Marco Pierre White is known as the sort of man to be approached with caution – his towering talent was definitely once matched by the size of his tantrums.

Throwing out customers if they asked for salt and pepper, lobbing a board full of cheeses at a kitchen wall to humiliate a waiter for failing to prepare them properly and making his cooks stand in the corner if they displeased him – it was all reportedly in a day’s work.

His personal life has been equally turbulent. His first marriage, when he was 26, resulted in one daughter but was short-lived, as was his second to model Lisa Butcher, and he’s separated from third wife Mati Conejero, with whom he has three children.

Friends have turned into foes too. The severing of his relationship with his famous protege Gordon Ramsay was well-publicised and he’s had spats with Michel Roux, Michael Caine and Raymond Blanc, to name but a few.

Yet, White is also a man who delights in being unpredictable.

“I'm 52 and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, and feel very comfortable in my own skin,” he reveals, with a broad grin and a definite twinkle in his brown eyes. “Why is that?”. He gives an expressive shrug. “Well, I’m a man. It takes us time to get to know ourselves, but as you age you start to discover yourself more, you don’t get as excited about things as when you were young. You’ve seen so much, and you can see life for what it is. That’s quite a nice place to be at.”

Such contentment has long eluded White, who came from a humble background in Leeds, and whose early life was marred by tragedy.

He was the third son of an Italian mother but she died when he was six shortly after giving birth to her fourth son. He acknowledges that losing her contributed to fuelling his exceptional drive to succeed.

“I think it goes without saying that I suffered from losing that stability at a very young age,” he says. “But she was the person who influenced me the most and has helped to make me the man I am today. As a child, through her, I was exposed to beautiful things - to nature, good food, lots of love. When you lose someone like that, you hold on to the memories, they never leave you.”

After leaving school at 16, without any qualifications, White trained as a commis chef under Albert and Michel Roux at Le Gavroche and worked with superstars of the era, including Raymond Blanc at Oxford’s Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons.

His own hugely successful restaurant, Harvey’s, opened in London in 1987 and he went on to become the youngest chef, at 33, ever to be awarded three Michelin stars.

It was clearly a stellar rise, yet a few years later, at 38, he hung up his apron, returned his stars and left the kitchen.

It was a bold and surprising move but one that ultimately opened the door to even wider public recognition. Since then, White has regularly appeared on television shows, including Hell’s Kitchen, Marco Pierre White’s Kitchen Wars and Masterchef Australia, and is now familiar to millions through his endorsement of Knorr stock cubes.

“Stepping away from the kitchen allowed me to move on in my life and gave me freedom for the first time in years. Giving all your energy and emotions into food and restaurants for nearly 20 years makes you institutionalised and there is little time for emotional growth for you as a person,” he says.

“There’s more to life than a plate of food, there’s more to life than cooking. I wanted to travel the world, write books, be on TV. I had to leave the kitchen entirely because I did not want to be one of those chefs who live a lie and pretend to be there, charging diners high prices. So I decided to pluck up my courage, leave my status behind, spend more time with my children and change my life.”

This life change certainly appears to have come with a certain amount of soul-searching, and White often uses the language of therapy - but he insists he hasn’t had any, saying instead that writing his no-holds-barred autobiography White Slave, in 2006, was “cathartic, as it forces you to relive moments of your life, reflect and gain knowledge from them”.

In the book, he revealed that he cut off his relationship with Gordon Ramsay, whom he employed at Harvey’s, after he reportedly turned up at White’s third wedding with a camera crew without permission from the bride and groom.

“There was no argument or falling out, I simply made a decision one day not to speak to him again,” he says icily.

“When you turn up, as he did, to a wedding with a camera crew who hide in the bushes and then you find your family and your children are featuring on a TV show without your permission, how would that make you feel? That in my view is capitalising on a friendship. I made a decision that he was taking advantage and I think he’s demonstrated over the years his consistency in that type of behaviour.”

By contrast, White insists, rather testily, that his own reputation for fiery behaviour is undeserved.

“Truly, if I was what the press depicted me as I could not have won three Michelin stars. You have to be hard working, very disciplined and very together to do that and that’s not compatible with the image they painted of me.

“Of course, I acknowledge there’s no smoke without fire, and I would never say I was a saint, but so much was a product of media exaggeration and ignorance.”"

Fair enough - but despite his new-found balance and calm, you do still sense his famous boiling point is never too far away. Any mention of his personal life, for example, triggers a threat to terminate the interview.

His ever flourishing career points towards a level of fiery passion too. Away from the TV cameras, and since his Michelin stars, White’s built up a gastronomic empire, acquiring the Wheelers brand - a partnership with Sir Rocco Forte - in 2004 and launching Wheeler’s of St James in London; he has worked his magic on a collection of beautiful pubs and country inns, including the Black Boy Inn at Milton, near Banbury, and he is currently promoting a new Governor bitter, which he’s helped make in partnership with JW Lees, a Manchester brewery.

Despite this dizzying array of projects though, and a new TV show in the pipeline, White denies he's a workaholic, or even ambitious.

“I hate to take a day off, it makes me feel guilty. It has done ever since I was a boy. I’ve never regarded myself as posh or a celebrity, I’m just a working class boy with a working class work ethic.

“Anyway, there’s nothing glamorous about my life - it’s about a lot of hard work and a lot of travelling. I take my health for granted and my relaxation is fishing. Actually I crave normality and don’t seek the limelight. You won’t see me at premieres or red carpet events, you’re more likely find me in a quiet pub or the corner of an out of the way restaurant.”

Nowadays, he says, he just wants to inspire people to cook either for pleasure or as a profession.

“I’m at an age where I want to give back. I feel I have a duty to share my knowledge and it’s a pleasure to do so,” he says.

“I have no regrets about my life. I believe everything happens for a reason, and you have to accept what happens to you and move forward. If you look deep within yourself you always find the answer to life’s problems. It’s all about self-discovery.”