In our new podcast, the celebrity chef shares his passions, childhood inspirations and outlook for the year ahead
introductionEMILY BURG interview MALLIKA BASU
jamie oliver
From launching Fifteen 23 years ago, to closing his last spot five years ago, Jamie’s new restaurant Catherine Street marks a comeback to the industry.
Having been born into hospitality (his parents owned a gastropub in Essex for 46 years), at age eight he started lending a hand in the pub. He credits this to where he is today, along with his optimistic outlook and the importance he places on community in the food industry.
Talking to Mallika Basu for the BBC Good Food podcast, here are seven things Jamie has learned from a lifetime in food:
1 His parents’ high standards in hospitality were not the norm
Catherine Street is an homage to his parents’ pub in Essex. “I never realised how pioneering they were as a kid,” he says.
Moving to London in his late teens, he learned that they were doing something “very special”. “I thought it was normal to have seven chefs working in a pub kitchen, bake bread every day, butcher your own meat and have a pastry section. Of course, it’s not.”
2 The uniqueness of pubs to British culture
Living above their family pub as a child and teenager, Jamie went to bed every night with the rumble of a 150-cover establishment.
“Pubs are beautiful places – everyone’s welcome. British people might not know if they haven’t travelled a lot, but pubs are really globally unique.”
His parents’ pub was the centre of the community, a melting pot of British culture: “The beautiful thing about a pub is that it’s old people, young people, poor people, sports people, farmers, everyone.”
3 People are at the heart of everything
Now more than ever, Jamie feels that the success of a career in hospitality is about having the right people surrounding him.
“It’s about having a team that gets the food, gets the energy. What we want to do is just serve people and look after them, love them and make them feel cosy.”
At Catherine Street, he wants to give people food “that’s not stretching them too much”. Think Anglo-French with a dash of Italian, such as homemade tortellini and cappellacci, but also: “lots of pie work, lots of pickling and smoking and curing.”
4 Preserving the food for tomorrow, today
Keeping sustainability at the heart, Jamie has hired a full-time member o
