Rise of the Rockstar Chef episode two: everything we learned

Who paid for Gordon's move to Paris?

After Harvey's, Gordon moved to Paris to train in kitchens including Joël Robuchon's, with Gordon saying: "France was one of the most important moves for me in my career."

But the two chefs don't agree on how he got there.

Marco said: "I financed the trip, I gave him £15,000 because he didn't have the money. Did he tell you that? Interesting."

Gordon insisted that wasn't true.

Gordon returns to London and Aubergine

Gordon came back to London having won National Chef of the Year in 1992. In 1993 he became head chef at Aubergine in Chelsea. Marco knew the owners and helped open doors for him there, and the restaurant was soon fully booked four to five months in advance.

Heston arrives on the scene

While Gordon was making his name in Chelsea, the episode moved on to Heston's emergence and the effect he had on his peers.

Tom Kerridge said Heston blew everyone's minds, Jodie Kidd compared what he did for food to what Alexander McQueen did for fashion, and Marcus Wareing said: "It rattled everyone's cage."

Heston said Marco was very generous to him in his early days, giving him ingredients and even lending him a car.

He said: "Whatever people say about Marco, my experience of him was he had a heart of gold. There's a friendship there."

Marco said of Heston: "I'd spend every Christmas with him. He has the brain the size of a planet and a heart which is equal in size."

Marco wins three Michelin stars

Marco, meanwhile, felt he had taken Harvey's as far as he could, and on Wednesday, September 1, 1993, he moved to the Hyde Park Hotel. In January 1995, The Restaurant Marco Pierre White was awarded three Michelin stars, making Marco the first British chef to win three stars and, at 33, the youngest chef at the time.

He said: "I was highly moved because I wasn't expecting it. I never thought I was good enough. I'd realised my dream as a cook by '95. Just as Gordon was starting."

The battle for Aubergine

That same year, Aubergine won its first Michelin star, and a second followed two years later. The episode charted how relations with Marco then broke down.

Marcus, who worked with Gordon at Aubergine, remembered Marco always being on the phone or popping in. Tables booked under fake names failed to turn up, and Angela Hartnett, who was also part of the brigade, said she suspected Marco was behind it.

Gordon said his pastry chef told him every Aubergine menu was on Marco's desk, and that Marco, who was linked to the restaurant's backers, was planning to take over Aubergine and get rid of him.

Marco's view of the Aubergine situation was very different.

He said: "He fucked me over. The man who got him his break."

The stolen reservations book

The episode then turned to the theft of Aubergine's reservations book, which had no backup and no digital copy. Marcus explained how in those days, the book was "like the crown jewels".

In the programme, Gordon recalled how one night someone on a motorbike pulled up, came in and stole it. Gordon's team suspected Marco, which is what Gordon told the Italian owners, who became angry at Marco.

Gordon said: "It was pandemonium, it was a disaster. Secretly I was happy because Marco was getting called out for destroying Aubergine."

Gordon has since given a different account, which is not covered in episode two. In a March 2007 New Yorker interview, he claimed he had arranged the theft himself, The Guardian reported at the time.

Gordon said: "It was me. I nicked it. I blamed Marco. Because I knew that would fuck him and that it would call off the dogs."

Marco told The Guardian he had never plotted to take over Gordon's job at Aubergine and felt vindicated by the admission.

He said: "If that's how you pay back your friend, and people who've helped you, that's sad."

Four months after the theft, Gordon walked out of Aubergine overnight with his staff following him, and later in 1998 he opened Restaurant Gordon Ramsay.

The early days at The Fat Duck

As Gordon and Marco's relationship turned sour, in Bray, Heston was making his way and summed up the early days at The Fat Duck: "Chaos with not many covers."

There were five staff, including Heston, who was getting just 20 hours' sleep a week. He once accidentally blew up an oven lighting a match near the gas, burning his head, and carried on working behind the pass with a bag of peas on his head.

Gordon said: "Heston Blumenthal was the biggest breath of fresh air that Britain's ever seen."

Gordon's third Michelin star

Back at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, Gordon was chasing hard for a third star, which he described as the hardest jump of all. The restaurant won it in 2001. Gordon was in tears as he remembered the night Michelin inspectors told him the news.

He said: "It was a relief and this weight just disappears and you've just got this freedom."

Heston's third Michelin star

Three years later, The Fat Duck won its third star in January 2004, when Derek Bulmer, then editor of the Michelin Guide, called Heston with news that left him speechless.

He said: "I never thought in a million years I'd have three stars."

A year later, The Fat Duck was named the best restaurant in the world at The World's 50 Best Restaurants, but Heston said success brought its own pressure.

He said: "I didn't enjoy it. I still had an inferiority complex. Success didn't make me more secure, it pulled me out of my comfort zone. The more you have, the more you have to lose."

In the meantime, Marco was on a spending spree of restaurants and nightclubs, including Mirabelle and Quo Vadis, teaming up with artist Damien Hirst. Some of his nightclubs were incredibly busy, with some of the biggest celebrity names at the time, including the likes of Spice Girls, attending his venues.

heston and Gordon turn to TV

The episode's final section covered Heston and Gordon's move into TV.

Heston began the crazy, with shows such as In Search of Perfection and Fantastical Feasts, where he said he used the platform as an opportunity for further experimentation.

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares was next, drawing 5.5 million viewers on Channel 4.

Gordon said: "When that first episode went out, my life changed and it went crazy. I suddenly wasn't a Michelin-starred chef, I was the guy from Kitchen Nightmares."

An £8million deal followed, along with Hell's Kitchen in the UK and the US. Marco later fronted the UK version of Hell's Kitchen himself, which Gordon enjoyed explaining was not as successful as when he was on the show.

The episode also showed a Sunday Times photo of Marco with Gordon's head on a platter, which upset Gordon at the time, though Marco said he wasn't aware they were going to do that.

When is the final episode of Rise of the Rockstar Chef on?

Episode three airs on BBC Two at 9pm on Thursday, November 19, 2026.

It brings Marco, Gordon and Heston together for the first time in decades.