Marco heads for the hotel

Marco Pierre White, the celebrity chef who hung up his apron last year and retired from cooking, is to move into hotel catering.

The 40-year-old chef, as famed for his fiery temper as his Michelin stars, will take over the restaurant and kitchens of the Forte Post House Hotel in Hampstead at the beginning of September.

And he plans to turn the new venture into a nationwide chain. White says he wants to revive the reputation of long-maligned British hotel food and service by "putting the skill back into hotel cooking and catering". Under his management, the restaurant at the £109-a-night hotel on Haverstock Hill will become the 100-seater MPW Brasserie, offering "good, simple brasserie-style food at an affordable price", as well as adding a touch of glamour to the Post House.

The hotel is owned by Granada/Forte, with whom White co-owns four of London's leading restaurants, The Oak Room, The Criterion, Titanic and The Grill Room, a private dining room at the Cafe Royal.

The Post House restaurant is being refurbished by interior designer David Collins, who has collaborated with White on several other of his restaurants including the Mirabelle and Quo Vadis, which White co-owns with partner Jimmy Lahoud.

The head chef will be Tim Payne, who has worked for White for more than 13 years. As part of the project - White's first since retiring last September - Payne will take over the entire kitchen, which will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner in the restaurant, as well as a room service menu for hotel guests.

The menu will change monthly and there will be a short but carefully chosen wine list of around a dozen white and a dozen red wines.

In the next few years White plans to expand his hotel catering business throughout British. "I want to offer guests a quality of food and service that they may not have experienced before," he said.

Plans are already under way for the Heathrow Post House to get the Marco treatment later this year.

When White announced his retirement after 21 years of service, he said he wanted to spend more time with his young family and to expand his business empire.

He cooked for the last time at the Oak Room in December. Since then he has sold his restaurant in Canary Wharf, ironically titled The Big Chef, and this is his first new venture. He also has plans, as yet unannounced, to open restaurants abroad.