{"id":617089,"date":"2026-09-07T09:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T09:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/617089\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T09:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T09:46:14","slug":"donal-skehan-on-turning-40-and-reflecting-on-his-life-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/617089\/","title":{"rendered":"Donal Skehan on turning 40 and reflecting on his life so far"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Donal Skehan returns to our screens this week with a gorgeous new Italian cooking show, he takes a moment to reflect on 20 years in the business. He talks to Janice Butler about turning 40, the lessons he’s learned along the way and some exciting new personal and professional projects.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a sense of the end of summer when I catch up with Donal Skehan. There\u2019s a change in the weather; he\u2019s just returned from a family holiday in Sweden, where his wife Sofie\u2019s family is from, and we both express a sigh of relief that school is back.<\/p>\n

He seems a little more organised about the transition from summer chaos to school structure than I do: “Sweden in the summer is magic. We\u2019re just back, so I\u2019ve been doing my meal prep and the weekly schedule is getting back on track,” he says gleefully.<\/p>\n

Swapping Sweden for Italy, Donal was back on our screens last week, gushing about his “long-standing love affair with Italy and its cuisine.”<\/p>\n

\"Donal<\/p>\n

In Donal\u2019s Italian Kitchen, he travels through Italy, chasing the places, people and dishes that have shaped his cooking. He revisits honeymoon memories in Florence, learns from two nonne with a lifetime of wisdom between them, and shares notes from Italian-American diners in LA.<\/p>\n

Then of course, he recreates some of his favourite recipes, for viewers to try at home.<\/p>\n

“I filmed a show called Granma\u2019s Boy for Fox International when I was just starting out, and basically, I went to every region in Italy and cooked with the grandmothers. That cemented my love of cooking. Over the years, I\u2019ve brought my family back to Italy in different guises, so it\u2019s been beautiful to be able to showcase those regions,” he says of his relationship with Italian food.<\/p>\n

“In my own cooking, over the years, the pasta dishes continue to be the ones that are the most popular and possibly the most controversial, like the one-pot pastas,” he adds. “But I always believe if you have an understanding of the rules, you can break them a little bit – just don\u2019t let the Italians see,” he laughs. “But my audience does expect doable home cook recipes, so there\u2019s a few tweaks here and there.”<\/p>\n

From Meals in Minutes to Kitchen Hero, Donal has been a regular fixture on Irish TV for the last 20 years. When he first burst onto the Irish food scene, he was a fresh-faced kid with a camera and a blog who had once been in a boyband. After nearly two decades spent filming global television hits, writing best-selling cookbooks and building a digital empire, the Howth native has begun a new chapter, and that\u2019s reflected in this new TV series.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve done a lot of travel-style cooking TV shows in other countries, but this is one of the first times I\u2019ve done one for Irish TV. I absolutely love it, and I feel it gives an undercurrent for everything that we cook in the show and really gives people a taste for Italian food and cuisine,” he says.<\/p>\n

\"Donal<\/p>\n

Turning 40 on the live stage at the Bord Bia Bloom festival in June might have looked like peak showbiz, but behind the scenes the milestone birthday gave the father of two time to reflect on what\u2019s been an incredible career and life with his wife Sofie and sons Noah and Oliver.<\/p>\n

“Anyone who hits that 40 milestone will take a moment to look back,” he says. “For me, I started in this business when I was very young; I was only 22. Most people are well into their 30s before they get a book deal. I\u2019m very conscious that I started this when I was very young, so in some ways, you have to think about what\u2019s happened and what is it I want to do now,” he adds.<\/p>\n

“The core of what I do is write recipes for people who are time poor, who have families, and I know that\u2019s the baseline for whatever I do moving forward. But I\u2019m really excited for this next stage in my life.”<\/p>\n

Looking back, is there anything he\u2019d change?<\/p>\n

“Nothing really goes to waste \u2013 I would say I always took the opportunities that came my way, and every one of them stood to me in the future in some shape or form,” he answers. “I remember doing an infomercial when I was in the States and thinking, ‘What am I doing?\u2019,”he laughs. “But looking back, I don\u2019t regret it. I wouldn\u2019t change anything. If anything, my advice would be to take the opportunities and then hone what you really want to do.”<\/p>\n

