Gino D'Acampo once presented his wife with an enormous life-changing choice, prior to her becoming the chef's "first-ever investor".
In a recent episode of the White Wine Question Time Podcast with Kate Thornton, the much-loved Italian chef offered fans a glimpse into the early days of his cooking career.
The Gordon, Gino and Fred's Road Trip star, who is also known for his appearances on This Morning, revealed that his wife, Jessica Stellina Morrison, made an incredible, life-changing gesture when he was first starting out.
This Morning star Gino explained that Jessica had been made redundant from a "big job" at the time, meaning she had been left with a "sum of money", so the chef presented her with a choice.
He said: "It was pretty much me doing cooking and sometimes waitering as well at the same time. I used to cook, take my jacket off and also take it away and then come...oh yeah, a nightmare at the beginning, a nightmare.
Gino continued: "And Jessie gave me the money to open my first restaurant. Yeah, she was...I think she was just made redundant from a job that she had, a big job that she had and so she had a sum of money.
"And I asked her; I said, 'Look, we've got a choice. Are we gonna open a restaurant or we gonna buy a house? Which one do you prefer?'
"And I think she....very courageous. She said, 'No, I want you to open the restaurant because I think you're gonna do well'. So she invested...she was my first-ever investor."
The I’m A Celebrity winner moved to the UK when he was 19 and worked as a waiter at The Orchard restaurant in London before co-owning his first restaurant, Bontà Italia Ltd.
Only four years after his first job in the industry, he married his "first love" Jessica, with whom he went on to have three children, Luciano, Rocco, and Mia.
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The couple met while working at Sylvester Stallone’s Mambo King restaurant in Marbella when Gino was 18, although they temporarily broke up, before reconciling in 1995.
Gino has described his marriage as "traditional", previously revealing that he was a "boy" and decided to get married because "then I will be a man".
The chef said: “I clean her car every week. I charge her toothbrush every time the battery is low, and I always bring her a bottle of cold water just in case she's thirsty at night.
"My wife is a clever woman, she knows when to say something and when to bite her tongue."
