The MasterChef: The Professionals judge chats to Lauren Taylor about working Christmas Day, keeping up high standards at home and French food.
This Christmas will be the first Marcus Wareing will actually spend with his family – after hanging up his professional apron and announcing that he has no plans to return to the kitchen.
The 54-year-old closed his Michelin starred-restaurant Marcus, at The Berkeley hotel, London at the end of 2023 and another restaurant The Gilbert Scott in 2021, marking nearly 40 years in the business.
“This is the first Christmas since I’ve been with [my wife] Jane, that I’ve not ever been involved in any kitchen or restaurant whatsoever, since day dot really. So I’m actually really looking forward to it,” says Wareing, a judge on BBC’s MasterChef: The Professionals. “Normally I’m at work Christmas Day, and we’d eat at about six or seven o’clock when I got back.”
His three children Jake, Archie and Jessie are in their teens and 20s now but, “when the kids were little, we’d get up, open presents, have breakfast and I’d leave at 11 o’clock in the morning. I think it was really important for me to be present on a day that is a celebration for a lot of people. And to ask people to work, I think it’s only right that you show your face”.
READ MORE: Why Marcus Wareing loves his smallholding in East Sussex
But he looks back at Christmasses spent in the kitchen fondly. “When I was training at The Savoy and other big London restaurants, I just remember how much fun it was at Christmas because everyone was in a good mood. The customers were all dressing up, the kitchen was vibrant. It was hard work but you just got your head down.”
And when he opened his own restaurants, Wareing – who has just released his latest cookbook Marcus’s France – says he always gave the kitchen staff champagne to sip through their Christmas Day shift and closed after the lunch service so everyone could go home to their loved ones.
“I remember walking in one day, Jake was a little lad, and he had no clue that I had been missing for about six or seven hours. He said, ‘Why are you chef jacket? [He had been] heavily involved in his toys and telly and chocolate.”
So does he feel like he missed out on special family time?
“No,” says the acclaimed chef. “You don’t go into cookery, at any top level, and worry ‘am I missing out on anything?’ – never in a million years.
Marcus and Jane Wareing. (Image: Yui Mok/PA) “I was cooking Christmas lunches and doing New Year way before I met Jane and had a family. I’ve done it since I was a chef. There was always bigger benefits afterwards. At the end of the day, it’s just another day.”
As he’ll be home this year, Wareing is planning to do the festive feast himself. “I’ll probably take charge of that, because I love cooking. I can cook much better than all the family put together.”
And just because he’s no longer working in professional kitchens, it doesn’t mean his standards have slipped.
“Cooking, for me, is a way of life, no matter where I am. If I’m eating food in someone’s restaurant, in someone’s home, or my home, or your home, I will judge it as food and how it’s cooked.
“I will look at it and analyse it, see what’s missing. As a cook, I can’t be a professional in one kitchen and then be a slob in an amateur. It doesn’t work that way.
“I chop, I fry, I season, I do everything exactly the same. I may not go into the amount of detail in the food at home.”
Growing up with a top chef in the house, “My three kids, who have been to lots of people’s houses, lots of different places and holidays, they always refer back to [say] the food at home is on a different level.
“A lot of people don’t know how to cook,” adds Wareing. “And I think that’s a shame and sad. I think there’s also people who can’t be bothered to make an effort.”
No surprise then that his children were taught to make a roux (a mixture of flour and fat used to thicken sauces in French cooking) when they were young. Although, “I’ve walked into kitchen at home on many occasions and it’s a f***ing bomb site. My daughter will make a cake and you’d think she just made a cake for a banquet rather than just four or six people. If you’re in a professional kitchen you’d get hauled into the chef’s office!”
Like many top chefs, Wareing first learned his trade through classic French recipes and techniques at catering college. In the highest echelons of top gastronomy, French food is still often considered the height of sophistication and you’ll hear many chefs on MasterChef:The Professionals tout their training in the French classics.
Wareing’s second job was at the three Michelin-starred Le Gavroche, a beacon of French cuisine in London run by the Roux family and where he first met Gordon Ramsay – who would later be best man at his wedding, head stag-do organiser and business partner, before a famous falling out during a legal battle over the name of a restaurant they set up together.
