fist fight with a chef in the kitchen.  And rest assured, the stories are just damn funny coming from Marco's brutish voice.   Somehow, Marco's unrefined, simplistic writing style adds to the humor and drama of his story.  Yet, his real and honest voice allows White to get very personal.  Even when he glosses over some of his feelings while discussing emotional points in his life, his tone of voice somehow communicates his choked back tears. Curse word after British slang after typo, I questioned the editors of this book but then realized the editors are one of the stars here - they did an excellent job leaving Marco's voice unpolished and unprofessional.  It makes the book.

There are many aspects of the book I can discuss here, but I'll just focus on the one thought I had over and over again as I read about Marco's rise to three star perfection.

Marco's first restaurant was called Harvey's, a small restaurant that Marco brought from nowhere to Michelin star fame.  The stories behind the day-to-day life at Harvey's are one of the highlights of the book.  As I read about Harvey's, I remember thinking about how I've never been to a restaurant like this in my life.  At any given night, White makes it seem as if you'd witness a guest getting kicked out of the restaurant, guests getting into fist fights in the kitchen, chefs getting into brawls in the back alleys behind the restaurant, chefs having sex with guests in back rooms, movie stars acting like clowns in the dining room....it seemed to go on and on.

Harvey's seemed to have adapted the personality of Marco - the dichotomy behind his thoughtful and perfect cuisine and his brutish, unpredictable, over-emotional tendencies.   If a modern day Harvey's were within my current reach,  I would want to dine nowhere else.

In my opinion, high-end restaurants these days avoid displaying the personality of their owner (Babbo has always been one of the exceptions, thankfully).  These days, it's all about following a formula to accomplish a goal of delivering refinement, trendiness, or a theme/genre.

Dining at Harvey's meant entering the world of Marco and knowing that while you'd get an amazing meal, something could happen at any given time that could be a little bit offbeat, quirky, or down right wrong. And that's one of the reasons why people went to Harvey's.  Harvey's wasn't able to be replicated next door, as there was only one Marco Pierre White. 

I long for this type of restaurant in NYC.  But thanks to The Devil in the Kitchen, I somehow felt like I was transported to Harvey's - and damn was it tasty.

Comments

[Laren]

You're quite welcome.
:)

[steamy kitchen]

I hope I can find this book on CD...I spend too much time in the car and it helps me feel at least somewhat productive!

[joe]

this would be a funny book to hear on cd. lots of cursing and yelling to spice up your car time!