He very much likes Lebanese food

Lunch with the FT: Magnus Carlsen 
By Martin Sandbu

It had not occurred to me that diet could be an important part of success at chess before I had lunch with the world’s number one chess player. But Magnus Carlsen’s nutritional needs caused some headaches. The first choice, a Chinese restaurant that is apparently one of Carlsen’s London favourites, turned out to be closed. The second, another Chinese in Soho the FT proposed as a substitute, was rejected by Carlsen the day before the lunch.

Instead, his manager has asked if I can meet the chess prodigy at Ranoush on High Street Kensington, west London. “He very much likes Lebanese food,” the manager’s email reads, and “nutrition is very important to him during a tournament.” So I am surprised when I turn up at Ranoush 20 minutes early to find a hole-in-the-wall Lebanese restaurant with a grand total of six seated tables, all taken.

We are meeting the day before Carlsen’s 22nd birthday and two days before his first match at the 2012 London Chess Classic at which each of the nine contestants play a single game against each of the other contestants; the winner takes home at least €50,000. This year, the field includes Viswanathan Anand – the current World Chess Champion; the second-, third- and fourth-highest rated players in the world; and Judit Polgár, the best female chess player of all time.

Carlsen has won the London Chess Classic twice before. Winning for a third time would be impressive by any measure. But Carlsen’s fans are hoping for a bigger prize. His current top-of-the-world rating of 2,848 is just three points below the highest ever score, achieved by Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1999. A strong performance in London will see Carlsen make history.

Or, rather, more history. The chess wunderkind has already set plenty of records. When he was five, his father Henrik, an engineer then working for oil company Exxon, encouraged him to play chess. But Carlsen was more interested in football and skiing, and didn’t take up chess until after he turned eight. He mostly taught himself in Tønsberg, a small Norwegian town where he grew up with his parents and three sisters, yet he became a grandmaster only five years later and the third-youngest player to gain that title. When he first topped the world ratings table in January 2010, he was the youngest to have done so.

I relate some of these facts to the restaurant staff as I wait for a table to become available and for Carlsen to arrive, silently praying that it will be in that order. If I thought the imminent presence of a chess genius would prompt the staff to create space in what seems a hopelessly full restaurant, however, I was mistaken. “Bring a celebrity next time,” one of the waiters jokes.

In fact, Carlsen is the closest thing chess has to a celebrity. The Dutch fashion company G-Star RAW sponsored Carlsen in 2010, leading him to appear alongside the Hollywood actress Liv Tyler in advertising campaigns across the globe. Today, he has an endorsement deal with the Norwegian tabloid newspaper Verdens Gang and makes more than a million dollars a year in endorsements and fees, according to his manager.

Carlsen’s star status fits the vision of US entrepreneur Andrew Paulson, who has struck a deal with FIDE, the international chess federation, for the commercial rights to its tournaments. Paulson wants the game to have the global attention it commanded in the 1970s and 1980s, when Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov were seen as proxy cold warriors. Since then, the biggest stars have been computers, such as IBM’s Deep Blue, which defeated Kasparov in 1997.
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Mercifully, a couple with a baby pay their bill and, manoeuvring their pram along the narrow aisle of the restaurant, free up a tiny table at the back of the room. When Carlsen arrives, right on the hour, I’ve had time to sit down and order a bottle of sparkling water.

The restaurant doesn’t seem to be what he had in mind. Rather than pointing out that it was his choice, I pick up on his manager’s reference to nutrition and competitive chess. The choice of food matters “for maintaining your level of concentration”, Carlsen tells me in Norwegian (we are compatriots). He then explains he needs long-lasting energy and that he avoid artificial sugars.

Though I had hoped to glean some insight into just what kind of Lebanese food makes for champion-level concentration, Carlsen seems unfussy when the waitress arrives. I suspect nutritional strategy really only matters the night before a game. We settle on mezze to share and, as he hesitates over the lengthy menu, I propose falafel and kibbeh. He also chooses Hommos Beiruty, which adds hot pepper to the traditional chickpea purée. For something with a hint of green, I order a tabbouleh.

The waitress is so quick that she has disappeared before I can ask for a glass of wine. Just as well, since my guest does not drink alcohol: “at least not during a competition,” he says. So a top chess player doesn’t need to be teetotal? He smiles. “I choose not to be.”

Full article here.