Free The Devil in the Kitchen by Marco Pierre White

have caught.”
    From time to time, I would bump into Mr. Butler, my former teacher at Allerton High, who happened to live in Ilkley. We’d stop and chat and he’d ask how things were going and he always seemed pleased that I had found a job that made me passionate. Many of my contemporaries from school had drifted from one job to another, or were “on the dole”—living off state handouts.
    My Box Tree days drew to a close not long after Steve, Michael Lawson’s sous chef, handed in his notice and Malcolm and Colin asked if I knew of anyone who could replace him. I was too inexperienced for the job, they had quite rightly thought. The only person I could suggest was Michael Truelove, the chef who first taught me how to use a knife when I worked in the kitchen at the Hotel St. George. He had been good to me, at times protecting me from the bullying of head chef Stephan, and I liked him. “Michael is a very good cook,” I told Malcolm and Colin. “About five years older than me and a hard worker.”
    Michael was offered the job and he accepted. When he arrived, we were the two pranksters from the George reunited. One day, the French chef Pascale, who was in charge of Hors D’Ouevres, went into the walk-in fridge to fetch ingredients. Michael and I closed the door and locked him in there for half an hour. When we opened the door, Pascale was sitting on an upturned crate and rolling a cigarette. He said nothing. In fact, he said nothing for an entire week. He just sulked. The French don’t get angry; they sulk.
    Michael Truelove’s arrival would ultimately lead to my departure. Once he’d settled in, he encouraged me to look for another job. “You don’t want to stay in the sticks, Marco,” he’d say. “You want to spread your wings.”
    Ridiculously immature, I decided to hand in my notice without having a job to go to. I thought I’d be asked to work a six-week notice period and during that time I’d find another job. Michael Lawson turned pale when I told him I was off. “I’m not telling the bosses,” he said. The prospect of relaying bad news frightened him. “You’ll have to tell them yourself, Marco.”
    I mustered up the courage and broke the news to the Boys.
    “Let’s talk about this in the Chinese Room,” said Malcolm, and we went upstairs, where the three of us sat at a table. They offered to increase my salary, which then was about £30 a week.
    “It’s not about the money,” I said. “I’ve made up my mind and you can’t persuade me to stay.”
    It was wrong of me to assume they’d want me to work out my notice, staying on for a month or even six weeks. They were so badly hurt by my announcement that they came back with a blow that broke my heart.
    “Go now,” said Malcolm.
    “There’s no point in staying,” added Colin. “It’s best if you get your things together and leave now.”
    I was numbed by what I saw as brutality. What’s more, they wouldn’t give me a reference. Looking back, I can understand their reaction. Today I don’t blame them. I had rejected them, so they were rejecting me. But to have happiness snatched from me in a matter of seconds seemed cruel. Malcolm and Colin had been like my adopted family.
    I had never imagined that I would leave on bad terms. If only I had been able to work my notice and leave on a high . . . I was traumatized. I had arrived at the Box Tree happy and excited, but eighteen months later I left via the same door, feeling destroyed. Love affairs often end in heartache, don’t they? Yet the Box Tree would remain in my memory as the most special restaurant I have ever walked into, let alone worked in.
    About twelve years later I was at the stove at Harveys, my restaurant in southwest London, by then the winner of two Michelin stars, when the kitchen phone rang. “Hello, Marco. It’s Michael . . . Michael Lawson.” It was lovely to hear his voice and I told him so. He said, “Would you mind if I came to dinner?” I told him to