A firm fixture in The Great British Bake Off hall of fame, season 12 winner — and fan favourite — Giuseppe Dell'Anno moved to Cheltenham in September 2023.
And, with launching his own baking classes at Foodworks Cookery School as well as brand-new catering business, he's wasted no time settling in!
SoGlos caught up with Giuseppe ahead of the new series of Bake Off (airing on Tuesday 24 September 2024 — our calendars are already marked!), to find out all about his experience on the show and his new Cheltenham life — from baking wedding cakes to his favourite place for dinner.
It's great to meet you, Giuseppe! We're all big Bake Off fans at SoGlos...
Who isn’t? I am a fan myself, that’s how I found myself in the tent in the first place.
My son had sown the seed in my head of going on Bake Off after tasting one of my birthday cakes, so I thought why not try? The application was done while we were in lockdown, so I blame the extra time we had during those days!
As a fan of the show, what did it feel like to actually be on GBBO?
I think the best way I can describe it is ‘surreal’. It was like stepping into a magical world, that you’ve seen on TV for so many years and can only imagine. It’s got this aura of unreal to it. Stepping in there for the first time was very emotional.
Clearly, I’m a natural chatterbox, so it did come naturally. But the production team make it very easy for you; you almost forget the cameras are there.
Do you get to eat all the cakes?
That’s the best part — well, depending on how successful the bakes were! The production team save a chunk of each bake for the bakers exclusively, so we had our own baker’s room, where we had a tray with everybody’s bakes on for us to taste.
I remember vividly tasting some very special creations from Jürgen. His cakes were honestly some of the best I’ve ever tasted — I can still remember the cake he made on week one.
Your season was filmed in 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic. How did this affect your filming schedule?
It was all filmed in a bubble. We were tested on the way in and stayed in a hotel for seven and a half weeks while filming.
The schedule for filming is still the same today; you film the signature and technical challenges on one day and then the following day, you do the showstopper. But the difference for us was that we couldn’t go home.
Normally the bakers would go home on a Monday, stay at home and practice until Friday, and then come back to the tent to film on the weekend.
Our filming schedule was compressed, so we were filming for two days, then practicing for the following two days for the next episode. It was non-stop.
It was only my season and the season before that were filmed this way but I have to say, I’m glad we did it this way because I found preparing for the show very difficult.
In the months leading up to filming, we had to prepare all the recipes for every signature and showstopper, for every week of the show. I was doing that while working full time with three young kids at home. I would start baking at 9pm in the evening once everyone was in bed, and I kept going until 2am every day.
We had nine weeks to prepare every recipe from scratch, using techniques that we’d potentially never seen before. I love baking and it was relaxing for me to do it — otherwise I wouldn’t have done it! — but still, it was pretty intense.
You've been very busy since winning GBBO! How has your life changed since then?
If I’m honest, I didn't have a plan! The reality is, everything has come about organically after Bake Off.
There are people who come out the show and choose to just have it as a good experience; this was my initial plan too. While I was going through the selection process, I was also going through the interview stage for a new engineering job in Italy. My plan was to move the whole family back to Italy after the show. We finished filming the final episode on 4 July; I had my first Covid jab on 7 July; then on the 10 July, I was already on a plane to Milan to start my new job.
I bought the car, rented the flat, ready for my family to join me in Italy the following summer and move on with our lives. But then on Christmas Eve that year, my agent sent me an email which said there were a couple of publishers interested in publishing a cookbook — and it was just too good an opportunity to miss.
My idea was to take a few months off to write the book but I was in a senior management position looking after 25 people; I couldn’t just disappear from my job for four months. So I decided to quit for good and moved everything back to Bristol to start working on the book.
And now you're hosting baking classes at the Foodworks Cookery School...
Yes. I’m an educator by nature; I used to be a lecturer at university, so I’ve always taught others everything I know.
I started holding baking classes here and there in Bath and London; I even held a class in Brooklyn when I went to New York. That’s how the idea to host my own classes came up, and it’s going pretty well.
I pre-weigh all the ingredients for everybody so they can only do the best part of baking — that’s the only way to fit five recipes into a one-day session!
You’re in a room with a dozen people, who all share the same passion as you. They all ask very pertinent and really interesting questions; they all bring their own experience to the table, so it’s a lovely environment to be in.
You've also recently launched a catering business. How is that going?
The catering business came about almost organically, because people started to ask me: would you make a cake for my birthday? I started doing it just for friends and family before I thought I might as well jump at the opportunity.
I’m pretty confident I can make decent cakes. The only thing that concerns me a little is, especially in this country — although it’s percolating in Italian culture as well — is an obsession with overly decorated cakes.
If it was up to me, I would go for naked cake every single time. My decoration is very, very minimal; I'm a man with simple taste! I'd rather spend time on the cake itself, on making the flavour extra special.
I already have three orders for wedding cakes in 2025 — and now, that’s going to be the true test because compared to an angry bride, Paul and Prue are easy going! Ask me again in a year's time and I'll let you know if I survived!
How have you settled into Cheltenham life, after moving here last year?
I’m not going to lie, it was very hard to leave the place where I used to live. I had the best neighbours, who were the closest thing to mum and dad I’ve had in this country.
But I have to say, I am glad. I’ve found an equally welcoming and friendly neighbourhood here in Cheltenham. It’s a very nice corner of the world; I’m very lucky.
I’m also getting to experience something that I’ve never experienced before which is the urban environment. I’ve always lived in very remote locations — during my PhD years and engineering career, I’ve always been surrounded by sheep and cows, whereas now, I finally live very close to the town centre.
The most beautiful thing about Cheltenham is there’s always something on. This month, we have Cheltenham Food + Drink Week; I was part of Cheltenham Food and Drink Festival back in the summer. Then there’s the Literature Festival in October — it feels like you can never get bored!
It’s also very buzzing, from a business perspective. You can find everything and anything you’re looking for — and all the restaurants you can possibly imagine.
Do you have a favourite restaurant in Cheltenham yet?
Yes, actually I do! Two of my kids are obsessed with Japanese culture, manga and anime, so for one of their birthdays, we went to the Japanese restaurant KIBOU.
I was lost of words! I love Asian cuisine and the experience we had at KIBOU was phenomenal; one of the best ramens I’ve ever had. The service was spotless, the place is beautiful. I’m definitely going to go back.
