Jamie Oliver strolls through the restaurant in his sparkling chef's whites, looking for all the world as if he has spent a hard morning thrashing and bashing at the coal face of haute cuisine. "Yep. Phew. I been makin' bread, general bits and pieces. A bit of prepping, a bit of butchering, all that malarkey," he says, without even a hint of a blush.

Tut, tut, Jamie! What a big, fat fib. When I came into Monte's - the London club that employs him as a consultant chef - just before the lunchtime service began, I saw him slipping into his white jacket and being tied into a white apron in the corridor. At a push, he may have been discussing new breads with the member of staff he refers to as "Jethro, my pastry boy", but he certainly has not been rattling pots and pans in any real and meaningful sense.

For a start, he is wearing a pair of denim jeans, something chefs never do because they're far too hot for the kitchen. And for someone who claims to have spent such a busy morning, he is remarkably uninformed about today's menu. What, for example, is the fish of the day?

"I dunno what the fish of the day is today, to be honest. I didn't do that. Something like bass, turbot, brill, monkfish, John Dory. It depends on what is cheap and what is good."

And the pasta special?

"I have not got a clue. I didn't make the pasta today," he says, not bothered. In the heady, celebrity stratosphere that Oliver now orbits, perhaps it should not matter that he leaves the real work to others, especially as he believes that they are "dead proud, genuinely dead chuffed to be working for me".

Today, chefs like Oliver consult instead of cook and usually appear in their restaurants only when they have promotional chores, such as this interview, to fulfill. If they ever actually deign to chop a carrot or two for the stockpot, it will invariably be for the benefit of a camera.

And, in the past few years, Oliver's own stock has been rising. To date, there have been two Naked Chef television series, a couple of best-selling cook books, a - brace yourselves - "Pukka Tucker" Christmas video, and a lucrative advertising contract with Sainsbury's supermarkets; all of which have whipped him into a froth of cheffy superstardom. Only last week, his series of television ads, which feature Oliver, his family and friends, was cited as one of the primary factors behind the recent rise in Sainsbury's share price. Remarkable, really, as most people I know have to flee the room when chortling Oliver appears on the small screen, slapping his belly, cuddling his nan, dropping olives into his scooter helmet and generally annoying all and sundry with his man-of-the-people patter.

But listen, me old mate. It was all so different back in 1998, when Oliver, the son of an Essex publican, was working as a sous chef at the River Cafe in London. After making an unscripted appearance in a documentary about the celebrated restaurant, he was plucked from the back burner and made into a star by the same television producer who turned Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson into the Two Fat Ladies.

Despite what seemed like obvious handicaps - his muffled delivery, those irritating conversational tics - Oliver connected with an audience of six million who couldn't get enough of his wicked, pukka, luvverly jubbly old grub. The programmes were filmed in his own home, featuring his glamorous girlfriend - now his wife - the lovely Jools.

Last week, the couple moved from the famous loft with its spiral staircase and sparse kitchen into a more salubrious home in the heart of Hampstead. Oliver reveals that he was glad to leave. "That big, open room was good for filming, but I didn't like it really. It wasn't very homely. It was like a nightmare to live in. Too cold in the wintertime. It would be good in Sydney, but not in London."

All civilised people must surely agree that there was something irrationally irritating about the way Oliver would slide down those bloody spiral stairs. Interestingly, he is aware that he is adored and loathed in equal measure by the public - and it bothers him.

"If someone thinks I am a prat and annoying, I kinda wanna know why, really. Cos I don't wanna be a prat. But if people don't like me for just being me, then fair enough," he says. He sucks his bottom lip and seems a bit troubled. At moments like this, he does not look entirely adult. Then he appears to change his mind.

"So they don't like me? So what. Christ, I'm sure everyone doesn't like them as well. At the end of the day, they can always switch over or not buy the book. I'm 26 and I've made a lot of money and you know what? It pisses a lot of people off."

However, only the very hard hearted could condemn him outright for, in many important ways, Oliver is a force for good. He has done much to persuade young people - and young men in particular - that cooking is well groovy, thus encouraging a generation to prepare themselves proper meals instead of relying on microwaved pizzas and oven chips.

"Without a shadow of a doubt, I have. I would put my life on it. The world of statistics is very scary, I don't give a s--- about statistics, but I have made more people cook," he says, in his convoluted way.

"If you learn one crumble recipe, you have learnt 50. Combos, combos; do you know what I mean? No one ever said that before me. I don't like bigging meself up but I would like to say that I have definitely made food a little more accessible. Come on. Choose the organic chicken rather than the frozen one. It can't be bad."

Question: How does this chime with his pounds 1 million contract to endorse a chain of supermarkets? Answer: It doesn't.

