Marcus Wareing ‘I was told to do one thing’ when bankers bought most expensive meal in history

Marcus Wareing ‘I was told to do one thing’ when bankers bought most expensive meal in history The infamous meal, which would cost £85,355.59p in today's money, was so pricey that Wareing positioned chefs near the front door to make sure the diners paid before leaving Marcus Wareing has spilled the beans on the infamous day a group of bankers blew more than £44,000 on a meal which went down in the Guinness Book of Records as the most expensive of all time. The celebrity chef was behind the stove in July 2001 when six investment bankers rocked up to London Michelin-starred restaurant Petrus, reportedly to celebrate a successful bonds deal. What followed has gone down in history as one of the most notorious, opulent, and expensive meals ever consumed. Astoundingly, the entire bill was made up of top-end booze as the restaurant, which had one Michelin Star at the time, decided to waive the £400 they spent on food. Even so, the final bill still came to a whopping £44,007, plus an undisclosed 'four-figure' tip. In 2026 money, that comes to £85,355.59p. Not only did the meal write itself in folklore, but it also had severe repercussions for those involved. While the restaurant Wareing shared with celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and Ramsay's father-in-law, Chris Hutcheson, went from strength to strength following the episode, all but one of the bankers lost their jobs at Barclays Capital. "It was the Noughties, the Tony Blair years - cash-rich, cigars, smoking, Cognac - the liqueur trolley might as well have been water, the way it was getting drunk," Wareing, 56, told The Go-To Food Podcast. "It was the time of the banking world and the time everyone was doing really well and cash was king. It was unbelievable." Masterchef's Wareing explained that Petrus wine, which the restaurant was named after, was becoming the drink of choice for the rich and famous. It is named after the Bordeaux wine estate of the same name, and - as of 2024 - a 750ml bottle is priced at an average of $4,112. However, certain vintages fetch higher prices. The 1947 version was so good that it cemented the estate's name as a titan in the world of wine. You can buy it for a snip at £8,355.44p these days. "At lunchtime, the sommelier came down and said there was a guy at the bar who had booked a table for dinner tonight and he wanted to look at the wine list, and he was looking at the Petruses," Wareing continued. "Petrus was a very popular name, people were drinking it. It was being drunk every week. "The guy said, 'I'm interested in Petrus, what have you got?'. My sommelier showed him the list. Then they came back for their meal. "They were from a very popular bank, and this particular bank had just made 2,000 people unemployed a month earlier. It was quite big news at that particular time." Barclays - the parent company of Barclays Capital - had at that point faced a storm of criticism after cutting certain jobs across its operations. Reports from the time suggest 1,800 office jobs were cut and branch numbers reduced, although the company's overall workforce - and profits - did grow. Although lavish meals were nothing new in the City, it was poor timing as the stock market reeled from the collapse of the technology boom at the start of the millennium. Banks were trying to present a more sober, responsible image - which was one of the factors that made the story spread like wildfire. "These guys came in, sat down, and the guy opened the wine list and he went straight to the page - he knew exactly where he was going - and he said to the sommelier, 'I'll have one of those, one of those, one of those, 45, 46, 47, a 1900 Chateau d'Yquem, and seven beers please'," Wareing explained. "They started off with the beers to whet the palate. "The sommelier came down and looked like he'd seen a ghost. A sommelier opening these was like heaven. I was a chef-patron then, and this guy walks in like a mummy and says, 'Er, chef, these guys want these wines'. "I asked him what they were worth and he told me and I thought, 'S**t'. The first thing that comes into your mind is, 'Can they pay for it?'. We didn't have credit card reservations back in those days. "I called Gordon (Ramsay), who burst out laughing. I called Chris, our business partner, and asked, 'What should we do? Do we let them have it?'. He said, 'Yes, do it, but do one thing - make sure that nobody leaves the restaurant until they've paid the bill. Make sure you're local, you're around in case something happens, in case they do a runner - you just don't know'. "We opened the wines and the service fell to pieces. The adrenaline running through me at that point, that was one of the worst services of my life, because it was hard to focus. The sommelier was bringing me the wine and I was trying all these wines. "They ordered very simply and they weren't interested in the food, they were just bankers enjoying these amazing wines. The sommelier was having the time of his life." The exact list of drinks was as follows: - 1982 Montrachet - £1,400 - 1945 Petrus - £11,600 - 1946 Petrus - £9,400 - 1947 Petrus - £12,300 - 1900 Chateau d'Yquem - £9,200 - Water, champagne, fruit juice, beers - £102 The three bottles of Petrus alone came to £33,300. The 1900 Chateau d'Yquem is known as one of the world's finest dessert wines, while the 1982 Montrachet is a 'rare, complex white Burgundy made from Chardonnay grapes' which fetches more than £7,000 a bottle these days. "And then it came to the bill," Wareing said. "I told Chris the value of it. I thought, 'my god, this is huge. How are they going to pay for it?'. "We had a corridor upstairs that was next to the restaurant and I got some of the chefs to wait in the corridor by the front door. We had to be ready for it (in case they ran). It sounds weird but you just can't mess around it. They had drunk the stuff - how were they going to pay? "The bill came out, this massive bill, he puts it on the table and the guy looks at the bill and says, 'No problem - everyone, get your credit cards'. There were all these credit cards on this bill and he said, 'Right, put £4,760 on this, this on this one, this on that one'. The whole bill was broken down into weird numbers. It took 45 minutes to process this because it was more than one credit card. "Some of them went through, some didn't, but it eventually all went through - although it took forever." Fortunately for Wareing, the bill was paid, coming out at £7,334.50p per head - although that was not the end of it. The story came out and Barclays later confirmed that five of those involved no longer worked for the bank. One kept his job after the bank decided he could not be held responsible as he had only just joined. Eventually, they were named in the media - prompting them to threaten to sue Ramsay. "They are seriously cheesed off and obviously blaming me for it. I believe they are in the process of sending a writ. However, the information was not released by me. I have a code and I don't work like that. They will have to prove their case but I shall fight it to defend myself and my staff," the famously fiery chef retorted. Barclays later insisted that the meal was privately paid for and did not come out of the bank's coffers. "I don't know what happened to them," said Wareing. "This story came out - I have no idea how it got out, but it got out - and it went global. It put that restaurant on the map. We were selling Petrus like it was bloody water after that. We couldn't buy enough of it. "We'd asked permission from the Petrus chateau - you can't just choose their name - and they gave us the opportunity to use the name, Petrus. It's quite unusual for that to happen. Monsieur Moueix, the owner, gave his permission for us to use it. He used to come over and drink some of his wine. "It was Gordon who came up with the name. We were in the cellar of Aubergine, in the wine cellar, and he pulled out a bottle and said, 'Listen, that's going to be the name of your next restaurant'." Reach has reached out to Barclays for comment.