Jamie Oliver THE PAIN HAS GONE

AFTER A TESTING YEAR, HE’S READY TO MOVE ON

- Ana Calderone

Walking into the restaurant at Brooklyn’s DUMBO House club, Jamie Oliver spots a rotisserie spinning cauliflower and cabbage heads where you might expect to see chickens. “This would not have happened five years ago,” he says, grinning. “It’s a sign of the times.” So is the success of the British chef’s 23rd cookbook, Ultimate Veg. His first all-vegetarian title shot onto Amazon’s bestseller list last month – a victory Oliver, 44, is savouring after some difficult years. “I’m really good,” he says. “Better than I’ve been in a long, long time.”

The one-time food wunderkind – who was just 24 when his show The Naked Chef propelled him to stardom two decades ago – has watched his restaurant empire crumble. Eight months ago the Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group went into administration, a form of bankruptcy protection. Its creditors are expected to lose up to $159 million, with roughly 1000 jobs lost. “We smashed it for eight years, and we struggled for four years,” says Oliver. Though the demise was “tough on every level”, he says he also feels a sense of relief since entering administration: “The pain has gone. The haemorrhaging of cash is gone. And there’s a result. It’s not the result I wanted, but now you move on.”