Jamie Oliver Opens First Uni Deli

You might associate university cuisine with baked beans on toast and dodgy post-night-out kebabs, but the students at Aberdeen's Robert Gordon University (RGU) are clearly more discerning.

They've ditched the takeaways and dirty pints in favour of a Jamie Oliver deli on campus - the first to open in a UK university.

The collaboration is part of a deal between the TV chef's chain of restaurants and the Aramark group, which will be moving Jamie Oliver's brands into catering environments in the UK and beyond over the next ten years.

The upmarket deli will be selling breakfast, lunch and a menu of snacks ranging from porridge to pizza - a step up from traditional student sustenance. Students will be able to live the high life while they're staving off a hangover with some breakfast or grabbing a snack between lectures.

Jamie Oliver famously didn't go to university himself and has spoken candidly of how his diagnosis of dyslexia impacted his ability to achieve in an academic setting - but believes his dyslexia to be a gift. In 2017, the chef said: “I genuinely think that when someone says to you, ‘Johnny’s got dyslexia’, you should get down on your knees, shake the child’s hand and say: ‘Well done, you lucky, lucky boy’,

“If I’m in a meeting, I just see the problems differently and I obsess about things differently. Sometimes, when it requires a load of stuff to be done, I just do it. It’s like I’m a massive, 10-tonne boulder rolling down the hill.”

Instead of university, Oliver joined the team at the prestigious River Cafe and learned his craft alongside the best in the business.

Oliver first rose to prominence in the late '90s as The Naked Chef, cooking in an irreverent and blokey way that had never been seen on British TV before.

Since then he's built an empire of TV series, books, restaurants, ingredients and more, and become one of the country's most beloved TV chefs and personalities.

It hasn't all been rosy, however, with his chain of restaurants facing significant financial trouble in 2018. Oliver had to step up to the plate and inject some of his own cash to keep the business afloat, closing almost half of his 43 restaurants.

Here at Cafe Reality, we know how much rides on a new venture, so we have fingers crossed that Jamie Oliver's foray into the student market is a success.

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