CELEBRITY chef Raymond Blanc has warned his more fiery rivals they risk jail unless they drop their macho ways.

They will end up with prison food on their plates if they continue to bully kitchen staff, claimed the self-taught Frenchman, who owns the two-Michelin starred Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Great Milton, and is a founder shareholder and director of the Brasserie Blanc chain, which has a restaurant in Walton Street, Oxford.

He said: "I don't like to jump on the face of someone who is already down. Those chefs who glorify violence are living in the past.

"What's more, soon they will go to prison, because new employment laws now give staff much more protection against bullying than before."

Asked if he was referring to famously volatile chefs Gordon Ramsay and new Hell's Kitchen presenter Marco Pierre White, Mr Blanc - who helped train Mr White - replied: "I don't like to speak about the people, but the culture they represent, which has a terrible influence on how people see this industry.

"When Marco takes over Hell's Kitchen, will he promote food craft, careful man-management, or just this unfortunate aspect of behaviour, which involves the degradation of people? I think he will respect what I am telling him."

Mr Blanc is about to star in a new BBC2 show, The Restaurant. Nine couples will compete to run a new eatery. Porters in Little Clarendon Street, Oxford, is one of nine restaurants which will be taken over by a couple.

Mr Blanc once said reality TV was watched by "eight million morons", but insisted: "The reason I am doing this programme is because I want to bring respect back to our industry. I want to challenge the crazy macho culture you see on TV: of which chef has the biggest burn marks, which chef can suffer the most, which chef can abuse the most."

Each week one couple will be eliminated and the winners will run a restaurant, financed and overseen by Mr Blanc himself.

The chef said he would not be taking tips from The Apprentice's Sir Alan Sugar on how to sack people. Mr Blanc added: "I am more of a humanitarian."

The Restaurant is at 8pm on Wednesday, August 29.