Things you should know about Marco Pierre White:
He was the youngest chef ever ? at 33 ? to be awarded three Michelin stars. He gave them back in 1999.
His mother died of a brain haemorrhage
when he was six.

He once charged a customer £25 for a plate of chips.

He has been married and divorced three times.

One of his best friends is Guy Ritchie.

He has famously fallen out with his protégée Gordon Ramsay, his mentor Albert Roux, Michael Winner who paid for his honeymoon and his former backer Michael Caine.

"Would you like a blanket?" It's a beautiful spring afternoon and Marco Pierre White, the original of the celebrity chef species, with an accent that mixes the Yorkshire of his Leeds council estate childhood with the plummy upper-crust nuances of the world in which he now moves, is sitting outside his new restaurant on Dublin's Dawson Street, smoking, solicitous for my comfort, doing one of the things that he does best ? watching girls go by. "I can't get over how many women there are with black, black hair ? it's like being in Spain."

Nick Munier, whom fans of Hell's Kitchen will recognise as the super calm maitre d' who minds the celebrity diners, organises good strong double espressos (hot milk on the side) and tips Marco off that he's got a well-known punter in the restaurant ? "BA Robertson, you know the one ? the singer, he's got a bit of a jaw on him". There's an amount of debate as to the title of the one hit that endowed BA with his sleb status; Marco thinks it might have been a Christmas song. Either that or 'You'll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties'. (Turns out, trivia fans, it was 'Bang, Bang', which made no 2 in the British charts in August 1979.)

It's the day after his appearance on The Late Late ? "very charming, that Pat Kenny". Marco looks like a man who had an early night, perhaps because on this trip he's accompanied by one of the two teenage sons, Luciano and Marco, of whom he has custody. (He has two daughters as well, aged 19 and 7.) Ever since the huge billboard image of him went up outside the Point last year announcing his forthcoming restaurant venture with Harry Crosbie, he has been a regular visitor to the city, and it seems that each time he departs he leaves another batch of stories about his romantic escapades circulating in his wake. But he's not in the mood to discuss his private life on this occasion.

The Point Village restaurant with Crosbie is not now proceeding ? "we never signed a deal" ? and in its stead, Marco has entered into a joint venture with the Fitzpatrick family of established restaurateurs, taking over what was Fitzers on Dawson Street, and is now painted black and called Marco Pierre White at Fitzers. It looks, it has to be said, like a smart move. "I like Harry; he's a very nice man. And that poster was a nice bit of free advertising for me. But I never really had faith in the location; it just seemed a bit too far out."

And so when Geraldine Fitzpatrick, a long-term friend, suggested doing something together on Dawson Street, it made sense. "I like Geraldine; she's a great lady and a proper person. I like the rest of the family too, and it makes sense for me to have a strategic partner who knows the territory, so that when I'm not here they'll be working hard to maintain standards, to make it a success." Later in the year he will bring an outpost of his Frankie's pizzeria chain (in which his partner is jockey Frankie Dettori) to Fitzers in Temple Bar.

He is, of course, mindful of the difficulties that other British chefs have encountered in setting up shop in Dublin. While Richard Corrigan may be doing well on St Stephen's Green, he is a different kettle of fish (sorry), because he's originally from Ireland (although he made his name in the UK) and puts in time in the kitchen of Bentley's. "I like Richard," says Marco. "He flies the Irish flag in London very high. I'm a big fan."

But Jean-Christophe Novelli's stint at La Stampa was a flop. Gary Rhodes struggled on Capel Street for a while before apparently throwing in the towel ? the restaurant closed last year for 're-modelling' promising to re-open for St Patrick's Day 2009. It didn't. Gordon Ramsay's gig at the Ritz Carlton is rumoured to be performing badly – busy at the weekends but nothing happening during the week. The fact that Ramsay seldom appears in the kitchen there doesn't help. (Marco retired from cooking 10 years ago and so won't be in the kitchen on Dawson Street either, the difference being that he is not telling anyone he will be, nor is he charging Michelin-star prices.) These are not auspicious models.

"I have wondered, of course," he says, "if it is a mistake because everyone who has come over here has ended up going back. But I'm confident that the way that we're doing it here will succeed. There's an infrastructure that works ? to change it would be just about ego. I was in Iraq at Christmas cooking for the troops and everyone told me that the biggest mistake the Americans made was to dismantle Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party ? they should just have got rid of the 15% that was rotten. Here we've kept the staff. Nick [Munier] will be on site for a few weeks of staff training, but Gina, the manager, has been at Fitzers for years and everyone knows her. She's fantastic. Niall the chef is very good too ? he came to London for a while to see how we do things there and has brought all that knowledge back to Dawson Street. And I'm committed to coming once a month, to meet Geraldine and work through any problems with the staff."

The restaurant has had a makeover ? it's stylish in an understated, relaxed way ? without vast sums having been spent.

