EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Marco Pierre White’s daughter pirouettes from ballet to baking

He was once the enfant terrible of the restaurant world, but is Marco Pierre White’s daughter about to make her own mark on culinary culture?

I can reveal Mirabelle, 22, appears to have shelved plans to become a ballerina and is now training as a pastry chef at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire — the same kitchen her father worked in 40 years ago under Raymond Blanc.

Television chef Raymond, 73, tells me: ‘Mirabelle’s learning all the basics about patisserie and she’s lovely. I have high hopes that Mirabelle will come out very strong as she is being trained by the top patissiers.’

‘The older generation like to say all the younger generation are rubbish when it comes to learning how to make food, but I disagree profoundly. They just need to be inspired and given the opportunity to be creative.’

A proud Marco, 61, says of his Royal Ballet School-trained daughter: ‘If I look at Mirabelle, she’s very consistent and she’s very fast and very driven. And so I think she’ll do really well within that world.’

But he suggests his bad boy reputation stems from a misunderstanding. ‘How could I have been a wild child? I worked in the kitchen six nights a week, I used to work over 100 hours a week in my kitchens,’ he says.

‘Most of my reputation is a product of exaggeration and ignorance. I’ve always been conventional and a classicist.’

Mirabelle is Marco’s daughter from his marriage to his estranged third wife, fiery Spanish bar manager Mati Conejero, with whom he also has sons Marco, 28, and Luciano, 29.

They wed in 2000, but filed for divorce seven years later. They gave up on divorce proceedings in 2011 after years of negotiations, with legal bills reportedly reaching £3 million.

In 2012, Mati admitted smashing the windows of Marco’s Range Rover and daubing graffiti in blood and scarlet nail varnish on his West London house.

The King this week undertook one of the most poignant duties of his reign so far. On Tuesday, at Buckingham Palace, he received Nicolas Bramall who, as custom dictates, returned the Insignia of the Order of the Garter worn by his father, Field Marshal The Lord Bramall. Due to delays caused by lockdowns, it was three and a half years after the death of the Field Marshal, whose final days were blighted by baseless allegations made by Carl Beech, who was jailed in 2019 for perverting the course of justice. 

Lucy and her hot new role as Marie Antoinette . . . 

Bohemian Rhapsody star Lucy Boynton says she was almost burnt to a crisp thanks to the billowing dresses she wore to play Marie Antoinette in new film Chevalier.

The 29-year-old (right) plays the last queen of France in the story of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the illegitimate composer son of a slave owner.

‘It was incredible, the scale, height, the width, you have to re-learn your spatial awareness,’ Lucy, who is dating Bohemian Rhapsody co-star Rami Malek, 42, tells me at the Gala Screening at Everyman Borough Yards in London. ‘I almost caught on fire several times. You’re trained very quickly.’

Geri gets a spicy £760k dividend

She prefers, so it is playfully said, to be known as Geraldine these days — as that befits her life as chatelaine of an Oxfordshire estate.

But though at ease in her 15th-century manor house, where she and her Red Bull F1 boss husband Christian Horner keep horses, it’s Geri Halliwell’s Spice Girls past that still brings home the hay. Twenty-seven years after the Spice Girls sold 23 million copies of their debut album, Geri, 50, has treated herself to a £762,240 dividend from Wonderful Productions.

The firm she set up in 1997 holds £1.4 million in retained earnings, which could soon be much more if Geri sheds her jodhpurs to join a reunion tour that bandmate Mel B hankers for.

Strong spirits help Ray see supernatural

Not sure I had Hollywood hard man Ray Winstone down as a believer in the supernatural.

And yet the 66-year-old Sexy Beast star claims to have had ‘loads’ of encounters with unworldly entities, although there does tend to be a common denominator.

‘I was usually p****d at the time,’ he tells me at the Gala Performance of Ghost Story 2:22 at the Apollo Theatre in London’s West End, which sees his 38-year-old daughter Jaime (pictured left, together) playing a starring role.

And the actress also confirmed to being a believer, telling me at the after party: ‘Of course I believe. Is it science, or is it magic? It’s all of it.’

Before adding: ‘I’ve had a few drinks’. Do I sense a pattern emerging?

Edith Bowman is a stalwart broadcaster — however, the 49-year-old admits to still suffering from nerves before any of her big presenting gigs. ‘I use them constructively, it keeps me alert,’ the former Radio 1 DJ tells me. ‘I think when I don’t get them it’s time to move on. ‘I see them as a good thing because it shows you care. If you didn’t feel anything, then it would be worse, wouldn’t it? I still get nervous but it keeps me alive.’ 

Her father Lucian was given the Order of Merit and awards seem to keep coming for the Freuds. Novelist daughter Esther, 60, has been handed a sauna diploma, recognising her as a fully-fledged doyenne of dry heat. ‘I am proud to say I’m now a member of the Diplomatic Sauna Society, courtesy of the Finnish embassy,’ she says. ‘I spent the evening with notable Finns, eating, drinking and testing our Sisu (grit) in the highest temperatures.’ As one does.