Chef Kevin Dundon's 'Dancing with the Stars' Debut Sparks Unprecedented Family Excitement trucc

Chef Kevin Dundon has said his ­family have never been more excited about any of his projects than they are about Dancing with the Stars.

Dundon (58) and his pro dance partner Rebecca Scott (26) debuted in the series last week by performing the American smooth to Everyone Eats When They Come to My House by John Lithgow.

Even though they ranked on the second half of the scoreboard, Dundon “feels really happy” after his first performance.

“What’s good about it is we’ve got loads of room to improve, we can only go up,” he said.

“My wife Catherine thought I did great, my whole family did. Obviously, I could be better, but that’s what this show is about. It’s when you look back on it, and you see what you’ve done, you know you can do better.

“It’s a bit of a journey, so this week, even though samba is really tough to do, I’m hoping that my scores will be slightly better than what they were last week,” he added.

The Dubliner said he spoke to his family before he decided to take part in the RTÉ show.

“What is really interesting is I’ve done so much over the years, and I asked the question to my family when I was asked to do the show, are they OK if I did it. And they said, ‘Absolutely, go for it’.

“I’ve never seen the family as excited about any project that I’ve done. It’s just a feel-good factor, I think, it’s fantastic. They’re loving it.”

His two daughters, Emily, who just finished college, and Sophie, who is in her third year at London School of Economics, are both living in Berlin and have been supportive of their dad competing in the show.

“It hasn’t really hit me because they were home for Christmas. Sophie was at the show last week and Emily had a Dancing with the Stars party in Berlin with all her mates,” he said.

He is currently based in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin. “And then I’m down in Cork for the Today Show, and then down in Wexford,” he said.

“It’s just a balancing act at the moment and Dunbrody [House Hotel] is so important to us.”

He also praised his wife, Catherine, describing her as “the rock of their relationship and family”, and said the song he will dance to in the upcoming episode has a special meaning for the couple.

“We’re doing samba this week, and the song is from Gipsy Kings, and that was probably the first song that was played in our restaurant in Dunbrody House, and it’s Catherine doing the playlist.

People love the show, and they come up to you, they have this vested interest in you and the show, they’re great
“We were filling the form for Danciing with the Stars, you have to put down your different style of music that you like and stuff like that, and we put down Gipsy Kings. So they’ve selected it for this thing, so I’ll definitely be thinking of Catherine on this one.”

Even though it has only been one week since the show returned to screens, people are already coming up to the chef with positive feedback, he said.

“I was on the Luas yesterday and there were three ladies there, and they are avid fans of Dancing with the Stars. And they gave me the full lowdown of how I did, what I need to do, how I’m going to improve,” he said.

“But they were loving it and they were delighted, so they were good fun.

“People love the show, and they come up to you, they have this vested interest in you and the show, they’re great. And everybody just comes up to me and says, ‘You’re doing great, keep dancing’.”

He said the type of stress that comes with dancing on live TV is “completely different” compared to the stress when cooking.

“You think you have the routine in your head and you’d be amazed at the amount of steps that you can remember over 90 seconds,” he said.

“But it’s intense, and you get through half the routine, and you took one step out and it’s very hard to get back into the routine, so that’s probably the most stressful. They say to you that you need to get your steps down 100pc without even thinking about it so then it’s just the performance and your feet are just doing it anyways.

“Rebecca gives me the recipe at the start of the week and I have to digest it and cook it up by Sunday. It’s never going to be perfect, but I’m really enjoying it.”

​​‘Dancing With the Stars’ airs tomorrow at 6.30pm on RTÉ One and on the RTÉ Player