CELEBRITY chef Jamie Oliver will bring his own brand of Italian cooking to Liverpool when he opens a new restaurant in June.

The 35-year-old TV foodie, who shot to fame as the Naked Chef in the 1990s, has targeted Liverpool One as a new base of operations for his rapidly-expanding Jamie’s Italian empire.

The venue will be the first Jamie’s Italian to open in the North West and will be based on the ground floor of the £1bn shopping complex, opposite John Lewis in Paradise Place.

The 6,250 sq ft restaurant will focus on rustic Italian food, inspired by Oliver’s eccentric mentor Gennaro Contaldo.

The Italian chef worked with the young Oliver at Antonio Carluccio’s Neal Street Restaurant, in Convent Garden, London, before he became famous.

Oliver said: “When people eat at a Jamie’s Italian, I want them to really get into the food, maybe try something they would not normally try, but always be safe in the knowledge they are eating good stuff, prepared with love.

“The Jamie’s Italian menu is driven by what you would find ordinary people eating in Italy.”

Main courses range from a £10.95 chicken caesar salad to a £15.95 “fish in a bag”, consisting of sea bass, Cornish mussels and clams.

Wine is served by the bottle, glass, and 500ml pichet, with the most expensive Billecart Salmon NV Brut Rose Champagne coming in at £65.

Oliver seems to be bucking the trend of other recession-hit chefs, such as Gordon Ramsay and Anthony Worral Thomson, by seeking to open three new venues in three months this year.

He already has Jamie’s Italians in Oxford, Bath, Cambridge, Cardiff, Canary Wharf, Guildford, Kingston and Brighton and will add Reading, Leeds and Liverpool this year.

He also runs Fifteen, the social enterprise he set up to train disadvantaged young people with a passion for food, which has expanded to Amsterdam, Cornwall, London and Melbourne.

Last year, financial website Bloomberg.com reported Oliver was trying to raise $22m to help fund 30 of his Italian restaurants in Asia.