Like - Celebrity Chefs Who Aren't Celebrities

Guest post by Henry Shapiro

I love YouTube. It’s the purest expression of what a great social media algorithm should do in 2025: recommend things you’ve already seen over and over again. And in my YouTube feed, there is always at least one video of Marco Pierre White. The creator of this Substack was the one who introduced me to Marco, and I think the first video he showed me was one of Marco’s many Knorr stock pod promos. I don’t know what Faustian bargain Marco made with the Knorr people, but I’m grateful for it as it’s given the world hours and hours of content where Marco finds an ever-expanding number of ways to make food with Knorr stock pods.¹ Marco, like his significantly more famous understudy, Gordon Ramsay, is what you might call a celebrity chef. In addition to his product endorsement deals, he also appeared on various culinary cagematches like Hell’s Kitchen and Masterchef Australia. I think he also was on Celebrity Big Brother at some point. In contrast to Gordon, however, Marco’s fame never seemed to overtake his love of cooking. Sure, he could have leveraged his position to open up scores of middling, overpriced restaurants in Las Vegas and Dubai. He could have built an empire consisting of D2C products and media and endless reaction videos where he watches kids in dorm rooms make beef Wellington. He could have become a much, much bigger celebrity than he is, joining the ranks of Gordon or Jamie Oliver or Bobby Flay. And yet Marco didn’t. All these years later, despite the accolades and Michelin stars and TV appearances, he still makes the food a bigger star than his personality. And he does it with a certain kind of tranquil charm, a kindness and a deep, enduring appreciation for good, straightforward cuisine. He doesn’t need the bombastic antics or rage of his understudy to show that he’s a serious chef — although rumor has it that he’s still the only chef that ever made Gordon cry. There’s a certain kind of grace that comes with knowing you could achieve greater fame and power, and to choose not to do it anyways. And in this era of endless clout-chasing, we should all be grateful that people like Marco exist. They remind us that at the end of the day, life is all about doing what you love and doing it with perfect simplicity.

(p.s. Here’s a video of Gordon and Marco fishing. :) I think they’re still buds.)

1. Pretty sure stock pods are basically gelatinized bouillon cubes.