Marco Pierre White on why Harrogate is the perfect location for his first Great White Festival and his love of the town where his career began

A knock on the back door of the Hotel St George, and a young White had landed his first job as a kitchen apprentice and the first rung on what was to become one of the most successful culinary careers in Britain. But it is only more recently that White has started to understand why his father Frank was so keen for him to work in Harrogate.

“I’d get off the number 36 bus from Leeds just outside Bettys and the Cenotaph, but I didn’t realise until about eight years ago, that what is now called Windsor House used to be the Grand Hotel. My father was a chef at the Queen’s Hotel in Leeds and was offered the chance to move to the Grand Hotel but he never went and I think he regretted that decision and that’s why he sent me to Harrogate to work.”

And his job isn’t the only connection White has to the town.

“The St George is almost directly opposite the Royal Hall which was bought and paid for by the great great grandfather of an ex girlfriend of mine.”

White dated Silent Witness star Emilia Fox – the great great granddaughter of Yorkshire philanthropist Samson Fox from 2012 to 2016. “When I walk through the Royal Hall I see their family crest which is quite extraordinary.

“I have always had a deep affection for the place,” says the once youngest holder of three Michelin stars in the UK. “Harrogate is like a magnet to me and whenever I come up to Yorkshire I always try to visit. It was a proper spa town and was even grander than Bath. Privileged people would come from all over the country and Europe to take the waters, and even Royalty, which is why there are so many grand hotels and all those hotels needed chefs. Some of them have gone but many still remain. It is quite an extraordinary town.

"And more importantly they now have a football team in the football league!”

It made perfect sense then, for Leeds-born White to hold his first Great White Food Festival in Harrogate and at the Royal Hall from October 28-30.

The Great White Festival will see the chef, once dubbed the ‘enfant terrible’ of the kitchen, joined on the Royal Hall stage by friends, chefs and mentors from his 45-year career, including for the first time Marco cooking and answering questions with his friend and mentor the legendary Pierre Koffmann.

It will also be something of a family affair with daughter Mirabelle - who runs a hotel in Bath, and son Lucianno, making appearences.

Other guests include Jean-Christophe Novelli, Darren Coslett Blaize, Jason Everett, Ali Haigh, Simon Shaw, Tim Bilton, Lisa Marley, and Willie Harcourt-Cooze as well as a host of artisan food stalls and producers

White may have decamped to London at the age of 16 but his love of Yorkshire and its people is clear.

“I grew up in north Leeds and we spent a lot of time around Harewood. Harewood was my playground and I think as you get older you do look back. When you are young you just look forward. You take things for granted and believe you are invincible.”

It is well documented that White’s childhood was cut cruelly short with the death of his beloved mother, Italian-born Maria Rosa Gallina when he was six. He says this led to massive insecurity growing up.

Frank instilled deep work ethic in a young White.

“He made me do a milk round before school. He’d get me up at 4.40am and the milkman would collect me at 5am and we’d do the round and then he’d drop me off at school at 8.45am and I had to run to get into school on time. I was rather lazy at school but I think it was probably because I was exhausted most of the time.”

Not too surprisingly he left Allerton High School with no qualifications and decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and train to be a chef.

From the St George he went to the Michelin-starred Box Tree in Ilkley.

Aged 16, he went to London with “£7.36, a box of books and a bag of clothes”, and began his classical training with Albert and Michel Roux at Le Gavroche, followed by training under Pierre Koffman at Tante Claire and Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir before branching out on his own.

"I am looking forward to Pierre Koffman coming up to Harrogate, he is a real legend and taught me so much,” says White.

He opened Harvey in 1987 where he won his first Michelin star, followed almost immediately by his second the following year. He later became chef-patron of The Restaurant Marco Pierre White in the dining room at the former Hyde Park Hotel, where he won the third Michelin star. By the age of 33, Marco had become the first British chef and youngest ever to be awarded three Michelin stars, which he famously gave back five years later.

Most recently the Hell’s Kitchen star is more likely to be seen cooking and giving demonstrations on a luxury P&O cruise liner (P&O are chief sponsor do The Great White Festival) than a Michlein starred restaurant. BUt he says working on the cruise ships has developed his presentations skills.

"I really wasn’t used to talking to audiences until I started working for P&O but having presented masterclasses for them I have really started to enjoy it and I am looking forward to doing something similar in Harrogate,!

When not on board, or filming MasterChef Australia, he’s at home in Wiltshire where during lockdown he created a nature reserve.

“I always look at the positive in everything in life and had it not been for lockdown, I wouldn’t have spent so much time in the garden,” he says. When home he also helps former ballerina daughter Mirabelle in the hotel she runs.

But at the moment there seems little on his mind other than returning to Yorkshire.

He plans an eight day visit which seems to be more of a pilgrimage,

"The festival is on for three days but I will be in Yorkshire for eights days. I plan to go up to Leyburn for a few days to visit Tenants and I will be staying at a B&B, Church Manor, Carlton in Coverdale. It is owned by a couple , he sells me all the grouse I use in my restaurants – you can’t beat Yorkshire grouse. I am also going to go fishing on the River Wharf near Harewood with a very old friend of mine. We used to go poaching up there when we were eight years old, but now he has a license so it’s all above board. I can’t wait to be back in Yorkshire.”

The Great White Festival takes place on October 28 to 30. Tickets are now on sale from £15 with children under 16 free and available from greatwhitefestival.com