Page 58 - People (February 2020)

Jamie

Oliver

Making

Mistakes

& Moving

Forward

A F T E R T H E F A L L O F H I S R E S T A U R A N T E M P I R E , T H E C H E F I S L E A N I N G
O N F A M I LY & F O C U S E D O N T H E F U T U R E B y A N A C A L D E R O N E

alking into the restaurant at ing after some difficult years. “I’m really good,” he
Brooklyn’s DUMBO House says. “Better than I’ve been in a long, long time.”
club, Jamie Oliver spots a ro- The onetime food wunderkind—who was just
tisserie spinning cauliflower 24 when his show The Naked Chef helped propel
W and cabbage heads where the Food Network to success two decades ago—
you might expect to see chickens. “This would not has watched his restaurant empire crumble. Eight
have happened five years ago,” he says, grinning. months ago the Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group
“It’s a sign of the times.” So is the success of the went into administration, a form of bank ruptcy
British chef’s 23rd cookbook, Ultimate Veg. His protection. Its creditors are expected to lose up to
first all-vegetarian title shot onto Amazon’s best- $106 million, and 22 of his 25 restaurants have
seller list last month—a victory Oliver, 44, is savor- closed, with roughly 1,000 jobs lost. “We smashed it

62 February 17, 2020 FROM TOP: SAM ROBINSON/©2017 JAMIE OLIVER ENTERPRISES LIMITED; JASON BELL/CAMERA PRESS/REDUX