'Being Marco is a full- time job'

 Now the original bad boy of British cooking (check out his website, which features a photo of a be-aproned MPW relaxing outside a kitchen with a cigarette, presumably after having busted some poor chef-de-partie's balls) is in Abu Dhabi, to launch the Marco Pierre White Steakhouse & Grill and another Frankie's.

Will his food — which has unquestionably influenced the last two decades of British restaurant cooking and been the raison d'etre for Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal, among others — be of the standard we've come to expect from his restaurants in the UK? We'll have to wait until the official launch on October 28.

These days White is a restaurateur rather than an executive chef, coming up with concepts rather than cooking the dishes himself. He's by no means idle though, and in a move that seems calculated to irk chefs everywhere (something he has always appeared to take great pleasure in), he's lent his image to a famous brand of stock cube.

tabloid! spoke to White from his home in North London ahead of his visit to his restaurants in the Fairmont Bab Al Bahr, Abu Dhabi, today.

Why a steakhouse?

If I'm very honest, I love a steak. And I think people will go out of their way to have a good quality steak. A lot of people have had enough of posh restaurants. They want to go to a place that's smart that they can casually walk through the door of. And a steak is simple, but tasty.

What's your favourite cut of steak?

Personally, I like an entrecote — a ribeye, cooked medium rare.

You've got some unusual cuts on the menu — like the flat iron, which is an old-fashioned cut of beef — as well as fish steaks.

Well, if you look at France, they've got the bavette steak [a tough but flavoursome cut also known as skirt steak]. The thing is, they may not be tender, but they are TASTY. I like a good rump steak too. There's something nice about beating out a rump steak flat and cooking it like a minute steak. And you can have steaks of fish too — tuna, halibut — that are just as good. I want to give people the choice.

There's some pretty expensive items on your menu too — caviar, oysters, wagyu beef. Would you be able to open a restaurant like this in the UK at the moment?

I think so. The reality is that there's always a market for items like caviar. And people that want to eat caviar know how much it costs.

What would you select from the menu for a diner to give an idea of what's on there?

It's never for me to tell people what to eat. That's the thing about these Michelin-starred restaurants, they try to tell you what to eat. It's patronising.

So what do you think about restaurants that serve for example, a steak deconstructed in four different plates?

I think people get tired of that. They are dictating to you. I don't want to do anything fancy. I think people are sick of posh.

When you're in Dubai, is there anywhere you've enjoyed going to apart from Frankie's?

I go to Trader Vic's in Madinat Jumeirah, by the water.

You're advertising Knorr stock cubes in the UK. Aren't stock cubes hated by chefs?

I once said in an article years ago that I use them for seasoning instead of salt. I don't use them as stock, I use them as seasoning. It's way better than salt.

How?

It's more forgiving than salt. If you made 10 litres of mushroom soup, and seasoned half with stock cubes and half with salt, the stock cube half would be better.

They pay you to say that.

They pay me because I always said that. I've been saying it even before they started paying me.

But chefs always say they hate stock cubes.

I've always said the most poisonous sauce in a kitchen is the chef's ego. No one at home will make stock. You don't have assistants, you don't have a stockpot. The reality is you're not going to boil a stock for four hours.

What's the most enjoyable part of your job?

Being Marco. It's a full-time job and I like working hard being Marco.

What does that entail?

Being honest about yourself. I feel success is about self-discovery. I think unfortunately a lot of people aren't able to do that. It's very easy to live a lie.

Go online

Marco Pierre White talks about his reality shows and designing a "wall of flames". Read the full interview at gulfnews.com/tabloid