Chef’s journey from pub to a pasta master
Chef Gennaro & Jamie
James Trevor Oliver is born in Essex to pub-restaurant owners Sally and Trevor.
A young Jamie is put to work at his parents’ pub in Clavering, The Cricketers.
Jamie leaves Newport
Free Grammar School at 16 with just two GCSES, to study home economics at Westminster Technical College.
Jamie and Jools start dating – they’ve been together ever since and have five children.
He starts working at Antonio Carluccio’s Neal Street restaurant as a pastry chef, where he meets his mentor, the Italian chef Gennaro Contaldo.
He begins working as a sous-chef at Fulham’s trendy River Cafe restaurant.
The Naked Chef debuts on the BBC. In the same year, his debut cookbook is a bestseller.
Begins an endorsement deal with Sainsbury’s, which earns him around €1.4million a year. He marries Jools at All Saints Church in Rickling, Essex, near his parents’ home.
Jamie moves to Channel 4 after he refuses a BBC demand to drop his Sainsbury’s deal.
Awarded an MBE for his work with Fifteen.
Jamie’s School Dinners is launched, in which the chef waged war against junk food in school canteens. It prompts the Feed Me Better campaign.
He is named the ‘Most Inspiring Political Figure of 2005’ in a Channel 4 viewers’ poll.
Jamie at Home is broadcast on Channel 4.
He launches his first Jamie’s Italian restaurant in Oxford. At its peak, there were 42 branches in the UK.
His chain of delis, Recipease, are opened.
Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals airs for 40 episodes.
Eight-part series Jamie’s Super Food Family Classics airs.
Eight episodes of Jamie’s Quick & Easy Food begin.
Jamie Cooks Italy airs. He injects nearly €15million of his own money into Jamie’s Italian to save it from bankruptcy. Twelve restaurants have since been closed and about 600 staff have been made redundant.