France’s Jamie Oliver gets a roasting

Cyril Lignac, a young Parisian chef who has blatantly modeled himself on Jamie Oliver - by training disadvantaged teenagers to be chefs for a French TV show, campaigning for better school food and even calling his own restaurant 'Le Quinzieme', just like Oliver's Fifteen - is in the soup after making disparaging remarks about his British counterpart. Although Lignac (pictured) is two years younger than Oliver, he was quoted as dismissing the Englishman as "a young bloke who cooks grub [tambouille]" while he, Lignac, is a "master chef" trained in the great gastronomic tradition.

Approached by the Independent on Sunday, Lignac tried to extricate himself from the embarrassment by claiming he never said such a thing. But when asked whether he saw himself as the "French Jamie Oliver" he replied grandly: "No, I am not the French Jamie Oliver. I am Cyril Lignac ... our cooking is quite different. I have worked with some of the greatest chefs in the French tradition, including Alain Ducasse. I am in my own kitchen in my restaurant almost every day. Is Jamie Oliver in a restaurant kitchen every day? No."

Lignac made his name on France television with the yobs-become-cooks show Oui Chef! in 2005 - three years after Jamie's Kitchen aired in Britain - and then made a series about improving school meals called Vive la Cantine!, a year after Jamie's School Dinners aired in 2005.

To cap it all, he called his restaurant in the Rue Cauchy (in Paris's 15th arrondissement, to be sure) Le Quinzieme. Why? "Pure coincidence," he claims. "If my restaurant was in the Quatorzieme [fourteenth] arrondissement, it would be called 'Quatorzieme'."

Lignac says he has never met Oliver, but he did once eat at Fifteen in London. His verdict? "It was very British," said the Frenchman. "There was mozzarella cheese and peaches, then lamb. There was nothing wrong with it. It's not the kind of cooking I am used to. I come from a very different tradition."

So, just how good is Le Quinzieme? Francois Simon, revered restaurant critic of Le Figaro, called it "vacuous, a little light" and "very expensive", while one online review suggests readers "reserve a table quick smart to guarantee a delectable meal followed by a nutella drink served in a test tube." Yuk.