'To be a happy couple you need to spend time apart'

Gino D’Acampo reveals his secret to a successful marriage and explains why he is campaigning to stop food waste

-  KENZI DEVINE

It’s not just the food and glittering TV career that keep chef Gino D’Acampo grinning. Away from the cameras, he has a happy home life with his wife Jessica and after two decades of marriage they couldn’t be more in love.

Gino, 47, and Jessica tied the knot in 2002 and renewed their vows in 2021 – a surprise arranged by Gino to celebrate their anniversary.

However, as we chat about what makes a joyous marriage, Gino tells us that the secret is spending some time away from one another.

“You need to balance your married life with your ‘single life’,” says Gino, who shares children Luciano, 21, Rocco, 19, and Mia, 11, with Jessica. “There is a time where the family is together, when I’m with my wife and everybody to celebrate holidays and everything like that. But there has to also be a time when I do things by myself and when she does things by herself. So, we take a lot of holidays by ourselves with our own friends, separately. We have a lot of dinners and lunches with our friends. It’s important to have your own life. You can’t be part of a couple’s life if you don’t have your own.”

Gino met Jessica when he was 18 and working at Sylvester Stallone’s Mambo King restaurant in Marbella, where she was a waitress. The couple married seven years later.

Gino says that seeing less of each other means there is more to discuss when they are reunited.

“I can be away for a month and I will talk to my wife once a week for about 20 minutes. Then, when I come back, we can talk about it all,” he says. “Some of my friends talk with their wives for an hour and I’m thinking, ‘What the hell are you going to say to your wife every day for an hour that you can’t say when you’re in person?’”