Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has done a series of interviews in a bid to get past his business ... [+]
Back in May, the restaurant world was startled to learn that celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's enterprise had come crashing down around his ears.
His 25 restaurants went into receivership, a British form of bankruptcy protection, at a cost of about 1,000 jobs.
It was the latest bout of misfortune for the enthusiastic Oliver, 44, who once employed 4,500 people, working in 42 restaurants.
He has been best known for touting better food for schoolchildren on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as his assortment of cookbooks. In England, he also gained visibility through his restaurants, a chef's training program and the branded products he sold in markets such as Tesco.
Given such a business meltdown, other chefs might have gone into seclusion.
That is what happened with a number of big-name chefs who lost restaurants and business ventures in the #MeToo scandal, as I wrote in March.
But none of that scandal has touched Oliver, who is known for his devotion to his wife, Juliette Norton, known as Jools, and their five children, Poppy Honey Rosie, Daisy Boo Pamela, Petal Blossom Rainbow, Buddy Bear Maurice and River Rocket Blue Dallas.
Instead, his failings are financial, and Oliver has spent the past few weeks on a high-profile apology campaign, admitting his glaring faults as a business owner and vowing to keep going with the food ventures that made him a star at just 24 years old.
“Probably I was too trusting, which is one of my problems and also one of my benefits,” Oliver said in a profile published Tuesday in the New York Times.
“There’s no way to sugarcoat it,” he added. “I thought I could fix it, but I couldn’t. I can absolutely look at myself in the mirror knowing I tried everything to the last very minute. We ran out of money. It’s as simple as that.”
According to the Times of London, Oliver personally lost about $30 million, including a loan he put into the company, while creditors were owed about $100 million. Some of the money is expected to be repaid through the British recovery process.
Speaking to British news outlets, Oliver has said the business failure took a personal toll.
He told The Food Programme on the BBC that his "birthday was ruined because of the cloud” caused by the business collapse. And in an interview with the Times of London, Oliver said that "the past few months have been the most disappointing of my life.”
But Oliver has a strategy for re-polishing his tarnished brand.
His new cookbook, Veg, set to come out in September, coincides with diners' gravitation toward vegetarian and vegan dishes, which are widespread in England and beginning to sweep other parts of the world.
The cookbook is set to be published in the U.S. in January, when Oliver could again become a presence on American airwaves.
Veg will be accompanied by a television program, Jamie’s Meat-Free Meals. It begins airing next month on Britain's Channel 4, where Oliver previously appeared in 2007 on a series called Jamie's Quick & Easy Food.
Channel 4 also will air a documentary looking at Oliver's 20 years in the food business, beginning with The Naked Chef, the show that introduced him to many American viewers.
It's a high-stakes comeback attempt that will test whether Oliver is still popular, or if his business issues have soured him with his fan base.
Oliver may be able rise above his misfortunes, however.
I conducted an informal poll among friends who had watched his programs, used his cookbooks and dined in his restaurants. To a person, they said they enjoyed his food and regularly turned to his cookbooks for family-favorite recipes.
Certainly, Oliver is far from alone in running into financial problems, which he told the Times had afflicted about 40% of his ventures.
In fact, the restaurant industry is being buffeted by a series of challenges, ranging from a shortage of staff, to the competition posed by delivery services, and the high cost of real estate. Last but far from least, there is the sexual harassment scandal that has enveloped some of the food world's most famous names.
Investors and partners in those scandals have been swift to separate themselves. Last week, Eataly, the upscale chain of Italian markets, disclosed that it had finally cut ties with Mario Batali, who was implicated in the #MeToo scandal nearly two years ago.
This came after Batali's former company, B&B Hospitality Group, bought out Batali's interests in many of the restaurants the group founded. The group has since renamed itself B&BHG.
Meanwhile, the former Besh Hospitality Group in New Orleans also re-branded after allegations surfaced against John Besh, the celebrity chef who founded a collection of restaurants there.
Besh himself has rarely been seen since the scandal broke in fall, 2017, but he attended memorial services this summer for New Orleans' legendary restaurant owner Leah Chase, along with other New Orleans chefs.
New Orleans also saw the surprise disappearance this summer of the Sucre dessert cafes, whose high-profile chef, Tariq Hanna, left the company before sexual harassment allegations surfaced against him.
In an American bankruptcy court petition, Sucre disclosed that it had suffered a 50 percent drop in business since 2017.
Back across the Atlantic, Oliver has a cookbook and a TV series to promote. So, he doesn't have the choice to stop moving, especially with the future of his career is at stake.
Nor, at 44, does it sound like he wants to take a break.
He told the New York Times, "I still feel I have 20 years of good work ahead of me."
