Jamie Oliver says he cooks best when he ‘thinks like a woman’

Chef says women are more ‘instinctive’ cooks

Jamie Oliver has said he cooks best when he “thinks like a woman,” as he reflected on how male-dominated kitchens are “not a good place to work”.

The TV chef and restaurateur said women tend to be more instinctive cooks, while men struggle to improvise focus their energy on perfecting particular methods or recipes.

Speaking to The Times to promote One, his new cookbook of one-pan recipes, Oliver said he leans into more “feminine traits” when cooking.

“As a young boy, getting a craft and this energy about Michelin stars and measurement and how you control nature as opposed to how you react to nature, which I think are more feminine traits like nourishment and more maternal feelings ... If I’m ever good, I have to try and think like a woman.

“If you want to see what bad looks like you go to a kitchen full of just men. It is not a good place to work so you need, we need, each other in the balance.”

Oliver made his television debut in 1999, with the BBC series The Naked Chef.

Alongside the show, he also released a book of the same name, which became a bestseller in the UK.

Reflecting on the beginnings of his career, Oliver said his appearance on the small screen initially made him unpopular among men.

“My relationship with men around the country was tough,” Oliver said.

“I got properly chased and roughed up a few times. They had it easy and then all of a sudden their girlfriend or wife was like, ‘Look, there’s a foetus on TV here. If he can do it surely you can. You’re a 45-year-old man. I’ll have it once a week, you lazy bastard’.”

He also revealed he suffered “quite a lot of scaffolding abuse” while out in public and walking past building sites.

“You think you girls have it bad when you go past scaffolding. Being the Naked Chef in the 1990s was not a good.”