“There’s a lot of water under the bridge now,” Wareing shares, “I wouldn’t say [we’re] friends.” But it was Ramsay who sent him to train in Paris for a year and he’s spent many family holidays in Provence (“the garden of France”).
The new book then, is his “journey through French food” and what it’s meant to him throughout an illustrious career. It includes many classics – think confit de canard and lobster thermidor – as well as crowd-pleasers like brie-topped burger with mustard mayonnaise and grilled potato wedges and banana split crêpes.
French cuisine isn’t all cream and butter though. “The traditional dishes do warrant those that level of richness, but I think what we’ve learned is to be able to pare it back and to use it wisely and marginally,” says Wareing. “I don’t think our gut, our stomachs, can take that level of richness anymore.”
Plus, he’s health conscious too. “I’ve always been like that. I don’t like cutting things out, I don’t like diets, I just don’t put more food on my plate than most people.”
Marcus Wareing’s croque madame. (Image: Matt Russell (2024)/PA)
Marcus Wareing’s croque madame recipe
Bring classic French food into your kitchen.
“A classic roux sauce is the foundation for so many great recipes and although I didn’t learn about it until I went to college, it’s one of the first things my wife Jane taught our kids to make when they were young,” says Marcus Wareing.
“It opens so many culinary doors: macaroni cheese, lasagna, moussaka and arguably the best sandwiches in France – croques monsieur and madame. Layers of cheese, ham and luxurious roux sauce sandwiched between two slices of bread, toasted in butter and – in the case of the croque madame – topped with a perfectly fried egg.
“Sandwiches may have been invented in Great Britain, but the French really took them to a whole new level with this fabulous recipe.”
Ingredients:
(Serves 2, prep under 10 minutes, cooking time 20 minutes)
100g Gruyère cheese, grated
4 slices of sourdough
4 slices of prosciutto
1tbsp butter
Vegetable oil, for frying
2 eggs
Watercress or lamb’s lettuce, to serve
For the roux sauce:
200ml milk
2tsp fresh thyme leaves
2tbsp butter
2tbsp plain flour
1tsp Dijon mustard
2tsp wholegrain mustard
100g Cheddar cheese, grated
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method:
1. Start by making the roux sauce. Put the milk and thyme into a small saucepan. Gently bring to a simmer over low heat. Melt the butter in another small saucepan, then add the flour and a pinch each of salt and pepper. Cook over a low heat for about one minute to get rid of the floury taste but avoid letting it brown. Gradually whisk in half of the hot milk, then add the remaining milk and cook for a further five minutes over low heat, stirring continuously. Remove from the heat, add the mustards and cheese and stir until the cheese has melted.
2. Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas 6 and line a baking tray with baking parchment.
3. Divide the grated Gruyère between two slices of the sourdough, then top with the prosciutto. Finish with two-thirds of the roux sauce then top with the other slices of sourdough. Spread the remaining roux sauce on top. Heat a large frying pan over medium heat. When hot, add the butter then carefully add the sandwiches and toast them for three to five minutes. Gently turn the sandwiches over and brown the other side for another three to five minutes.
4. Transfer to the lined baking tray and bake in the oven for four to five minutes until the cheese has melted.
5. While the sandwiches are baking, heat a little vegetable oil in a frying pan and crack both eggs into the pan. Fry for two to three minutes, or until the white is set and the yolk is still soft.
6. Place the sandwiches on two separate plates and top each with a fried egg. Serve with watercress or lamb’s lettuce on the side.
Marcus Wareing’s quick coq au vin (Image: Matt Russell (2024)/PA)
Marcus Wareing’s quick coq au vin recipe
Speed things up with this simplified dish.
“A classic coq au vin, while utterly delicious, is quite a stagey recipe to prepare. There are lots of different elements that are cooked separately before being added at different times to a casserole dish,” explains Marcus Wareing.
“With this recipe I’ve taken out as many of the stages as possible, while ensuring that the end result is just as tasty as the original. It’s good enough for a dinner party, but easy enough for a weeknight family dinner.”
