Gino D'Acampo says 'sometimes you lose' after making £6m as pasta chain goes bust

Gino D'Acampo has made a staggering £6m following the closure of his pasta restaurants - which went bust for £5 million.

Part of the celebrity chef's My Pasta Bar chain racked up the losses before Gino, 47, put the business into liquidation in 2022. The money owed includes £4.8m to trade creditors, £113,975 to HMRC and £53,304 to staff. The chain was wound up in March and previous reports said 49 creditors were not paid.

However, the dad-of-three's other company, Gino D'Acampo Holding Ltd, posted record accumulated profits of £4,893,220 up to April this year - it was £2.55 million in profit in 2021, reports The Mirror.

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The TV star also owns his own talent firm MeMs agency - which also represents him - showing that it was £408,197 in profit in 2024. The Italian's other firm Gino D'Acampo Ltd last accounts also revealed accumulated profits of £417,097.

Gino's My Pasta Bar chain, which was launched in 2013 and offered simple pasta dishes, had London branches in Fleet Street, Leadenhall Market and Bishopsgate. Liquidators confirmed earlier this year: "The realisations in the liquidation are insufficient to declare a dividend to creditors."

In October 2020, Gino received a bailout from Sir Malcolm Walker, founder of supermarket giant Iceland, and senior executive Tarsem Dhaliwal, reported the Mirror. The Family Fortunes host, who earns an estimated £2m a year, made his name on This Morning and won I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in 2009.

In January 2022, the telly chef said Covid led him to call time on the small chain. Gino clarified: "The Pasta Bar business has got nothing to do with any other business that I do. It's a standalone business going into liquidation. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose." When asked about his comments, the star's publicist and agent declined to comment to the Mirror.

Gino's pasta bars had previously achieved good online reviews. However, in the same year that his business was closed, the TV star told the Daily Mail that he is more focused on making "memories than money".

Declaring that people who over-work could be "missing out" on life experiences, he said: "My suggestion is to stop running, stop working and enjoy what you've built up."

Despite the closure of his pasta business, Gino is now said to be filming his controversial TV show after shock accidents on set. The travel show Emissions Impossible is due to come back to our screens despite being axed six months ago. The programme was hosted by Gino and Fred Sirieix but came to an end with a toboggan accident. As well as that, production days in Austria lasted so long that the celebrity chef ended up with a fever.

However, it looks like this wasn't enough to put ITV bosses off cancelling the show for good as filming is set to start up again. Filming was due to start in the Alps in May.

The Sun reported that an TV insider said: "It's quite unusual for a show to be shelved quite so spectacularly, only to be brought back months later. Usually they end up getting written off completely. But ITV clearly felt like this was worth going the extra mile for."