Jamie Oliver's 'London dad' has just republished his autobiographical cookbook, Gennaro's Passione.

"Would you like to taste some pasta?" Just two minutes after meeting Gennaro Contaldo at one of the London branches of Jamie's Italian, he's already being the perfect host.

As it's lunchtime, and yes, I am quite hungry, I gratefully accept, and he quickly dispatches a waiter with instructions to ask chef Valentino for "one pasta special of the day", adding in that famous Italian lilt: "Ees for Gennaro".

The bubbly 68-year-old is universally loved by all the chefs he trains at Jamie's Italian restaurants around the globe, and most of all by his protege, Jamie himself, who calls Gennaro his 'London dad'. The feeling is mutual.

"Oh my God, does Jamie do more than me, he goes round and round and round. He's always in touch. At the end of the day, we are cooks, more than anything else. We love cooking."

It's this passion for cooking and good food that Gennaro extols in his cookbook Passione ("kind of my biography"), named after the restaurant he ran in London in the early-Noughties. First published in 2003 - "that book put me on the map" - it's now been lovingly updated with stories and photos from Gennaro's childhood growing up on Italy's Amalfi Coast.

"I realised how beautiful it was when I left it. After two, maybe three years, I went back and when I reached my village [Minori], everything was ever so small and it was strange," says the chef, who first left home to find his fortune in England as a young man of 20.

"I didn't realise it was me that had grown up by being surrounded by London. You live in a place where the mountains are your back garden, the sea is your swimming pool, the village is your playground, then you come to London and everything - wow! Massive.

"I missed so much the sea, the smell of the herb. Sometimes, I used to have a day off and go back to the sea, maybe Southend. I always wanted to put my hands inside, I knew the sea would touch the shore of my hometown."

In the books, he calls it a "free-range" childhood. The family had no fridge, so everything had to be fresh and they ate with the seasons. His father, a linen merchant, brought animals home he'd been given as payment by local farmers and did most of the cooking, while his mother, who he affectionately calls 'a white witch', sent him out to collect herbs from the mountains, which sparked a lifelong love of foraging (he boasts he can find wild rocket in central London).

"Imagine, come 12 o'clock, you go home through the small alleyways and all the balconies are open and you can hear the crockery and you can smell everything and you can pinpoint... fresh pasta with beans, grilled fish, cooked meat... Nothing came from far away, everything in season."

The pasta special arrives - squid-like calamarata with a pesto of roasted red peppers, garlic and chilli ("spice prolongs life"), with buffalo ricotta - and it's the best thing I've ever tasted.

"It's kind of al dente, but it's a little bit chewy because it's fresh. Al dente means you chew longer, so you taste it and digest it better. You want to keep that flavour in your mouth longer, it's like a glass of wine, it's elegant, smooth."

When he first arrived in London, Gennaro worked as a kitchen porter for a hospital, to get a permit, and eventually ended up at his good friend Antonio Carluccio's Neal Street Restaurant, where he met and mentored Jamie Oliver, before branching out on his own and opening Passione.

He left the restaurant three years before it closed in 2009, a victim of the recession, to collaborate with Jamie on the Jamie's Italian chain.

"He is [like a son], he's got exactly the same - even more - love, and cares and respects food and people, which is so important.

"I look up to him. My God, he can do it. And we film quite a lot, me and Jamie, we film a new programme which will come out next year. We go round Italy, meet all these beautiful Nonnas [grandmothers] and try to discover these beautiful, almost lost recipes."

He has five of his own children, two with his current partner, and three from his previous marriage, and he's not about to hang up his apron anytime soon.

"This is what's keeping me alive," he says earnestly. "I have days when I think I'm too tired, but the minute I walk inside the kitchen, I feel 25. I believe another person like me is Jamie, he's running around... to give lots of love to the world.

"And for me to come in the restaurant, and have a picture together with a young boy who's been waiting months to see you, you give them such love and joy and you show them how to do something, you transfer a little tiny gene to him and he will find the same love and passion."

