Actor · Director · Writer

1975-05-27 · United Kingdom · Male

96 series in the catalog

James Trevor Oliver (born 27 May 1975) is an English celebrity chef, restaurateur and writer. Known for his casual approach to cuisine, Oliver has fronted many television shows, opened numerous restaurants, developed a wide range of food products, and written best-selling cookbooks.

Oliver rose to prominence with the BBC Two series The Naked Chef (1999–2001). In 2005, Oliver started a campaign, Feed Me Better, to introduce schoolchildren to healthier foods, which was later backed by the government. He was the owner of a restaurant chain, Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group, which opened its first restaurant, Jamie's Italian, in 2008. The chain went into administration in May 2019. As an author, Oliver had sold more than 50.6 million books, with over 32 titles published worldwide.

Oliver was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) at the 2003 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to the hospitality industry. His TED Talk won him the 2010 TED Prize. In 2019, he was awarded the Order of the Star of Italy with the rank of Knight.

Early life

James Trevor Oliver was born on 27 May 1975 in Clavering, Essex, where he was also raised. His parents, Trevor and Sally (née Palmer) Oliver, ran a pub and restaurant, the Cricketers, where he practised cooking in the kitchen with his parents. He has a sister, and was educated at Newport Free Grammar School, in Newport.

He left school at the age of 16 with two GCSE qualifications in art and geology and went on to attend Westminster Technical College (now Westminster Kingsway College). He earned a City & Guilds National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) in home economics.

Career

Oliver's first job was a pastry chef at Antonio Carluccio's Neal Street restaurant, where he first gained experience at preparing Italian cuisine, and developed a relationship with his mentor Gennaro Contaldo; later in his career Oliver employed Contaldo to help run his chain of high street restaurants, Jamie's Italian. Oliver moved to the River Cafe in Fulham, as a sous-chef. He was noticed there by the BBC in 1997, after making an unscripted appearance in the documentary Christmas at the River Cafe.

In 1999, Oliver's BBC Two show The Naked Chef debuted, and his cookbook became a bestseller in the United Kingdom. That same year, he was invited to prepare lunch for Prime Minister Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street. After three series of Naked Chef programmes (The Naked Chef, Return of the Naked Chef and Happy Days with The Naked Chef) for the BBC, Oliver moved to Channel 4 in 2002, following BBC Two's decision not to renew his contract with the network, after Oliver had appeared in similarly themed TV cookery advertisements for Sainsbury's supermarket.

His first Channel 4 series was a documentary, Jamie's Kitchen, which began in November 2002, and followed the setting up of Fifteen restaurant in London.

Oliver's holding company, Jamie Oliver Holdings Ltd., earned enough for Oliver to be listed on The Sunday Times list of richest Britons under 30 in 2005. Oliver's net worth was estimated in 2014 at £240 million. A decade later, his net worth was estimated at £173 million. Oliver was chosen by Disney Pixar to provide the voice of the health inspector in the UK version of Ratatouille. In December 2009, Oliver received the 2010 TED Prize. He hosted Jamie's 15 Minute Meals on Channel 4, which aired for 40 episodes in 2012.

Restaurants

Oliver's restaurant Fifteen, in Westland Place, London continued to train young adults who have a disadvantaged background for careers in the restaurant business until its closure on 21 May 2019.

The Fifteen Foundation opened further restaurants in Amsterdam, Cornwall (May 2006) and Fifteen Melbourne, Australia (September 2006). The Melbourne restaurant cut ties with Oliver in 2011. The London, Amsterdam and Cornwall restaurants closed in 2019 when his restaurant group went into administration.

In June 2008, Oliver launched a restaurant, Jamie's Italian, his first high street business venture, in Oxford, England. At its peak, there were 42 Jamie's Italian restaurants in the UK. The brand was franchised via the Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group (JORG), and included branches in Australia (which Oliver part-bought back in November 2016 after its founders went bankrupt), Canada, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Qatar, Russia, Taiwan, Turkey, the UAE and Singapore.

In 2011, Oliver, an advocate of cooking meals from scratch and using local produce, caused controversy after it turned out the sauces used in Jamie's Italian in Glasgow were from an industrial park almost 400 miles (640 km) away in Bicester. That same year, he came under fire for lack of food safety protections in his restaurants and illnesses associated with under-cooking mincemeat that may have been contaminated with E. coli.

In 2011, Oliver set up Barbecoa, a barbecued meat-based restaurant with his friend, American barbecue expert Adam Perry Lang. There were two outlets, both in London, one in Piccadilly and a second in St Pauls. In 2014 the Piccadilly outlet voluntarily closed for 24 hours after hygiene inspectors gave it the second-lowest rating. The Times reported they had found mouse droppings, mouldy carcasses and out-of-date meat. In February 2018, JORG confirmed that they had "instructed a firm of real estate agents to ascertain the potential value and market suitability of two of our sites". On 19 February 2018, Barbecoa Ltd went into administration, with Oliver immediately buying back the St Paul's site in a pre-packed agreement via a new subsidiary.

In 2014, he partnered with Toronto restaurateur King Street Co. and executive chef Rob Gentile to open 10 planned branches of Jamie's Italian, including a location in Yorkdale Shopping Centre. The business collapsed in 2020.

In January 2017, chief executive Simon Blagden announced the closure of six restaurants in the UK affecting 120 jobs, at sites in Aberdeen, Cheltenham, Exeter, Royal Tunbridge Wells, and in London at Ludgate and Richmond.

In January 2018, as part of an agreement with creditors to secure £71.5M of debt, JORG proposed to enter the UK company Jamie's Italian Ltd into a company voluntary arrangement, seeking rent reductions on eight outlets and closing a further 12 in Bath, Bristol, Bluewater, Chelmsford, Harrogate, Kingston, Milton Keynes, Reading, and St Albans, and Greenwich, Piccadilly and Threadneedle Street in London. As part of the agreement, court papers revealed that Jamie's Italian had debts of £71.5m, including £2.3 million in wages owed to staff; £30.2 million of overdrafts and loans; £41.3 million owed to landlords, HM Revenue and Customs, suppliers and other creditors; with £47 million of the debts covered by loans from HSBC Bank and Oliver's other companies.

The group went into administration on 21 May 2019 with 22 of 25 restaurants closed and 1,000 jobs lost. Jamie's Italian restaurants and Jamie Oliver's Diner at Gatwick Airport continued operations until they were sold to catering company SSP Group. Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Cornwall at Watergate Bay, as well as 61 overseas locations and the catering services operated by Aramark in the U.S., are all operated by franchisees so they were unaffected. In January 2020, KPMG, the firm administrators, said that most of the £80 million the chain owed after its collapse will not be recovered. Hundreds of suppliers, as well as some town councils, will bear the brunt of the losses. In 2020, an employment tribunal ruled that Oliver's restaurants had broken labour laws by failing to consult employees prior to making them redundant.

In November 2023, Oliver opened a new restaurant, Jamie Oliver Catherine Street, in London, his first since the collapse of Jamie's Italian. It was launched in partnership with Andrew Lloyd Webber's LW Theatres at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. In March 2024, Oliver opened a restaurant in Serbia, Jamie's Italian Belgrade, in the Belgrade Waterfront quarter. In March 2026…