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Gino D’Acampo has turned things around. From the boy who cleaned the pizza oven in Naples to the food manager at a Pavarotti reception. The direction of Gino’s young life’s journey so far could have been very different . . .
Born into a poor Neapolitan family, Gino inherited his grandfathers (a head chef) love of cooking. He entered the Luigi de Medici Catering College at the age of fifteen. He continued to develop his skills through the kitchens of restaurants in Europe, including Perignon in Nice and a spell as Head Chef at Sylvester Stallone’s Mambo King in Marbella (aged 19) before coming to England the following year.
“At this time I was a young Italian guy trying to run a bit too fast. I got involved with the wrong people. I wanted to send money home – perhaps I was keen for them to see how well I was doing – and made the mistake of handling a few things that didn’t belong to me”.
He paid for this mistake with several months in jail. He had time to think. And he decided that he wasn’t coming back to this place – to the disappointment of the staff, who had soon become used to his great cooking.
The shock was his turning point and he resolved to work hard to achieve success the right way. He took on Head Chef assignments in London restaurants – including Pane Vino and The Orchard in Belsize Park. He also joined a major Italian food company as Development Chef. Gino developed recipes for Tesco (their Finest range). He was Head Chef at the Italian Ambassadors birthday reception and took care of the food at the aforementioned Pavarotti concert reception.
Gino now owned his own import and distribution company, Bonta Italia, and is a development consultant chef for ready-meals manufacturing companies.
His particular skill in the blending of olive oil led to his first TV engagement with UK Food as a guest on Good Food Live. He was an immediate success and is now, besides making frequent appearances as studio guest chef, a favourite co-presenter. Gino was also invited to shoot a VT series for Good Food Live called Essential Ingredients. This examined traditional Italian foods and recipes. BBC TV soon took notice of his natural ability and regular appearances on the BBC2’s leading food programme Saturday Kitchen quickly followed.
2004 also saw Gino’s first appearances on BBC2’s prestigious Ready Steady Cook, where he started with three straight wins. He also became a hugely popular regular guest on The Terry and Gaby Show for Channel 5. This was before moving to ITV to present the One Stop Food feature on their flagship magazine programme, This Morning. One of the cooking segments with Gino drew the highest rating of any item throughout the entire series.
Gino D’Acampo’s association with ITV has grown steadily. He featured as co-host and chef on Too Many Cooks and on Chef vs Britain he took on talented amateur cooks in the nationwide equivalent of an old-fashioned prize fight. Gino D’Acampo was now a full blown Celebrity Chef.
He has had numerous TV projects but it was in 2009 Gino was introduced to a larger audience, when he not only entered the jungle in I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here but he ended up being the outright winner of the series.
BOOKS:
Too many to mention but to say, his first book came out in 2007 with Fantastico! and he’s had at least one new book out every year since.
Another twist in his TV career was to come. In 2014 he filled in as a team captain for Holly Willoughby on the ITV2 panel show Celebrity Juice. This was the start of Gino becoming a regular panellist. Host Keith Lemon at one point, suggested Gino was actually from Sheffield. He reckoned Gino’s whole career as a Celebrity Chef had been entirely fabricated.
