Happy birthday, Jamie Oliver. The celebrity chef turns 50 today. It’s quite the milestone and a benchmark in a long and famous career, one that has seen the rise and fall of a restaurant empire, bestselling cookbooks, controversies abound and some of the most entertaining food television since Keith Floyd went to France.
Today, Oliver is a household name, arguably the most famous man in British food today, though Gordon Ramsay might have something to say about it.
Still, the Naked Chef still has his name above the door in 27 countries around the world, with about 70 Jamie’s Italian restaurants now franchised. The most recent launched last year in Belgrade, Serbia, a waterfront site and one of more than 200 expected to open globally by 2027.
After more than £100 million in cookbook sales, Oliver not long ago became the UK’s bestselling author behind JK Rowling, and retains his title as the bestselling cookbook author of all time. He was made an MBE for services to hospitality in 2001 and was knighted in Italy years later.
Like him or loathe him — oddly for a TV cheeky-chappie, he’s nothing if not divisive — Oliver has had a whirlwind half-century. From paella-gate to the pioneering Fifteen, here are 10 standout moments.
The TV breakthrough (that wasn’t meant to happen)
Oliver wasn’t even supposed to be cooking at the River Cafe when the BBC came to call. The broadcaster was there to film a Christmas show at the lauded Fulham restaurant and Oliver, then a sous chef in his early 20s, wasn’t the main character — but became just that. The year was 1997 and Oliver was in the kitchen to cover another chef who was off sick. Producers took a gamble on him and the countryside Essex lad made good pasta and even better TV.
Life as the Naked Chef
Two years later, The Naked Chef hit screens in April 1999. It was Oliver’s TV debut, a vastly different style of food show that did away with chef jackets and slow, intricate work. Instead, the vibe was relaxed, with lots of jumpy camera work and jazzy close-ups. Oliver turned up on a Vespa, cooked at home, and rolled around Chinatown. Each episode was inspired by a social situation, from hen do to “night off”, and he made simple dishes like baked salmon and roast lamb (the “naked” in the title referring not to a lack of clothing, but his simple, pared-back cookery). It arrived alongside his first book, also called the Naked Chef, which sold more than a million copies in under a year. It’s since been translated into 25 languages and millions more have been sold. Most food authors are happy to sell 10,000.
The pioneering Fifteen
After three series of the Naked Chef, Oliver moved to Channel 4 in 2002. The BBC decided not to renew his contract after he appeared in cookery advertisements for Sainsbury’s which were similar in style and theme. His first show for Channel 4 was Jamie’s Kitchen, which charted his setting up of Fifteen, a pair of restaurants — one in Cornwall and another in London — that trained disadvantaged young adults in the kitchen, with the idea it would give them a career. The concept was praised, though Oliver had already courted detractors. Some reviews were positive, others weren’t. One called the place “pure phoney Tony Blair”. His mock Cockney accent was beginning to grate; accusations of being a “sell out” were levelled at him.
The infamous war on turkey twizzlers
Unperturbed and intent on improving mainstream British food culture, Oliver ramped up his efforts to change school dinners after the successes of his socio-conscious Fifteen. 2005 saw the release of his groundbreaking four-part documentary series Jamie’s School Dinners, which followed the chef’s attempts in running the meals at Kidbrooke School in Greenwich for an entire year. Oliver was disgusted by the unhealthy food served and swapped turkey twizzlers for bolognese, and pizza and chips for vegetable pasta. The crusade ignited something and soon the government pledged to spend an extra £280m on school dinners over three years. Kitchens in state schools soon changed around the country. On Twitter, some called him a “salad shagger”. Others welcomed moves to help kids eat better.
Making it chain at Jamie’s Italian
There were queues out the door when the first Jamie’s Italian opened in Oxford in 2008. The concept introduced countless Brits to the affordable fizz that is prosecco, charcuterie boards and piccolo tomatoes. It was a hit and paved the way for dozens more up and down the country. The expansion of Oliver’s restaurant empire was rapid.
All the while, Oliver’s campaigning took him to Rotherham, where he established the healthy eating network Jamie’s Ministry of Food, and later he toured Australia and parts of the US where obesity rates were worryingly high.
Losing the argument over chicken nuggets
By 2011, Oliver was long a household name, a bestselling author and a staple on TV. Books and shows such as Jamie’s 30-minute Meals and Jamie’s Fish Suppers brought safe, joyous cooking and softer activism that everyone could easily get behind: why wouldn’t we want to eat more sustainable fish? His restaurants, meanwhile, were everywhere, and even if the pasta wasn’t as good, people still went. His campaigning might have been the sticking point. One of the most talked about clips of his remains the moment where Oliver showed a group of kids how chicken nuggets were made, every grisly detail, only to then ask them whether or not they would still tuck in. “Yes,” was the consensus, which appeared to make Oliver deeply upset.
Paella Gate and the jerk rice
Many home cooks follow Oliver’s recipes. Not all are well received across the board. Oliver received death threats from Spain when he advised adding chorizo to paella in 2016. “It tastes better,” he said on the Graham Norton Show. Two years later, through his supermarket food range (he had moved from Sainsbury’s to Tesco by this point) “jerk rice” — a riff on a classic Jamaican dish — and was accused of cultural appropriation. “I'm just wondering, do you know what Jamaican jerk actually is?” MP Dawn Butler asked the celebrity chef. Oliver apologised.
Fall of an empire
All will know of the collapse of Jamie’s Italian. The chef’s then 36-strong chain went into administration in 2019, leading to more than 1,000 job losses. Oliver had reportedly put in more than £10 million of his own money in an attempt to save the brand. “I appreciate how difficult this is for everyone affected,” he said at the time. “We launched Jamie’s Italian in 2008 with the intention of positively disrupting mid-market dining in the UK high street, with great value and much higher quality ingredients, best-in-class animal welfare standards and an amazing team who shared my passion for great food and service. And we did exactly that.” But the damage was done: the Oliver brand, at least in the UK, was tarnished.
A comeback of sorts at Catherine Street
In more recent years, Oliver has made something of a comeback. The TV shows have continued, so too a number of cookbooks. Appearances on podcasts such as Off Menu and Louis Theroux’s brought new legions of fans, while few seem to still care about the range of sandwiches he did at Shell garages (after years of campaigning for action on climate change, Oliver was accused of hypocrisy over the £5million deal). And London witnessed Oliver’s restaurant comeback, an eponymous fixture in Covent Garden in partnership with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Rather than traditional Italian food, the menu is styled to be more British, inspired in part by the food served at his parents’ old pub in Essex. Reviews, however, were mixed, including a two star kicking from the Standard.
Recognition from Netflix
This year, Oliver appeared in the Netflix series Chef’s Table: Legends, joining chefs José Andrés, Alice Waters, and Thomas Keller in telling their story. The show charts his 25-year career to date; his meteoric rise, his success and failure in business, and his pioneering culinary activism. Less is made of feuds with the likes of Marco Pierre White (never resolved) and others long since put to bed with Gordon Ramsay and the late Anthony Bourdain. In all, it is a sensitive watch, one that meanders through a mad career. A single takeaway? Oliver is going nowhere. He has more to do.
