Gino D'Acampo's restaurant empire crumbles: with a £6 million financial gap and several ongoing investigations, the chapter of Italian cuisine comes to an end for the most adored Italian star in England. How will he reinvent himself?
Gino D'Acampo, a chef originally from Torre del Greco who has been living in the United Kingdom for thirty years, has gotten himself into trouble once again, but it seems he has already "pulled the parachute"! Just recently, his restaurant franchise, My Pasta and My Restaurant, was forced into liquidation with a debt of £5.4 million ($6.3 million), as reported by The Mirror. However, D'Acampo appears to have found a new job: from July 21st to 23rd, he will participate in the Yorkshire Dales Food And Drink Festival at Funkirk Farm in Skipton, where he will perform show cooking and engage in talks with the audience.
The chef is no stranger to career "turnarounds"; the company's collapse comes just weeks after his departure from "Gordon, Gino, and Fred: Road Trip," the docuseries where the three chefs travel in a camper van across Italy, Scotland, and France, with plenty of food, laughter, and unexpected events. These sudden changes have bewildered the public and customers. It was only last year when Gino and his wife and business partner, Jessica, stated that their business was financially viable, and later, two administrators subsequently signed a statement stating that they had no creditors. Moreover, in April, during the Talent Day Nord Sardegna organized by Fibe Confcommercio in Olbia, D'Acampo stated, "I have had the intention to open a restaurant in Sardinia for at least four or five years, but I am looking for a large, centrally located structure near the municipality of Olbia, on the main road, which is a fantastic place for me."
On the same day, in the conference room of the Archaeological Museum, to encourage the young individuals who were about to have job interviews with local companies, the chef added. "The advice I would like to give to young people who want to work in the restaurant industry is to have discipline, which many lack or do not understand. In the restaurant industry, everything works with discipline, from cleanliness to how you cook and how you dress or communicate with the customer. If you have good discipline, it is difficult to fail with a restaurant. But today's young people think that being a waiter is not a serious job; they think they will do it for a couple of years and then move on to something else. Instead, they should start to understand that the restaurant profession is a responsibility that can bring many satisfactions despite the sacrifices."
These statements are quite contradictory coming from the owner of a business with a debt of £5.4 million ($6.3 million), which is under investigation at a cost of £150,000 ($175,000) to shed light on the conduct of major stakeholders involved and the disappearance of the company's books and records.
