Many successful chefs have a secret ingredient. Chef Gino’s is a really great one: l’fun. Fun, excitement, and a little chaos. It’s always around: when he’s mixing eggs and flour to make pastry, putting a pan on the stove to cook a sauce, or spinning pizza dough around his head.

All this explains why Chef Gino, real name Gino Campagna, has won over so many American children. Having moved to Los Angeles, California, almost thirty years ago, he worked for a while with his brother, a graphic designer, before he began teaching children how to cook Italian.