Double act cook up a fresh appetiser for TV lunchtimes

Gino D’Acampo and Melanie Sykes are hosting a new lunchtime cookery show. Grace Hammond reports.

Melanie Sykes and Gino D’Acampo are filling in for the channel’s Loose Women who are jetting off on their August holidays.

Although a relatively new TV pairing (Sykes thinks they’ve met twice, D’Acampo swears it’s three times) there’s already a sense of affinity between them.

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“I’m really picky about jobs and that’s why I’ve not been on TV much in the last three years,” says 40-year-old Sykes.

“I’ve been offered all those reality shows, but they’re not what I do. I’m a presenter.”

Sharp and decisive in conversation, it’s easy to see how she moved on from being a model with ease after that infamous Boddingtons advert 14 years ago.

“Then they came to me with this, I thought very simply, ‘Yes!’” continues the presenter, who currently hosts Going Out With Alan Carr on Radio 2 every Saturday night.

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D’Acampo, 35, nods: “The difficult bit will be to remember to do the work as we’re already so comfortable together.”

This roguish Italian cook has clearly already charmed “no-nonsense” Sykes, in exactly the same way he did the viewing public on I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! back in 2009. “I enjoy anybody who’s straightforward, honest, says how they feel and is themselves to the core – and that’s the way Gino is,” adds Sykes. Both Sykes and D’Acampo insist the appeal for them is in the show’s unformatted freedom. Neither want to be told what to do by overzealous producers.

Let’s Do Lunch... With Gino & Mel will be a mix of celebrity interviews, audience participation and lots of cooking.

“We’ll also have challenges related to food. Mel will set one for me every day, like eating something dangerous.”

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D’Acampo began his career as a guest on Great Food Live, back in the early Noughties, became a regular on ITV1’s Daily and Saturday Cooks, before shooting his first TV series for UKTV (now Good Food), An Italian In Mexico and being a regular on BBC2’s Ready, Steady Cook.

What happened in the jungle was a huge professional boost for D’Acampo who lives with wife Jenny and two children, Luciano and Rocco, in north London.

“It’s always a relief to come to work when you’ve got kids,” concurs Sykes, who’s separated from her husband Daniel, with whom she has two children, Roman and Valentino.

Both presenters also agree on how their children fit into their lives – especially when it comes to food.

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“I won’t change what I’m cooking to fit in with children,” says D’Acampo, who says he’s as happy with beans on toast, as pasta or beef wellington of an evening.

“Me either,” Sykes agrees. And at this point the conversation begins to feel like a relay race.

Let’s Do Lunch... With Gino & Mel starts on ITV1 on Monday, August 8

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