The Naked Chef's Big Plans

Celeb Chef's Eatery Helps Disadvantaged Youths

(CBS) 
Oliver has also confounded other critics who called his idea of training disadvantaged young people to become chefs just a flash in the pan. But it wasn't. Every year, he takes on another 15 new trainees. Some of them find they can’t take the heat in the kitchen and drop out. But for many, this is a rare opportunity to escape from what most likely would have been a life of crime.

Every fall, Oliver takes his trainees to Tuscany for a tour of the vineyards and olive groves. They visit Chianti country, which produces some of the best wine and olive oil in Italy.

There, they learn from Giovanni Manetti, the owner of an estate, how the olive oil they use in the restaurant is made, and how to appreciate the authentic Italian food and wine that has so inspired Jamie Oliver.

But Oliver says that the trip is not just about eating and drinking. For many of the trainees, it's a turning point in their lives.

"They get a purpose of what it's all about, you know, they get a romance," Oliver says. "I think with Giovanni and this particular vineyard it's kind of, they meet him, they get to know his personality and generosity and they see how he makes his wine and then they drink his wine and they finally realize that every damn thing in his life is consistent. And, actually, if you start acting consistent in a good way from today, it's only a matter of time before you, too, can be an expert and a master."

When he's not traveling, Oliver spends his weekends with Jools and their two daughters at their country home in Essex, doing what he calls "the daddy thing." But that doesn't mean he stays out of the kitchen.

"At the weekends we always sort of bake bread and sort of make silly little faces and then cook it and then they’ll have that with their lunch and, you know, it's lovely," Oliver explains, shaping a loaf that looks like a face.

But not content with ensuring that his own kids have a good lunch, Oliver is out to change the tastes of a generation of British schoolchildren.

Oliver has practically become a national hero in Britain for exposing the unhealthy diet of junk food that is served in schools at lunchtime. To prove that good food can be produced as cheaply, he took over the school catering in one London borough and cooked a range of fresh and healthy dishes.

Oliver is proposing to carry out the same experiment in American schools but he says that we shouldn’t expect an overnight transformation. Cooking good food is one thing — getting the kids to eat it is quite another.

After six months of perseverance, the kids began to enjoy his food. But even then he met with resistance from an unexpected quarter.

"The real shocking thing for me is when we banned the junk, the kids started getting used to the food, right, but you still get the odd parent phoning up and saying, 'When are you putting proper food back on the menu?' " he explains.

But there have been no such complaints about the food cooked by the trainees at Oliver's restaurant "Fifteen."

In a few months, he will help his apprentices find positions as chefs in some of the finest restaurants in the world. For the moment, they work alongside him and other professional chefs, as they serve a full restaurant every night.

To eat at Jamie Oliver's restaurant, one has to make a reservation weeks in advance and there are no exceptions. Even former President Bill Clinton couldn’t get a table when he tried to book at the last minute.

How did the 60 Minutes team snag a table? Believe it or not, they had to make a reservation six weeks in advance.

"I’m going to try and make the most of it," Bradley says, over a plate of gnocchi. "This is good … it's cooked perfectly. Sometimes this can be a difficult job!"