‘Brutal and unforgiving’: Jamie Oliver lashes out

Jamie Oliver has built a culinary empire off the back of his good looks, charm and unwavering positive attitude. But the celebrity chef has put his (multi) million dollar smile on hold for a moment.

Jamie Oliver has built a culinary empire off the back of his good looks, charm and unwavering positive attitude. But the celebrity chef has put his (multi) million dollar smile on hold for a moment as he takes aim at the British and Australian governments for their response to the hospitality industry in the wake of the global pandemic.

With heavy restrictions still in place in the UK and with Australian cities having weathered varying periods of lockdown, many restaurants have been forced to close their doors or offer signifincantly reduced services. While some have managed to hang on with the help of government rescue packages, too many have had little choice but to call it quits.

Oliver tells Insider he has been watching on painfully as the crisis continues to unfold and could do little as the financial weight became too much for many family-owned eateries and associated businesses.

Jamie Oliver has been busy during COVID. Picture: Feliz Tosun

“This is f...ing brutal. It’s brutal, unforgiving and it’s survival of the fittest,” he says. “We’re seeing really healthy businesses pre-COVID that were robust, famous and much-loved with history and integrity and we can tell that there are many things that can just make them very vulnerable or dead right now.”

Worse still, Oliver, whose new show Jamie’s Easy Meals For Every Day has just started on Channel 10, believes multinational fast food outlets are benefiting from government restrictions and being treated in the same was as small business owners trying to run a single restaurant.

“The one thing that upsets me more than anything is the people that genuinely care about local farmers and producers, the ones that care, I think are unfairly affected more than the kind of food businesses that don’t care,” Oliver says.

“The ones that don’t really need to train the next generation of cooks, the ones where stuff doesn’t go off very quickly because it’s all frozen.

“It does feel like the fast food purveyors, a lot of them, have had quite a good time during this pandemic. And the ones that really foster the true Aussie food culture seem to be getting battered, as they are in Britain, from every corner and treated the same by the government as if they’re the same kind of businesses. And they are completely different. You can’t compare one end of the spectrum to another. Yes, they provide food but that’s about the only thing they’ve got in common,” he adds.

Olvier’s new show is now showing on Channel 10. Picture: Feliz Tosun

When Oliver first heard the UK was about to go into its first hard lockdown — announced on the Friday to go into place the following Monday — he made a bee-line for the office with a handful of staff and immediately began filming.

There were no contracts to fulfil or shows he had already sold that had to be made — he just knew that with panic buying on the rise and certain foods running out of stock across the country, people would need a hand with what to cook and how to make the most of what they had.

“They were putting police around supermarkets and we were running out of flour, we were running out of eggs. Every day, we ran out of something else nationally,” he explains.

“I could feel the tension in the air and the unrest. I knew there was a job to be job to be done. So I kind of went into public service mode.”

His team worked through the weekend and managed to film five episodes and by the time everything came to a standstill on the Monday, the series — Jamie: Keep Cooking And Carry On (a play on the famous British World War II slogan Keep Calm And Carry On which is used just about everywhere but probably never been as relevant as it is today) — had found a home on Channel 4.

So popular was the series — where he made pasta with flour and water and eggless cakes in an effort to demonstrate what you can make with the little you have in the cupboard or fridge — that the original five-episode run made over that pre-lockdown weekend turned into 20 by the time it ended.

Justin Hemmes is not happy with the COVID-19 restrictions. Picture: Jonathan Ng

The remaining episodes were shot at his home with Oliver’s kids standing in as crew and wife of 20 years Jools behind the iPhone camera.

The speed at which this series was turned around while — and that it wasn’t terrible, quite the opposite — is testament to the force that is Jamie Oliver.

When he sets his mind to something, it’s going to get done, regardless of obstacles.

Once that series had helped guide millions through the culinary problems thrown up by COVID, Oliver had the chance to make Jamie’s Easy Meals For Every Day, a series he calls a natural “bookend” to Keep Cooking.

A break in restrictions meant the former Naked Chef and his team were able to focus this time on production values and make something that had similar messaging but was presented in a way that provided a bit more stability and calm.

“So it’s still the same emotion, the same heart but I knew the public didn’t want kind of rough and ready phone footage, they wanted to sit back, relax, and just enjoy calm,” he says.

“We’re not squeezing in loads and loads of recipes. It’s just super chilled.”

Asked if there’s a light at the end of the COVID tunnel for the industry, Oliver says Australians and Brits have a similar kind of grit and determination that will ensure both countries eventually come out of the other side.

“We’re going to bounce back and in many respects stronger because we would have learned and we would have adjusted,” he says.

“We would have been forced to listen harder than ever before, and look harder than ever before.”

* Jamie’s Easy Meals For Every day, Channel 10, Thursdays at 7.30pm