Jamie Oliver has opened up about the loss of his restaurant empire, admitting he got the ‘basics’ wrong because he is ‘conceptually thick’.
The celebrity chef, 50, was forced to close 22 of his Jamie’s Italian restaurants in May 2019 – causing a loss of 1,000 jobs after profits plunged – with business owing around £83 million when it went bust.
During an appearance on Davina McCall’s Begin Again podcast, Jamie opened up about navigating failure, admitting he struggled because of his inability to understand maths.
He mused: ‘Sometimes I’ve failed and I got all the hard bits right and I got the basics wrong because I spent a lifetime refusing to accept any responsibility around numbers and maths… I didn’t pass maths at school.
‘Conceptually within that, yeah I’m thick. I have a negative view of myself when it comes to maths.
So when I lost my restaurants, you know, all the hard stuff we got right – all the stuff that most people struggle getting right, we got right. We were really good at the hard stuff – and it was really the basics.’
Jamie Oliver has opened up about the loss of his restaurant empire, admitting he got the ‘basics’ wrong because he is ‘conceptually thick’
The celebrity chef, 50, was forced to close 22 of his Jamie’s Italian restaurants in May 2019 – causing a loss of 1,000 jobs after profits plunged (pictured in 2015)
Jamie continued: ‘Like, we were really good at the hard stuff. And like, it was really the basics.
‘But and through my inability and it sounds like I’m being hard on myself, but I recognise it now through, you know, my inability to exercise the demons of like actually like maybe you’re not s**t at that and actually you can retrain that.’
Jamie also revealed that he no longer sees failure as a negative.
He mused: ‘Maybe it’s me being philosophical and trying to protect myself but I think that pain and failure is all part of really shaping your peripheral vision and your senses.
‘And I think, whatever it is that you’re trying to do, you might not have failed because it was all were wrong.
‘Sometimes I’ve failed because I was too early and people weren’t ready. Sometimes I’ve failed because I was too late.’
Jamie’s Italian was the most high-profile fall from grace in a year when hundreds of restaurants closed across the UK.
When his chains, which also included Fifteen and Barbecoa went into administration it resulted in more than 20 of his restaurants shutting.
During an appearance on Davina McCall ‘s Begin Again podcast , Jamie opened up about navigating failure, admitting he struggled because of his inability to understand maths
In August 2019 Jamie broke down as he visited Fifteen in east London, which he opened in 2002, as part of Channel 4 documentary Jamie Oliver: The Naked Chef Bares All
It was reported Jamie dipped into his own personal bank account to pay the wages of roughly 1,000 staff who have been made redundant.
In August 2019 Jamie broke down as he visited Fifteen in east London, which he opened in 2002, as part of Channel 4 documentary Jamie Oliver: The Naked Chef Bares All.
Talking about the failures, he said he was ‘naive’ and ‘didn’t know’ how to run a business successfully.
He put the failure behind him in 2022 when he revealed he was making a return to the restaurant game, opening a new food delivery chain, insisting: ‘We will go again.’
Speaking about the crushing collapse of his beloved restaurant chain, the TV personality said: ‘It happens, and I would call it a minor blip really, in the vision and the dream. A very painful one. But definitely, I’m better for it.
‘We had 13 amazing years and learned loads. I was a young man when I started, I’m much older and wiser now.’
Asked whether or not he had learned from the closure of his Italian restaurant chain, the TV personality said: ‘Yeah, for sure, and every other failure that I’ve had – which is about 50 per cent.
‘But I’ve never been more rounded, I’ve never been more experienced.’