"It is," says Marco, "about a feeling not a look. At the end of the day it's about sitting in a room that's comfortable and conducive to having a good time, so that people can go out with their family and friends and relax. People don't want posh, they want decent food at a fair price. We took over a steakhouse in the city recently, spent £2,500 changing a few things and the takings went from £5,000 to £40,000 a week overnight. We gave it a brand and a concept that people could understand.

"If you look at Michelin-starred restaurants today, they're dead at lunchtime. Here," and he gestures inside, where every table is occupied, "people don't have to dress in a certain way, they can come into town to do a bit of shopping and meet their friends for a bite to eat. They can have one course or three, it's up to them. Who wants to sit on the edge of their chair wondering what cutlery to use? [Michelin-starred] restaurants are like the Chapel of Rest! It's as if you're there to pay your respects. You're told what to eat, forced down a certain road. It's all about the chef's ego ? the most poisonous sauce in any kitchen. I served plenty of it when I was younger, but in the last 10 years of my career my food became very simple as I had great confidence. It's the same with all great artists." No shrinking violet is Marco.

One of the things that everyone knows about Marco is that in 1999 he handed back his three Michelin stars, after 22 years in the kitchen. "During that time all my energy went into the food, not into me as a person. I was emotionally stunted. When I quit, it was like taking the ball and chain off my ankle. I didn't work for five years and I took time out to do all those things I hadn't had time for like fishing and deer-stalking. When I wrote my autobiography with my friend James Steen, it was like therapy. Now I'm the happiest I've ever been in my entire life."

He doesn't cook any more and life now revolves around the filming of Hell's Kitchen (there's a new series next month) and keeping an eye on the 12 restaurants in which he has interests, including the Yew Tree Pub in Hampshire ? his 'boozer'. He aims to dine in each one, each week. He only eats in his own restaurants, chauffeured between them as he doesn't drive.

"Look at it logically," he says. "If I dine in someone else's restaurant then, one, I'm giving them money, two, I'm endorsing their product and three, what's going on in my restaurant?"

The menu in Dublin is straightforward ? steaks, the benchmark of any restaurant, feature prominently. It is, he says, the kind of honest food that he likes to eat himself. He auditioned a dozen or more beef suppliers before appointing one.

He doesn't miss being in the kitchen himself. "Look at Alex Ferguson, he was a footballer who went into management. You evolve, you progress. I didn't want to live a lie and pretend that I was cooking when I wasn't. If you have a booking in a three-star Michelin restaurant then you want the chef to be behind the stove ? it's like buying tickets to see Elton John play and instead his right hand man shows up in one of his suits and starts singing ? you're not getting what you paid for."

Recently, Marco has cropped up endorsing Knorr stock cubes ? something which, along with the closing of various restaurants, the much written about fallings out with business partners and others in the business, and the last and most acrimonious of his divorces, had given me the impression that Marco had hit hard times. I have that completely wrong apparently ?despite having been "put on a wealth diet and forced to shed a few pounds" several times, he has reinvented himself and is now in good shape financially. He has been lucky with property, he says. "That's the life of an artist: up and down, helter skelter ? how exciting is that? I love it!"

He claims not to be driven by money. "Too many people chase too much. I've never chased. It's not something that bothers me. You only have to earn as much as you need, it's as simple as that. I don't do things to make money; I do them because I want to do them. The money comes by default. There are no guarantees that you'll be here tomorrow ? when you watch your mother die at six, it's the only way you can live your life, that's why money means nothing to me."

As a man who has been interviewed extensively, Marco has perfected the art of not answering the questions that he doesn't want to. "Am I single or attached? No one knows, do they? Why should they know?"

And despite the perception of him as a tabloid bad boy, it's true that these days he does little to fuel the celebrity machine. "If it wasn't for them," he says, "no one would know who I am. Now I'm not seen in public, haven't been for years. I don't go to parties, gatherings, award ceremonies. I step on to the stage to do Hell's Kitchen and then I go back under the radar." Still, photographers lurk outside his house and he admits to enjoying the odd game of cat and mouse with them.

Last year he lost a privacy action against the lawyers representing his third wife in their divorce proceedings over personal documents, including letters from his children, that were stolen from his car and then used against him, something that is apparently common practice in family law matters when one party wants to gather information about the other's assets. It still rankles, and he will be back in court in June appealing the decision.

When two of my children arrive to meet me, Marco is as charming to them as he has been to me. We are invited in to lunch on the house ? "Please don't regard it as a bribe!" But I'm certainly well-disposed after a terrific steak and creamed spinach. I'm apologetic when the kids order theirs well done. "Next time you're cooking steak at home," Marco suggests, "Cut off a corner so they can try a piece that's a few points down the scale from cremated."

And then he's off, glass of red wine in hand, to charm the next person. Welcome to Dublin, Marco.