(Mar. 30) – The cream of the UK’s culinary elite heads to Kent during the next fortnight for the BBC Good Food Show UK, to be held in Greenhithe. Among those present will be celebrity chef Gino D’Acampo. The former king of the ‘I’m A Celebrity… Get me out of here’ will be signing his new book as well as providing an insight into his cooking skills. “The people will be able to sample some of the dishes and the wines. They can see cooking demonstrations, so they can get a lot of tips out of it,” said D’Acampo.
The Italian chef has been highly sought after since winning the ITV reality show in 2009 and since become a household name across the UK.
“I am very busy at the moment,” he said in a short interview for the local press. “I have just finished a new project in schools with a company called Innovate Services. Together we have designed 12 pasta dishes which will go into about 120 different schools around the country. Lots of students will taste Italian flavors in school.” Like many other celebrity chefs, D’Acampo has his own range of cookware and a number of cookbooks. “The book is all to do with stuff you have to bake – the Italian cook explained – from breads to biscuits to pastas and pizzas.”
“My favorite dish – Gino confides – is pasta with cherry tomatoes, a bit of basil and some extra virgin olive oil. The more it is simple, the best it is to me.”
D’Acampo grew up in Naples and inherited his love of food from his grandfather Giovanni, himself a head chef.
The young chef attended the Luigi de Medici Catering College before setting off to find work elsewhere. He said: “I was ready for an adventure, so I travelled all over Europe, employed in different kitchens, learning about other cultures. I ended up working as head chef at Sylvester Stallone’s Mambo King restaurant in Marbella. While I was in Spain, I met and fell in love with my beautiful English wife and moved with her to London in 1995.”
And it is his travels that continue to help the chef come up with new ideas for the kitchen. “It happens that when I travel, or when I go to someone’s house for dinner, or even to other restaurants, I always carry a small notepad with me. So, if I try something new I think ‘OK, I like this idea’ and go back home or to my development kitchen and I see if I can do something new with it, this is how it happens. Then I try it on the family first and then a couple of friends. If the flavors work together – D’Acampo concluded -, I put the recipe into a book of mine.” (Peg)
