Wareing well

In years to come, there's little doubt that when Marcus Wareing looks back on 1998 he'll view it as one of the most momentous years of his career. For 1998 was the year in which Wareing was sacked from his position as head chef at London's L'Oranger, the restaurant where he had won his first Michelin star. In contrast, it was also the year in which Wareing, still aged only 28, opened his own restaurant, Pétrus, backed by his mentor Gordon Ramsay.

Even now Wareing recognises that he has had more ups and downs in this one year of his career than most chefs experience in a lifetime. In July, when he was sacked, it felt like he had hit rock bottom: "It was a devastating experience. I was left with nothing and I was gutted." But now, just three-and-a-half months later and on the brink of his new life as chef-proprietor of Pétrus, he feels fantastic. "I'm besotted with this place."

Wareing says it all began in late 1995 when he was in Paris, working for Guy Savoy. He got a call from Ramsay, under whom he had previously worked at Chelsea restaurant Aubergine, and who was a chef-director of A-Z Restaurants. "He told me to come back to London to hear about an interesting proposition he had for me."

The proposition Wareing was presented with by Ramsay and his fellow director at A-Z, Claudio Pulze, was to become head chef of what, at the time, was Overton's restaurant in St James's Street. "But more than that, I was promised a 10% shareholding in the restaurant." Aged 25, Wareing says he couldn't believe his luck.

By January 1996 Wareing was duly installed in the kitchen at Overton's, which was renamed L'Oranger on 15 March. Initially, Wareing admits, he found this, his first head chef position, extremely difficult. "I really struggled in the beginning with getting staff because Marcus Wareing was a nobody. I also struggled knowing what I wanted in my food. And I got knocked back by some reviews." But, not one to shirk a challenge, Wareing says he kept his head down, worked hard and the restaurant got busier.

Then, the following January, Wareing says he got the biggest shock of his life when he was awarded a Michelin star. "I'd always dreamt of stars but I never thought at my age or even in that restaurant I would win one. I nearly died. All of a sudden, someone had dumped this ton on my shoulders and I thought ‘I've got to live up to it'. That's when I really started getting my act together - because I'd been given this huge accolade."

Business continued to boom at the restaurant and it was now - in 1997, a year after he had started there - that it began to dawn on Wareing that he had never seen any benefits from his 10% shareholding. "I'd never asked for a certificate because I took it as gospel that I'd be given what I was promised. And there we were - making so much money, I couldn't understand why I'd never had any dividends."

Wareing began asking questions about his shares, holding numerous meetings with Pulze throughout 1997; the answer, he asserts, was always the same: "they're coming, they're coming".

But before any shares materialised, Pulze sold his own 22.5% stake in A-Z restaurants to another director, Giuliano Lotto, at the beginning of this year. Lotto, who was already a 45% shareholder, now had overall control of the company, so Wareing began talking to him about the 10% share he'd always been promised in L'Oranger. "It wasn't that I was worried about the money - I had a damn good salary. But I'd been promised the shares and I saw this as my base, where I'd be for a long time," Wareing explains.

Again, no shares were forthcoming. Instead, in May, Lotto - who had begun negotiating to sell A-Z soon after he took control of the company - presented Wareing with a contract to sign. "My 10% wasn't even mentioned in that," says Wareing. "The contract was horrendous - it was for four years and would have chained me to the stove. For example, it said if I left L'Oranger, I couldn't open another restaurant within a mile radius of all A-Z's restaurants - that would have put me outside the M25."

Wareing sought advice from a solicitor about the contract, who suggested that before he consider putting his name to anything, he should get his 10% shareholding sorted out. He agreed, so the solicitor sent off a series of letters and faxes to Lotto about the shares - four in all. But no reply ever came.

A resignation and a sacking

What happened next is probably familiar to many readers of Caterer: in July, Ramsay resigned as a director of A-Z, so he could purchase La Tante Claire. And a day later, on 18 July, Lotto went to L'Oranger and sacked Wareing.

Wareing claims that when he asked Lotto why he was being sacked, he was given "bizarre" explanations. First he was told he was reducing the profits by overspending on produce. "But the profit for 1997-98 was £40,000-£45,000 and the kitchen gross profit was 72%," he says. When Wareing refused to accept that as the real reason, Lotto then told him he was bringing the numbers of covers down in the restaurant. "I said, ‘I know covers are down, there's hundreds of restaurants opening every week, that's not my fault'. In any case, we were still doing 50-55 covers at lunch and 70-80 dinners."

Next, Lotto said that communication had broken down between the two of them, which Wareing similarly found absurd. "In all the time I'd worked there I'd hardly had any communication with him. I'd always had to report to Gordon." Nevertheless, sacked he was, leaving a stunned team of colleagues behind him. "When I left, L'Oranger was as silent as a church. The waiters, the manager, the cooks - no one could believe it. But there it was, the end of a chapter in my career," says Wareing.

Immediately he sought legal advice and launched a claim for unfair dismissal, which should be heard at an industrial tribunal within the next few months. And he turned to Ramsay for advice about what he should do in his career. He stresses there had been no talks about any venture between the two of them until this point. "Until then, Gordon hadn't talked about any business with me because he knew I had always planned to go on to bigger and better things at L'Oranger."

But Ramsay then suggested that Wareing should come and work with him for a few months while he was setting up his new restaurant, Gordon Ramsay, and early in 1999 he would look at backing Wareing in his own venture.

Events moved more quickly than this, however, owing to a story in Caterer (6 August, page 8), which alluded to rumours that Ramsay was looking to acquire 33 St James's restaurant. "God knows where that rumour came from because it was total rubbish at the time. But a week after the story appeared, the owner of 33 St James's called Gordon and asked if he was interested," Wareing reveals.

Coming home to St James's Street

Negotiations over the restaurant progressed rapidly and Ramsay indeed acquired the site, and followed this by setting up a company in Wareing's name to run the business, in which both of them have shares.

Ironically, Pétrus - named after Wareing's favourite wine (an extensive selection of which is offered in the restaurant) - is just 100m up the road from L'Oranger. "It's like coming home," says Wareing. "I adore St James's Street and can get all my old customers back."

But Wareing's fans are in for a surprise if they think he's going to be dishing up exactly the same food as he did at L'Oranger. In fact, only about a third of the dishes he plans for Pétrus were on Wareing's previous menu - such as the tuna carpaccio shown on page 50 - while the rest are new. "I'm refining my cooking, stepping it up a gear," says Wareing. "My aim is to win two Michelin stars, so I'm concentrating on the flavour, lightness and the consistency of each plate going out."

The smaller number of covers at Pétrus - it will have 50 seats compared with L'Oranger's 70 - is helping Wareing achieve this. And, he says, he's freer to buy more varied ingredients than he was at L'Oranger. Items such as foie gras, truffle and veal sweetbreads will appear on the Pétrus menu, all of which Wareing was only rarely permitted to offer as specials at L'Oranger.

Wareing's new menu features eight starters, eight main courses, seven desserts and a cheese. A selection of dishes he's most excited about include a starter of marinated foie gras de canard and truffle with pickled artichoke and mixed salad leaves; a main course of halibut braised with cos lettuce, asparagus, Sauternes and grapefruit sauce; and a dessert of passion fruit tart with passion fruit and mango sorbet.

Wareing is proud of these and all his other new dishes and says they demonstrate that he's "grown up" in his cooking. "The events of this year have allowed me to move on. I never thought I'd say this because I loved L'Oranger, but what I've got now and what I'm cooking is a whole lot better." n