Gennaro's Passione: The Classic Italian Cookery Book by Gennaro Contaldo is published in hardback by Pavilion, priced £20. Available now

GENNARO Contaldo is universally loved by all the chefs he trains at Jamie’s Italian restaurants around the globe, and most of all by his protege, Jamie himself, who calls Gennaro his ‘London dad’. The feeling is mutual.

“Oh my God, does Jamie do more than me, he goes round and round and round. He’s always in touch. At the end of the day, we are cooks, more than anything else. We love cooking,” says the bubbly 68-year-old.

It’s this passion for cooking and good food that Gennaro extols in his cookbook Passione (“kind of my biography”), named after the restaurant he ran in London in the early-Noughties. First published in 2003 - “that book put me on the map” - it’s now been lovingly updated with stories and photos from Gennaro’s childhood growing up on Italy’s Amalfi Coast.

“I realised how beautiful it was when I left it. After two, maybe three years, I went back and when I reached my village [Minori], everything was ever so small and it was strange,” says the chef, who first left home to find his fortune in England as a young man of 20.

“I didn’t realise it was me that had grown up by being surrounded by London. You live in a place where the mountains are your back garden, the sea is your swimming pool, the village is your playground, then you come to London and everything - wow! Massive.

“I missed so much the sea, the smell of the herb. Sometimes, I used to have a day off and go back to the sea, maybe Southend. I always wanted to put my hands inside, I knew the sea would touch the shore of my hometown.”

In the books, he calls it a “free-range” childhood. His father, a linen merchant, brought animals home he’d been given as payment by local farmers and did most of the cooking, while his mother , sent him out to collect herbs from the mountains, which sparked a lifelong love of foraging (he boasts he can find wild rocket in central London).

  • Gennaro’s Passione: The Classic Italian Cookery Book by Gennaro Contaldo is £20. Available now
  1. Baby chicken in a cider vinegar sauce (serves 2-4) Ingredients: 2 baby chickens (poussins), boned (ask your butcher to do this for you)
    6tbsp olive oil
    Salt and freshly ground black pepper
    For the filling:
    2 garlic cloves, peeled
    2tbsp capers
    1tsp sea salt
    2tsp extra virgin olive oil
    Needles from 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
    A handful of chopped fresh parsley
    Freshly ground black pepper
    For the sauce:
    2 garlic cloves, peeled
    Needles from 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
    120ml white wine
    120ml cider vinegar
    1/2tbsp sugar
    1tbsp capers
    Method: Scattering of fresh parsley, to serve First make the filling by placing all the ingredients in a mortar and pounding them with a pestle until you obtain a pulp.
    Open up each baby chicken like a butterfly and place skin-side down on a chopping board. Spread the filling evenly over the flesh side, then fold the poussin back over and secure the opening with wooden toothpicks, weaving them in and out. Season all over with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, add the chickens, then reduce the heat slightly and cook until golden brown on all sides. Cover the pan and cook gently for about 20 minutes, until the chickens are cooked through.
    Meanwhile, make the sauce. Place the garlic and rosemary in a mortar and pound with a pestle. Add the wine, vinegar, sugar and capers, and mix well.
    Turn up the heat under the chickens, add the sauce and simmer until reduced by half, stirring all the time. Arrange on a plate and pour over the sauce. Serve immediately, scattered with parsley, if wished.
  2. king prawns and crab with garlic and chilli (serves 4) Ingredients: 2 large fresh crabs (ask your fishmonger to prepare for you and reserve the shells)
    175ml extra virgin olive oil
    12 fresh raw king prawns, shell on
    4 garlic cloves, sliced lengthways
    2 red chillies, sliced lengthways into strips
    2 handfuls of fresh parsley leaves
    250ml white wine
    1 lemon, cut into quarters, to serve
    Slices of bread, to serve
    Salt Method: Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, add the prawns and cook for one minute over a high heat. Turn them over and cook the other side for another minute.
    Add the garlic, chillies and crab chunks, season with salt, then reduce the heat and cook for two minutes with the lid on.
    Add the parsley, increase the heat and pour in the wine and any reserved juices from the crab. Bubble until evaporated, then serve immediately, with lemon quarters and lots of bread to mop up the juices.