Ingredients:
(Serves 4-6, prep time 20 minutes, cooking time 2 hours and 20 minutes)
4tbsp duck fat or butter
2 celery sticks, quartered
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
4 garlic cloves, finely grated
4tbsp plain flour
½tsp table salt
½tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 whole large chicken, jointed into 8 pieces
250g smoked streaky bacon, cut into 1cm lardons
250g button mushrooms, halved if large
200g small shallots, halved if large
2tbsp brandy
750ml white wine
3 bay leaves
½ bunch of fresh thyme
500ml good-quality chicken stock
2tsp cornflour (optional)
½ bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves chopped
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4.
2. Heat two tablespoons of the duck fat or butter in a large frying pan over high heat and, when hot, add the celery, onion and carrots and cook for 10 minutes, or until softened. Add the garlic and fry for another minute or two. Remove from the pan and set aside in an ovenproof casserole dish.
3. Combine the flour, salt and pepper, then dust the chicken pieces all over with the seasoned flour. Add the remaining two tablespoons of duck fat to the frying pan and fry the chicken pieces in batches until golden brown – each batch should take about 10 minutes. Remove from the pan and add to the casserole dish.
4. Add the bacon, mushrooms and shallots to the pan and fry for five to seven minutes until well-browned, then add to the chicken in the casserole dish.
5. Deglaze the pan with the brandy then pour this over the ingredients in the casserole dish. Place the casserole dish over the heat, add the wine, bay leaves and thyme (tied together with string) and bring to the boil. Simmer rapidly for about 15 minutes, then add the chicken stock and simmer gently for a further 15 minutes. If needed, mix the cornflour with a little water and stir into the sauce to thicken.
6. Cover and place in the oven for 40-50 minutes, or until the juices run clear when a chicken thigh is pierced with a knife in the thickest part. Remove the herbs tied with string, stir in the parsley and serve.
Marcus Wareing’s apple tarte tatin with nutmeg cream. (Image: Matt Russell (2024)/PA)
Marcus Wareing’s apple tarte tatin with nutmeg cream recipe
An impressive-looking French dessert for hosting.
“My first ever attempt at making an apple tarte tatin was in a competition at The Savoy hotel in London – talk about being thrown in at the deep end! It did not go well,” admits Marcus Wareing.
“I had no idea that the apples needed to be caramelised, which I soon realised is the key to a perfect tarte tatin. I’m happy to say that I’ve mastered the technique since then and this recipe is both foolproof and delicious.”
Ingredients:
(Serves 6-8, prep time 20 minutes, cooking time 50 minutes)
1 x 320g sheet of ready-rolled all-butter puff pastry
Plain flour, for dusting
100g cold butter, softened
100g golden caster sugar
2 cardamom pods, bashed gently with a rolling pin to release the flavour
1 cinnamon stick
6-7 Braeburn apples, peeled and quartered
For the nutmeg cream:
200ml double or whipping cream
A grating of fresh nutmeg
Method:
1. To make the tarte tatin, roll the puff pastry on a floured work surface out to about three millimetres thick and cut around a plate to make a large circle, just bigger than the pan you’re going to use to make the tart. Cut three small slits in the pastry for the steam to escape and move to a baking parchment-lined tray. Place in the fridge to rest while you make the rest of the tart.
2. Spread the softened butter in an even layer over the base of a 20-24 centimetre ovenproof frying pan. Cover with the sugar and spices in another even layer. Arrange the apples on top in a spiral, overlapping one another.
3. Preheat the oven to 210°C/190°C fan/gas 7.
4. Place the pan on the hob over medium-high heat and cook until the butter and sugar start to bubble and form a caramel, this will take around 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and then place the pastry circle over the apples, using a spoon to tuck the pastry in around the edges of the pan. Be careful, it will be very hot!
5. Bake for about 35-40 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and leave to rest for five minutes.
6. Meanwhile, make the nutmeg cream by whisking the cream until it reaches soft peaks. Spoon into a serving bowl and grate some fresh nutmeg over the top.
7. Run a small knife around the inside of the pan to ease away the caramelised pastry. Put a large plate over the tarte tatin in the pan and carefully flip both pan and plate over. Slowly lift the pan off to turn the tarte out. Serve with the nutmeg cream on the side.
Marcus’s France by Marcus Wareing is published in hardback by Harper NonFiction, priced £22. Photography by Matt Russell (2024). Available now.