Jamie Oliver Wants to Get Back Into the Restaurant Game

World-famous chef and cookbook author Jamie Oliver wants to get back into the restaurant game, following the total collapse of his 25-strong group in 2019.

Oliver told the Radio Times:

I’m watching for now but I’ll definitely get back in the game. We’ve got some exciting ideas for Fifteen to reimagine itself, and we still have restaurants abroad. I’ve had a lot of trial and error but you can’t stop trying. Fifteen was trail-blazing. Everyone said ‘Don’t do it’, but it’s still the best thing I’ve ever done.

Oliver’s restaurants fell into administration in 2019, with 22 out of 25 closing instantaneously: his Jamie’s Italian chain; Barbecoa, the globally influenced steakhouse duo; and Fifteen, his best-known and best restaurant, formerly in Hoxton. The collapse followed earlier turbulence, with 12 out of then 37 U.K. restaurants closing in 2018.

In the intervening time, Oliver has said that he would have found it easier to open posh restaurants; become the subject of a documentary; been found to have broken labour laws during the restaurants’ collapse; traded insults with Marco Pierre White; and, in so doing, proven that the power — both cultural and financial — of the Oliver brand, bolstered by cookbooks and TV, makes a return to restaurants eminently feasible and highly likely.

More soon.