The Naked Chef Bares His Heart

He certainly didn't need the publicity. if anything, Jamie Oliver — the bloke who made the kitchen safe for tousled hair and rumpled jeans — had too much of the stuff. The regular-chap-at-the-stove routine was getting old. People were a bit tired of seeing him gaze out from the covers of four best-selling recipe books; enthuse over squid and squash in his TV series broadcast in 44 countries; and star in commercials for a British supermarket chain. So is that why he decided to dedicate a year of his life to turning 15 unemployed — in some cases near-unemployable — young people into chefs? Is that why he staked his house against a $2 million loan to open a nonprofit restaurant to provide work experience? Don't be so cynical. "I think there was an element of madness about it," says Oliver, 27. "But I was crap at school and seemed to sort of blossom in the kitchen, and I wanted to try that with these kids. The lovely thing about cooking is that it can bring out the best in anyone — it's a very hands-on, heartfelt, touchy, smelly, feely, tasty sort of job and you don't have to be an academic genius to be able to do it well."

But it took genius to get the volunteers cooking in the first place. Curses flew and tempers flared as recorded in the reality-style TV series Jamie's Kitchen. Oliver arranged tours of an Italian olive farm, a Cumbrian rare-breeds pig farm and an abbatoir; the kids often responded with chronic lateness, absenteeism and surly defiance. Oliver frequently lost his trade-mark good humor; and wanted to give up "Every bloody day ... there were times when I thought, 'God, these guys are going to have to work in my kitchen, serve my customers — how can I rely on them?'"

But he persevered, and people like Michelle Cooper, a 24-year-old single mother who had trouble turning up on time, became enthusiastic chefs. When Fifteen opened only slightly late in November, critics were surprised — and full of praise. Today, the scruffy London streets around the former Victorian industrial building are dotted with luxury cars. Ten of his 15 trainees made the grade and have even cooked at 10 Downing St. Soon they will move to new jobs, making way for the next 15. "I feel quite paranoid and responsible for the whole project," Oliver says. "I want it to be as strong in two years time, and not be just a fad. If you can do that, really great things will come out of it." They already have.