Jamie Oliver

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has been credited with getting the Government to increase funding for school meals - something that many parents have been trying to do for years.

The hottest young star of TV cookery programmes, Jamie Oliver has wowed all generations of food lovers with his fresh, no-nonsense cooking style and his inspiring recipes.

Jamie grew up surrounded by good food: his parents ran the Cricketers pub in Essex and, from the age of eight, he started cooking and helping the chefs.

The use of quality fresh produce at the pub gave Jamie a love of good ingredients. After an undistinguished school career, he decided he wanted to cook for a living and went on to study catering at Westminster Kingsway College in London. It was around this time that he met Jools and they started dating. After college, he travelled to France to learn more about his trade.

Jamie's apprenticeship to restaurant cooking came under some of the best chefs in London. To begin with, there was Antonio Carluccio at the Neal Street Restaurant, then he moved on to the River Café under Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers. The Italian influence on his cooking is strong, with its use of herbs and simple, full-flavoured recipes. It was while he was working at the River Café that he was spotted by a TV producer and his life changed.

The first series featuring Jamie cooking was the Naked Chef. Viewers were treated to a glimpse into his world, zipping about London on a scooter and hosting parties for all of his friends, all to a rock'n'roll soundtrack. The food was reassuringly hearty, but not too fiddly, and Jamie always seemed to have his hands full of fresh herbs and olive oil. It was an overnight success, attracting an audience that wouldn't normally watch food programmes. The book that accompanied the series became a bestseller and the young chef, always fully clothed, was catapulted into the limelight.

Fast on the heels of the first series came the Return of the Naked Chef. Again, it was packed full of the same stylish food and London partygoers, but we also saw more of Jamie's domestic side, at home with girlfriend Jools and cooking on a smaller scale. The second time around, viewers loved the show and the book, forcing Jamie into a whirlwind schedule of travelling around the world to promote the Naked Chef.

After taking some time off to marry Jools, Jamie worked on his third series, Happy Days with the Naked Chef.

In 2002, Jamie embarked on his most ambitious project yet. He took 15 under-privileged youngsters who had never been anywhere near a restaurant kitchen and turned (most of) them into professional chefs to work under him at his new restaurant Fifteen in London. The restaurant and its accompanying TV series have both been huge successes. There are now three more Fifteen restaurants, in Amsterdam, Melbourne and Cornwall.

Jamie also started, and continues to be involved with, the charity Cheeky Chops, which provides training and mentoring for disadvantaged young people.

Before leaving to set up Fifteen, Jamie was consultant chef at Monte's in Knightsbridge, working with his close friend Ben O'Donoghue, star of BBC Two's The Best.

Jamie has written for The Times, as well as for GQ and Marie Claire magazines. He currently writes for Delicious magazine in the UK and Australia. His latest series for Channel 4, Jamie at Home, saw him cooking his own home-grown vegetables.

Jamie lives in London with his wife Jools and their daughters, Poppy and Daisy.