Jamie Oliver the comeback kid: How Naked Chef is bouncing back-ZoomTech News

After a string of calamitous enterprise ventures and a cooking present axed after only one collection, ‘Bare Chef’ Jamie Oliver is making an attempt a comeback – by opening one other restaurant chain.  

The 47-year-old introduced he might be launching a brand new eatery agency 4 years after the spectacular collapse of his Jamie’s Italian enterprise – which owed £83million to collectors.

Oliver claimed to have been badly suggested over the ill-fated informal eating group which grew to 63 retailers earlier than going bust with the lack of 1,000 jobs.

Regardless of struggling a private lack of £25million from the collapse, the chef has revealed he would open a brand new restaurant later this yr at London’s Theatre Royal. If profitable, extra will observe.

However the transfer comes simply days after TV bosses at Channel 4 introduced they might be axing Nice Cookbook Problem with Jamie Oliver after only one collection – and follows the collapse of his artisan meals vary a decade in the past.

Talking final week, Oliver was hopeful his new enterprise wouldn’t prove like his earlier ill-fated ones.  

Oliver mentioned: ‘[The new restaurant] is about going again to my culinary roots impressed by the dishes I grew up cooking in my mum and pa’s pub restaurant. 

‘It is about celebrating Britain’s wealthy and various meals scene in what I hope might be an iconic, trusted restaurant in a really particular place.’

The brand new Jamie Oliver restaurant – which is but to be named – is anticipated be extra upmarket than Jamie’s Italian.

The launch is the primary a part of a deliberate growth being masterminded by Kevin Types, the previous Vue cinema boss employed final yr as Oliver’s new chief government. 

Information of the enterprise follows stories that Channel 4 might be shelving the Nice Cookbook Problem after its debut run led to March.  The present noticed 18 cooks compete to win a ebook publishing deal and launch their very personal cookbooks, by creating dishes within the hope of impressing a panel of judges.

Every chef would pitch their ebook concepts and numerous recipes that would seem inside it, with the contestants slowly whittled right down to the ultimate three. 

In line with The Sun, Channel 4 have determined to not renew the present for a second collection, with a supply saying: ‘Bosses have determined to go away Nice Cookbook Problem at one collection.

‘They’re pleased with the present and might be persevering with to work with Jamie on different reveals at present within the pipeline.’

It is the most recent humiliating blow for the millionaire celeb chef, who has misplaced huge quantities of his fortune with pursuing his numerous companies. 

The chef’s final agency to break down was Jamie’s Italian, which went bust in Might 2019 after income plunged and clients stayed away. 

The Italian chain went via a painful restructuring when it offloaded its unprofitable websites, in a bid to remain afloat. 

Nearly 1,000 jobs have been misplaced with 22 of the celeb chef’s 25 retailers closing, in a transfer Oliver described because the ‘hardest factor I’ve ever needed to do’.  

The spectacular downfall of the 47-year-old father-of-five’s enterprise empire got here amid a downturn within the informal eating sector, with different firms together with Byron, Gaucho, and Gourmand Burger Kitchen having struggled pre-pandemic. 

Talking on the finish of final yr, Oliver insisted it had simply been a ‘minor blip’, saying: ‘It occurs, and I’d name it a minor blip actually, within the imaginative and prescient and the dream. A really painful one. However undoubtedly, I am higher for it.

‘We had 13 superb years and discovered hundreds. I used to be a younger man once I began, I am a lot older and wiser now.’ 

Requested whether or not or not he had discovered from the closure of his Italian restaurant chain, the TV persona mentioned: ‘Yeah, for certain, and each different failure that I’ve had – which is about 50 per cent. However I’ve by no means been extra rounded, I’ve by no means been extra skilled.’

In addition to launching his new restaurant, Oliver additionally hopes to cook dinner up a storm with one other enterprise, Pasta Goals, which he introduced final yr.   Beginning with two pop-up areas – in London’s Soho and Paris – he goals to roll the service out throughout London and different UK cities at a price of two websites a month.  And the chef added he has hopes of reviving his assortment of eating places, too.

‘We’re rather well positioned to go once more, and we’ll go once more, and I’ll return to eating places once more, as quickly as I can,’ he mentioned. 

‘It is in my blood, it is actually all I do know. It was by no means a dimension downside, it was lease and charges that obtained us actually, and excessive road decline.’

In 2012, Oliver pulled the plug on his signature vary of  artisan meals amid multi-million pound losses and bitter criticism from his suppliers.

The celeb chef had launched his ‘Jme’ meals vary simply two years earlier amid nice fanfare.  

The gathering of sauces, biscuits and jams have been mentioned to be a ground-breaking collaboration between the TV cook dinner and a hand-picked group  of unbiased, small-scale meals producers in Britain and Italy.

However regardless of being stocked in additional than 150 retailers, poor gross sales left Jme owing guardian group Jamie Oliver Ltd £14 million.

Jme made losses of £3.8 million in 2012, double its deficit of £1.9 million the yr earlier than. The vary was discontinued by the top of the yr.

Suppliers and wholesalers confirmed they have been despatched an e-mail informing them the road was ending, main some producers to assault Jme’s ‘business ineptitude’ and ‘poor branding’. 

One producer claimed he’s nonetheless owed cash by Jme and mentioned his last dealings with the enterprise had left a ‘bitter style’ in his mouth.

‘We had a number of difficulties with them,’ mentioned Gary Reid, of shortbread bakers Reids of Caithness.

‘I am not going to be harsh on Jamie Oliver as a result of the failure is right down to his crew.

‘To be trustworthy, I am not stunned the vary has been reduce. It turned out to be a extremely poor enterprise. A lot of their patrons ignored top-quality importers who needed to take our merchandise on overseas.

‘It is such a disgrace as a result of the model had such potential. I have been so livid about it.’