Plenty on his plate: Antonio Carluccio comes to Malton’s Festival

He is rarely off our television screens, appearing either in Two Greedy Italians (BBC 2 Thursdays) or as a guest chef on Saturday Kitchen with James Martin.

He also has a cookery book out to accompany the TV series and his autobiography is due this year, along with another cookery book and a visit to Malton later this month for the town’s annual Food Festival of which he is patron. Not bad for someone who celebrated their 75th birthday last week.

I caught up with the Godfather of celebrity chefs during a visit he made to his eponymous restaurant on Greek Street, Leeds where he was hosting a lunch.

“I was supposed to come to Leeds last year to open Carluccio’s,” he says in his thick Italian accent, “but I was having my knees operated on.”

As we sit at a table outside the restaurant, Antonio sips from his espresso and water, while chain smoking. But he says he has never felt fitter.

He has lost weight, has two new knees and says he feels like a new man.

And if the flock of women of a certain age who congregate at our table, hanging on his every word is any thing to go by, he still has a certain appeal.

“It’s ever since he appeared on television saying he was single and looking for love,” explains his PA Anna-Louise. And the Carluccio fan club isn’t confined to the UK. They are currently showing the first series of Two Greedy Italians in Australia and the fan mail has already started coming in from the antipodes.

Appearing alongside his side-kick Gennaro Contaldo in the second series of Two Greedy Italians Antonio has once again revisited the country of his youth, experiencing the changes and sampling the food.

“Italy is very different from when I lived there as a child,” he says, admitting that the programme is as much social commentary as it is a cookery programme.

“Italy has the worst childhood obesity in Europe,” he says with a look of disbelief.

“Children no longer play outside like I did as a child. We were always outside. Now they are inside with computers. No-one seems to know how to cook any more,” he says sadly.

Antonio’s childhood was very different. His family was poor but his mother made sure there was delicious food to eat.

“We were poor but somehow she managed to create the most wonderful, tasty dishes out of nothing.” He remembers with relish her frittata and omelettes. “It was simple but delicious,” he recalls and this has been at the centre of his culinary ethos ever since and something he aims to see replicated in the 57 Carluccio’s across the UK.

When times were tough Antonio would go foraging for wild rocket and mushrooms in the countryside around Piedmont with his father.

This love of foraging has never left and he tells me how to eat the early shoots of oil seed rape before they flower, apparently they taste like broccoli.

It was the death of his little brother when Antonio was 23 which precipitated his departure from Italy, to eventually settle in London where he was first a wine merchant and then successful chef.

Life has had its ups and down, he has had a number of failed marriages and previous businesses have floundered. But at the age of 75 the future looks bright for Antonio Carluccio.