‘If you’re looking for Gennaro, he’s always in the kitchen,” a waiter informed me as I knocked on the doors of Jamie’s Italian in Oxford.

And sure enough, buried in the basement of the new open-plan pizzeria kitchen, there he was, hard at work making pizza dough, immersed in what he was doing, the chefs around him spellbound, gleaning everything they could from the famous chef.

“No pizza-throwing, then?” I asked. He replied over his shoulder: “Only the Americans throw pizzas around — we Italians don’t play with our food.

“Throw it about and it catches all the dust.”

Gennaro Contaldo was born on the kitchen table in a house on the Amalfi Coast so food was in his blood from the moment he first drew breath.

Cooking almost as soon as he could walk, one day his father went to see a client and took Gennaro to his friend’s restaurant for the day.

“Three years later I was still there.

“I loved it so much and loved being in the kitchen. By the age of 13, all I wanted to do was cook, cook, cook,” Gennaro remembers.

Soon, Minori, his beautiful native village grew too small for this aspiring chef with big ambitions. Gennaro wanted to spread his wings and, like a pantomime hero, packed up his possessions and went off to seek his fortune in England.

“I grew up in a little village where we knew everyone and everyone knew me, so I had to say goodbye to every wall, every corner and every tree and to say thank you. When I came back two years later it didn’t feel like mine any more; everything was smaller.”

England was a curious choice, being a culinary desert in the 1960s and ’70s, so why here? “I loved The Rolling Stones and the Beatles and all the beautiful English girls who came to Italy in the summer, and the English weather.”

Oh come on, no one likes the English weather?

“It was too hot in Italy, but I remember my mother packed a torch in my suitcase because she’d heard it was so dark in London, as well as a vest, and I chucked them both away as soon as I got here,” he chuckles. “She even put me on the train with all sorts of cheese and even some fish stock, for my sister who lived there.” So what did he think of the food? “I hated the fry ups and the powdered coffee,” he says in his hybrid Italian/East End accent.

Gennaro’s life changed irrevocably when he heard about an Italian man called Antonio Carluccio who loved mushrooms. “I wanted to work with him so I just turned up at his Neal Street restaurant and we became great friends.”

When Jamie Oliver turned up cap in hand years later to ask Gennaro for a job, history was repeating itself then? “He had heard that I made good pasta and had just finished college and decided to learn how to cook Italian, so one morning there was a knock, knock, knock at 7am and when I opened the door there was this young boy there asking for a job. I don’t know why I said yes, but I thought he’d change his mind after a week , that’s always the test, but Jamie was still there after a month and he was really good and so hard working. He really wanted to learn so I took him under my wing and said ‘let’s do it’. “I’d take him everywhere with me, mushroom picking early in the morning, pasta making at 3am, he was there on his days off and back first thing in the morning to make bread. We had the same passion for food, we were like father and son, and I enjoyed it more because he was there.”

Gennaro taught him everything he knew, astounded by the young man’s thirst and dedication, and if it was Jamie who became the face, Gennaro was never far behind. But while Gennaro has a thirst for perfection and passion, he is reluctant to discuss himself at all. He will talk about food or the restaurant business until the cows come home, theatrically clutching his chest and waving his hands in the air like a true Italian when making a point, but when it comes to himself he’s just not interested. “We do need to talk about you a bit,” I needle. “No, no, no, let’s stick to pizza.”

My relentless perseverance eventually pays off, but he’s a reluctant autobiographer. He has a family, twin girls, four other children, but when I ask how long he’s been married he says he doesn’t want to talk about it. “Yesterday was history. I live in the present. Today is what it’s all about. I do not believe in luck. I believe in one thing, the creator. So when you want something you go looking for it. I thank the God’s every day for what I’m doing. i just want everyone to enjoy my food. I just want to show it off.”

That he’s joined the Jamie Oliver circus is indisputable, inextricably linked since that first fateful day, but you can see why - they come from the same mould. “Anything to do with food I get excited. Food is the way that chefs explain themselves; test this, try this, it’s the way we do it. It’s all done with passion.”

When the Jamie Oliver dream extended to restaurants, he wanted Gennaro on board. However, his mentor initially said no. Gennaro was running a highly successful restaurant Passione and had all the plaudits he needed.

“Jamie said if I didn't want to he wouldn't do it either, but added ‘think of all the young boys and girls we can teach and give jobs to. We can give something back.’ Gennaro subsequently gave up Passione and has opened 35 Jamie restaurants since then.

“Nothing keeps me awake at night. I’m a deep sleeper. What wakes me up is the new recipes I have to try out, or a new dish I have to make. I would only be afraid if I didn’t know what I was doing. Simples. In fact, the dream carries on. I’ve never looked back and as long as I’m in the kitchen I’m happy. Take me out and I get a bit grumpy before too long,” he admits. “But Jamie was one in trillions and he came knocking on my door.”

And then he turns. “Now, shall we make some gnocchi?”

Jamie’s Pizzeria is now open on the Jamie’s Italian site at 24-26 George St, Oxford OX1 2AE, and has its own entrance. www.jamieoliver.com/italian/restaurants/oxford. 01865 838383.