Exclusive: Marco's women..
The harassed staff had seen it all before. Minutes earlier, Marco Pierre White had been lavishing attention on his guests - mainly female, it has to be said - at his posh Italian restaurant Frankie's.
His phone, which he was studiously ignoring, now showed 30 missed calls from his longsuffering wife Mati.
Then suddenly, the door bursts open and in strides his Majorcan-born wife with her notorious temper in full flood, demanding to know why he hasn't answered.
Under a barrage of furious abuse, and with the full attention of the assembled diners on him, he calmly picks up his phone and speaks to his loyal manservant, Mr Ishii. Minutes later his special assistant brings his car round to the back and Marco makes a quick getaway.
It could have been far worse.
In a previous visit to Frankie's, Mati, 42, had turned over a table. The Hell's Kitchen star was dining with shareholders when she hurled a glass of wine in his face then smashed the sound system.
And last year she allegedly stormed into his flagship restaurant Luciano one lunchtime and fired a waitress she first loudly accused of sleeping with her husband.
It is perhaps no surprise then that the Whites, who have been together for 14 years and married for seven, will be divorced within weeks.
But Marco has yet to move out of their £2million Holland Park home. Racks of Savile Row suits still hang in his personal dressing-room.
Waspishly, Mati says: "In reference to Hell's Kitchen, all I can say is that it's one of the few times in 14 years I've known exactly where he is every night.
"You can read between the lines about whether or not it's been difficult being married to Marco."
Indeed, being married to Marco, the tousle-haired chef raising the temperatures of millions of women fans every night on telly, is something that demands the patience of a saint... combined with a large set of blinkers.
For Mati, life had been reduced to chasing the chef-turned-businessman around his restaurants in the hope of tracking him down.
Their eldest sons Marco, 12, and 13-year-old Luciano were both at boarding school in Oxfordshire, leaving her home alone with their six-year-old daughter Mirabelle with time on her hands.
Marco, however, had become adept at giving Mati the slip. His favourite haunt was his newly-refurbished Yew Tree Inn, near Newbury, Berkshire, where he could indulge his favourite hobby - chatting up the ladies - well away from his missus.
A friend of the couple said: "Marco is a massive flirt. He can't be around women without flirting. One of his favourite things is to take a woman's hand and lick it all the way up to the arm.
"He loves big-breasted statuesque blondes and varies in his seduction techniques.
"When he chats up women - which he does frequently now he's single - he's either a big romantic, talking about how he is looking for his soulmate.
"Or he can be dirty with some women talking about what a big boy he is and how the best place for sex is writhing on wet grass covered in leaves and twigs.
"When they were together, Mati had a hell of a time with him. Her life was spent stalking Marco as he hid in one restaurant, being driven around by Mr Ishii to get away from her."
And that's not all. The friend continues: "He didn't like her hanging round the restaurants. She would chase after him and catch him flirting with some woman and then she would start a massive and hugely embarrassing row.
"But Marco would never argue back. He never rises to it and his thing is just to get away and disappear. That made her even more incensed and frustrated."
This will be the Michelin-starred chef's third, and most costly, divorce. Lawyers estimate that Mati could be in line for half of his £40m fortune. Marco wants the split to be as amicable as possible and friends say he is resigned to losing a hefty share of his cash.
But given his womanising history, Mati can't be surprised at how their marriage turned out.
He met his first wife, surgeon's daughter Alex McArthur, when she worked at his fishmonger's in the summer of 1987.
It was six months after he'd opened his first restaurant, Harvey's. They went for dinner after he finished work at 11pm then went back to her flat in Kensington. He didn't leave.
Twelve months later they were married at the Chelsea Register Office with just two friends as witnesses.
The four enjoyed a wedding feast of poached eggs on toast at a nearby cafe.
Then Marco, in a pattern that is still familiar 20 years later, stood up to make his speech. "I've got to go back to work," he announced before disappearing down the Kings Road.
Just six months after the birth of their daughter Letitia in July 1989, the marriage was over. The fiercely-driven chef was devoted only to his quest to win three Michelin stars.
"All of a sudden there I was, married to a nice middle-class girl," the lad from a Leeds council estate wrote in his autobiography The Devil In The Kitchen. "I couldn't take it in. I didn't want things to be perfect."
He moved on to PR girl Nicky Barthorp, who helped him recover after he collapsed from exhaustion. But after two-and-a-half years of putting up with the long hours he spent in his restaurant followed by weekends spent indulging his love of hunting and fishing, she'd had enough.
Suspecting that he was having an affair with the presenter Mariella Frostrup - an allegation that is unfounded - she packed his bags.
Marriage number two was more ill-fated than any of Marco's doomed romances. In 1991 he met model Lisa Butcher at Tramp nightclub and within two months they were married - with Lisa selling coverage of their wedding to Hello! for £20,000.
Marco was horrified when she arrived at the Brompton Oratory in a backless - and sideless - Bruce Oldfield dress. He grabbed her arm and hissed in her ear, making his dissatisfaction clear.
The marriage lasted barely longer than the honeymoon. Butcher later said: "We went to the Scilly Isles. On the first day, Marco said: 'I don't love you.' We spent two miserable days when we didn't speak and he went shark fishing. Then I left."
The couple tried a reconciliation but Marco's wandering eye had fallen on Mati Conejero, a stunning Spanish waitress at his Canteen restaurant.
Yet 14 years and three children later, Marco is again back at square one. He is devoted to all his children and sees Letitia once a week. But he can now throw himself fully into the playboy lifestyle he loves.
Now, after the smoking ban, Marco can often be spotted waving a Marlboro outside his restaurants surrounded by a gaggle of female admirers.
The friend said: "Marco feels a tremendous sense of relief. Things were very bad between him and Mati. His business is flourishing and he loves the attention the TV show brings.
"He is not really the Marco you see on telly. He exaggerates that side of his character because he knows it makes good TV. Away from the cameras and with his friends, he is far from obnoxious.
"He loves being the centre of attention, telling terrible jokes. He is a man's man. But when he is alone with a woman, he is very attentive and listens intently while staring into their eyes.
"He likes sending over drinks and paying for meals if he spots a woman he fancies in his restaurant. He can be very smooth.
"His perfect woman is the demure, docile housewife who is a tiger in the bedroom."
Whether he is prepared to launch himself into marriage for a fourth time, or simply remain a confirmed bachelor, remains to be seen.
What is certain is that he will be enjoying the single life to the full.
Watch two more celeb chefs get the boot tonight on Hell's Kitchen on ITV1 at 9.35pm.
Alun.Palmer@Mirror.Co.Uk
