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Recommended by

Michael Laiskonis

Pastry Chef, Consultant, Writer, Creative Director at ICE, NYC

I am likely just one of many professional chefs who consider this book a sort of modern classic. At a time when British food was still scoffed at, and long before anyone ever heard of Gordon Ramsay, battered copies of White Heat were circulating among cooks on this side of the pond. Whites book is a portrait of the first rock star/gastro-punk chef on his meteoric rise toward running a restaurant empire that would be awarded a constellation of Michelin stars. Perhaps more interesting than his recipes are the grainy black-and-white photos of life in the kitchen trenches, captioned with quotes from the maniacally restless chef, to a certain degree glamorizing the sweat, stress, and drive of a young and passionate chef obsessed with perfection. I still get a little pumped when I see it today.

Christopher Archambault

Chef

A book that broke the mould. The enfant terrible at the cresting of his powers. Perfectly chronicled in Marco soundbites and Bob Carlos Clarke’s stark canonizing of the man. Partly to blame for the martyr game us chefs play that is only now starting to wane under the glaring lights of human rights and health and safety. Difficult reading the recipes; but the ravioli, the lamb en crepinette, the peach Melba version. Wonderful. ‘At the end of the day it’s just food, isn’t it? Just food.’

Shane Osborn

Chef

Rure rock and roll. This book made a generation of young men want to become chefs. I arrived in the UK when this book had just come out, I read it night and day for 3 months until I ate at Harvey's. When I split from my first wife she took revenge by carving White Heat into pieces as she knew how much this book meant to me. And yes I still have it .

Allan Jenkins

Editor, Observer Food Monthly,

Twenty-five years old now, the book that launched a thousand careers and inspired many of the cooks I admire to want to be chefs, if only at first to look and cook like him, have a shot at a supermodel girlfriend. To be treasured less for the recipes than the attitude and images but still an important book.

Bill Buford

Author

For its attitude, its uncompromising extremism, and the photography, including one blurry shot of the young Gordon Ramsey getting beaten up in the kitchen. Interestingly, the dishes themselves now seem dated, but the intensity is raw and charged by a take-no-prisoners purposefulness: it changes lives.

Tom Parker Bowles

Restaurant Critic, Food Writer and Broadcaster

The first food book I ever bought. Those glowering snaps of MPW both scared and thrilled me. The original genius chef, swearing and smoking and saucing with equal passion. Powerful photographs and timeless recipes, this book proably did more to start the cult of the celebrity chef than any other.

Alan Coxon

Chef and TV presenter

The first ever TV show and cookbook that actually showed an honest reality of a real working kitchen , the stress (and as the title suggests), the heat ! . As a young chef, this was a revelation and delight if not shocking to the rest of the population at the time!