Photo: Jools Oliver/instagram
Walking into the restaurant at Brooklyn’s DUMBO House club, Jamie Oliver spots a rotisserie spinning cauliflower and cabbage heads where you might expect to see chickens. “This would not have happened five years ago,” he says, grinning. “It’s a sign of the times.” So is the success of the British chef’s 23rd cookbook,Ultimate Veg. His first all-vegetarian title shot onto Amazon’s bestseller list last month—a victory Oliver, 44, is savoring after some difficult years.
“I’m really good,” he tells PEOPLE. “Better than I’ve been in a long, long time.”
The onetime food wunderkind—who was just 24 when his showThe Naked Chefhelped propel the Food Network to success two decades ago—haswatched his restaurant empire crumble. Eight months ago the Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group went into administration, a form of bankruptcy protection.
Its creditors are expected to lose up to $106 million, and 22 of his 25 restaurants have closed, with roughly 1,000 jobs lost. “We smashed it for eight years, and we struggled for four years,” says Oliver. Though he says the demise was “tough on every level,” Oliver also feels a sense of relief since entering administration: “The pain’s gone. The hemorrhaging of cash is gone. And there’s a result. It’s not the result I wanted, but now you move on.”
By his side from the beginning has been his wife, Jools. The former high school sweethearts will celebrate 20 years of marriage in June. “It’s not always easy,” he says. “She probably hates me 40 percent of the time, but 60 percent is pretty good.” They havefive kids—Poppy, 17, Daisy, 16, Petal, 10, Buddy, 9, andRiver, 3—and Jools, 45, a kids’ clothing designer, is trying to persuade him to have a sixth. “Can someone please have a word with her?” he jokes. “I am so done, but I like to support her.”
Amid his restaurants’ downward spiral, coming home to his family was “the best antidote in the world,” says Oliver. He cherishes the moments when he can give Jools a foot rub or watch Buddy fillet a fish better than any chef twice his age. “When you’re tested like I’ve been,” says Oliver, “all that matters is friends, family and health.”
“I want to be useful,” he says. “You do wise up. Hopefully I won’t make the same mistakes, and I’ll keep being creative and trying to make positive change.”
source: people.com
