Interviewee: Jamie Oliver
Interviewer: Michael Holland
Date: August 28, 2008

Jamie Oliver is television’s “The Naked Chef.” Through his hit shows, he has successfully assimilated sex appeal into gastronomy, inspiring a new generation to start cooking.

Jamie Oliver’s first television show, The Naked Chef, had excellent ratings upon its premiere and drew in an audience who were not used to watching cooking programs. Its eponymous book alone topped bestseller charts everywhere. Eventually, the program’s popularity spilled over from the British Isles to the US, where it was broadcast in 1999. The Naked Chef was followed by Return of the Naked Chef, which morphed into Happy Days with the Naked Chef.

In 2002, Jamie Oliver plucked 15 underprivileged youngsters to train as chefs in his Tatler Award-winning restaurant, Fifteen. Out of their training program, he developed the top-rated reality show Jamie’s Kitchen. The program later spawned a charity called The Fifteen Foundation.

In a similar vein, Jamie Oliver has pushed to raise the standards of British school meals. He initiated the Feed Me Better campaign, which successfully compelled the government to earmark $550 million for this purpose. His efforts were documented in the TV series Jamie’s School Dinners.

Conscious of his new political clout, Jamie Oliver also tried to publicize issues surrounding UK pig raisers in the programs Jamie Saves Our Bacon and Jamie’s Fowl Dinners. Nevertheless, he remains a television fixture with lighthearted shows, such as Jamie’s Great Italian Escape and Jamie At Home.

Jamie Oliver was discovered in 1997 while working at London’s River Café, where a documentary was being shot. No less than five TV producers called Oliver to pitch him their shows, one of which became The Naked Chef.

Jamie Oliver grew up in a food-loving family. He was born in May 1975 to parents who own The Cricketers, a pub in Clavering, Essex. At eight years old, he would already help around the kitchen, even as other boys frowned at the idea.

From this experience, Jamie Oliver knew he was destined for a career in cooking. Quitting formal school at 16, he enrolled in London’s Westminster Catering College. He journeyed to France thereafter to hone his trade, before returning to London as pastry chef for Antonio Carluccio’s Neal Street Restaurant. After this, he entered Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray’s River Café, where he was eventually noticed by television producers.