\"Donal<\/p>\n

While he says the early days in his career were probably the most challenging in terms of “getting a foothold in the industry”, he remarks that the family leaving Los Angeles after four years was probably one of the hardest decisions he had to make.<\/p>\n

Donal and Sofie lived in Los Angeles from early 2016 until April 2020; they had their sons there. In the past, he has described their time in the US as a “wild ride” and a “special chapter” that deeply influenced his career, family life and cooking style.<\/p>\n

They made the decision to leave once COVID hit so they could be closer to family. “I don\u2019t know if I was ready to leave America,” he says. “We had worked really hard over there, but trying to balance family life with a transatlantic flight home every month was becoming untenable. So that was a hard decision to make, but it was the right decision in terms of being closer to family and having that help. At some point in your life, with career and family, you have to make a decision about what\u2019s best for your family life and for your mental capacity for it all,” he adds.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, he\u2019s about to start filming a new TV project for ITV; “I\u2019ve just got my first solo UK TV show, that we\u2019ll start recording next week,” he says excitedly. “It came out of the blue, but has been a long time coming at the same time.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s a Saturday morning slot, on after James Martin,” he explains. “We\u2019re basing me in Howth Castle, my hometown, and I\u2019ll be travelling around Ireland, showcasing the best of Irish producers and interesting food stories. Essentially, I\u2019ll be selling what\u2019s fantastic about our island, so I\u2019m very conscious that it\u2019s a huge opportunity to put a spotlight on Irish produce and I don\u2019t take that lightly,” he adds.<\/p>\n

\"Donal<\/p>\n

On top of this, he announced during the summer that his production company, Appetite Media, had signed a major digital and social media partnership with Fremantle. The deal is designed to expand his digital footprint and distribute the company\u2019s television catalogue to a global online audience. This is surely the key to Donal\u2019s success: he\u2019s always stayed ahead of the curve and adapted to the changing landscape.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s a big part of how we\u2019re evolving,” he explains. “You look at presenters like Holly Willoughby with her new YouTube show; that\u2019s a big thing that we\u2019d be aware of. There\u2019s a turning of the tide in terms of content being made for online instead of traditional media. At the moment, you need to be able to straddle both. And it\u2019s not just for me, it\u2019s for the people I work with,” he adds.<\/p>\n

On his Let\u2019s Do This! podcast with his close friend, the Dancing With the Stars judge, Arthur Gourounlian, Donal has been remarkably candid about the physical toll of sustained career hustle and his aim of getting fit at 40. How\u2019s that going?<\/p>\n

“What fitness journey \u2013 are you joking?” he laughs. “It\u2019s definitely one of those things where I try and make a stab at it and then things take over. I think for parents, if you weren\u2019t necessarily good at it before, you\u2019re not going to get better at it when you have kids,” he adds.<\/p>\n

“But as a family we\u2019re good at getting out in nature and walking. We try to get out as much as we can. But I think with the summer over, it\u2019s a good time for a reset \u2013 I’ll keep walking, keep moving and do my best.”<\/p>\n

\"Donal<\/p>\n

If his personal health routine is about finding balance, his current living situation is a lesson in managing chaos. After 17 years of renting across Dublin and Los Angeles, Donal and Sofie finally bought their forever home: a charming, coastal cottage near his childhood home of Howth.<\/p>\n

But turning a dream into reality has proven to be a marathon of patience. Now, with planning permission secured, the project has officially escalated into a massive demolition and structural rebuild. How\u2019s it all going? “Oh, don\u2019t ask me about that”, he laughs.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve a beautiful location, we\u2019re really happy where we are, so it\u2019s just a matter of time. I\u2019m trying to get less stressed about these things over the years. We\u2019re masters of patience at this stage,” he adds.
“You just have to know it will all work out in the end. I see now why these renovations make good TV shows.”<\/p>\n

Donal’s Italian Kitchen airs Wednesdays at 8.30pm on RT\u00c9 One. Catch up on RT\u00c9 Player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Donal Skehan returns to our screens this week with a gorgeous new Italian cooking show, he takes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":["post-617089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}