"My relationship with Sainsbury's is really honest," he counters. "I tell them the way it is, no prisoners. I want those pre-packed aisles to get smaller and smaller but they are getting bigger and bigger. But I have relaunched their herb range and sales are up 40 per cent.

"We have introduced five new herbs around the whole country, for crying out loud! Summer savory, golden marjoram, lemon thyme, lemon basil and purple basil. Right? Don't tell me that is not an amazing thing!"

Oliver's real gift is, I think, showing even the dimmest, sofa-bound student how to cater successfully for convivial group gatherings. His roast chicken dinner is a textbook exercise in delicious simplicity; his fish, egg and spinach pie could be made by a 10-year-old and produces a one-pot meal that could feed half a football team.

Yet today, as we sit in the prime corner table at Monte's, drinking mineral water and discussing his achievements, I cannot help but feel that his career is turning into something of an overheated souffle; at the moment, it seems to be all celebrity hot air and no tasty substance. He has just returned from a promotional tour of Australia, and apologises for his jetlag and, once more, for his reluctance to "big meself up", although, quite frankly, the opposite seems to be true; his young ego seems to be rampaging wildly out of control.

Outwardly, he has changed from a rough-edged, self-styled rascal who used to cut his own hair to someone who now has his trademark "chimpanzee mullet" attended to by the noted Mayfair-based stylist Charles Worthington. "Gawd bless 'im," cackles Oliver, like some aged pearly king who's just finished a tub of jellied eels down the Old Kent Road.

Inwardly, he has turned into the kind of celebrity who refuses to have his picture taken by anyone except his favourite photographer and he seems to spend all his time travelling and promoting the Jamie Oliver brand.

"At the moment, I am the ambassador of British cooking across the world," he tells me.

You are?

"Of course I am," he cries. "I have done more for English food throughout the world in the past two years than anyone else has done in the past 100 years. I have put it on the map, for Crissakes.

"I am the first cookery programme ever to be sold to France, Italy, Spain. I'm in 34 different countries on 60 channels. I do all the big name chat shows in America and I have a lot of sweeping up to do when I get over there."

You do?

"Yeah. They think the British are a bunch of f------ heathens who eat greasy old toad in the hole, with mad cows and BSE and salmonella. They think that we eat slop, that our produce is crap, all our meat is f----- and that it rains all the time. Excuse me! It is all right for people to sit and take the piss out of me over here, but they should come and see what I do over there."

We can pray that he does not mean to turn our assorted national food crises into walk-on parts in the international Jamie Oliver show, but there does seem to be a trend emerging here, an increasing intolerance towards those who cannot tolerate him. He names one journalist in London whom he would sincerely like to "punch straight on the head".

To be fair, Oliver has never claimed culinary greatness for himself and pleads mitigating circumstances for his endless enthusiasm. "I am not the best chef in the world," he says. "I am just very young, very passionate and very good at a handful of things."

He believes these to be bread, salads, roasts and pastas - the staples of the chalet girl's repertoire - but he has good ideas. The panzotti I had for lunch at Monte's was made with a delicate hand; the use of egg whites and wine instead of egg yolks to bind the pasta gave it an unearthly lightness. The main course rack of lamb was pretty terrible; edged with a retro breaded crust that was floppy and sad, with the poor quality of the meat making the pounds 23 price tag even more laughable.

"Um, yeah. We are having problems with our lamb. No one wants to hang it well, I want the skin drier. I don't put a lot of lamb on at the moment," he muses.

Oliver has always claimed that what he really wants is to have his own restaurant one day - two central London sites have apparently fallen through - but he seems to possess none of the restaurateur's natural instincts. Not only does he fail to ask what I had for my lunch and if I enjoyed it but, more damningly, he does not look around once to check on the waiters, the flow of dishes, the customers' responses to his food. To be honest, he is much more interested in bigging up his third television series, something that he promises will be very different to what has gone before.

Before then, there is the small matter of a world tour with his Happy Days roadshow, a cook-in during which, assisted by Jools, he will make 10 dishes from his third cookbook and television series live, on stage, in front of your very eyes.

"Proper pukka, everything from salt of the earth dishes to something a bit special," he says, getting misty eyed at the very thought of it all. "Have you ever seen two-and-a-half-thousand people looking at you, saying: `Come on, give it to me! Entertain me, teach me, make me laugh, you little prat from Essex?' "

No, Jamie, I say. I can honestly say that I haven't.

"Well, I think I am probably the best person in the industry to be doing the shows," he concludes. "Purely by fluke. Because I like audiences. I like to get up and just babble."

© jan moir 2007

• This interview was first published in July 2001 © jan moir are you ready to order