The career of Marcus Wareing of “Marcus Restaurant”, a MICHELIN-starred chef at “The Berkeley” in London, has been filled with successes and accolades despite some complications along the way.
Marcus Wareing was born in Southport, Merseyside, in 1970. His father was a fruit and potato trader who had contracts with schools to supply their products to school canteens. Thus, at the age of 11, his first job in the food sector was with his father, packing potatoes and helping with deliveries. It was in high school that Marcus discovered his natural talent for cooking, leading him to attend Southport College, where he pursued a three-year City & Guilds course in catering.
Wareing first worked at the Savoy Hotel, where he was hired as a commis chef at the age of 18, before leaving in 1993 to join Albert Roux at the MICHELIN-starred restaurant “Le Gavroche”, where he met Gordon Ramsay, with whom he began a long collaboration. This collaboration included stints at “Aubergine”, where he became sous chef and was awarded the Young Chef of the Year by the Restaurant Association, “L'Oranger”, where at 25 he earned his first MICHELIN Star, and “Pétrus” in 1999, now a MICHELIN star, but under Wareing’s tenure peaked at three stars. The partnership was briefly interrupted in 1995 when Marcus left “Aubergine” for a year to work with Daniel Boulud in America and Guy Savoy in France, and then ended definitively in 2008 following a legal dispute with Ramsay over the rights to “Pétrus”.
In 2003, Wareing became Chef Patron of the “Grill Room” at the “Savoy Hotel” and was named Chef of the Year by Caterer and Hotelkeeper's Catey Awards. The following year, Marcus earned a MICHELIN star for the restaurant and was named Restaurateur of the Year at the Tatler Restaurant Awards.
In 2008, Marcus together with his wife, and mother of their kids, Jane opened “Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley”, now “Marcus Restaurant”, at “The Berkeley” in London. The restaurant won the Best Restaurant in London award from Harden’s guide in its opening year of 2008, and again in 2009, when it also earned a MICHELIN Star and Wareing was named Chef of the Year by GQ magazine; in 2010, “Marcus Restaurant” was named Restaurant of the Year by Time Out. Also in 2008, Marcus started his own group of namesake restaurants, which has since expanded to include two other restaurants, one closed and the other completely transferred to the business partner with whom he had opened it. In 2021, Wareing collaborated with Compass Group UK & Ireland to offer the “Forward with Marcus Wareing”, a culinary apprenticeship program.
Wareing is also a successful author - his most notable books include “Marcus at Home” (2016), “New Classics” (2017), “Marcus Everyday” (2019), and “Marcus' Kitchen” (2021) - and a television personality - appearing in shows such as the documentary “Boiling Point” in 1999, “Great British Menu”, “MasterChef: The Professionals”, and “Celebrity MasterChef”; in 2022, the first of two seasons of “Tales from a Kitchen Garden”, a series focused on Wareing's small estate in East Sussex, where he visits British producers, gardeners, and farmers, aired on BBC Two.
Marcus is also a benefactor of initiatives such as the Action Against Hunger association, the Environmental Justice Foundation to promote sustainable fishing, GOSH, MENCAP, Help for Heroes, The British Red Cross, One For The Boys and Cancer Research UK; in 2012 even participated in a white-collar boxing charity event with other chefs and catering staff for the Hilton in the Community Foundation, having been an amateur boxer in his youth.
