IF there's one thing you quickly learn when sitting down with Miguel Maestre is that his enthusiasm for life is infectious. He may be well known for his cooking skills and being king of the jungle, but he's just as well known as a friendly local in his Elanora Heights community on the northern beaches, where he is energetic and friendly and calls all the shopkeepers and cafe staff by name.

This down-to-earth celeb was born in Murcia in the Costa del Sol in Spain. The 41-year-old is a TV regular rubbing shoulders with some of Australia's best-known personalities, but meet him in person and he's surprisingly low key. When the Northern Beaches Review visited his family home on a hot weekday morning, he answered the door in bare-feet and quickly poured us a cold drink.

We chatted in the hub of the Maestre family: the outdoor kitchen. It has a large built-in barbecue, pizza oven and sink on one side and a breakfast bar on the other where you can sit and chat to someone inside at the same time keeping an eye on the kids in the pool. Look closely while you're there and you'll spot two small statues - one is a bull, the other a kangaroo in a nod to his heritage and his home.

Miguel beams with joy when he talks about his family. His wife Sascha is a northern beaches local who grew up in Terrey Hills. They met in Edinburgh in Scotland around 20 years ago and lived there for three years before making the move to Narrabeen in 2003, and then building their Elanora Heights home. The couple have two children, Claudia, 9, and Morgan, 6.

One of the hardest times of Miguel's life was last year, living away from his children during filming of I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! in South Africa. "The hardest thing was missing the kids, I didn't see my children for 31 days and I'm a big family man," he said. "I didn't see them, or hear from them or smell them or touch them or feel them. I've never been away from them for more than two weeks when I go overseas, but you still see them on FaceTime so that show totally cut the link for 31 days, it was really brutal."

For Miguel going on the show was a deeply personal decision following the death of friends to suicide.

"A lot of my friends have suicided, chefs and entertainers, it was about raising awareness," he said. "Darren Simpson, he was a good friend of mine and he's gone, Justin Bull was a couple of years ago, Anthony Bourdain was the most famous chef in the world and he took his life. Men in this country think it's not OK to tell people they're not OK, we have to beat that stigma, we need people to ask for help. It's not a very manly thing to say to somebody 'I'm not doing OK'."

He won the show, beating the rest of the assembled celebrities while never losing his cool, and scored $100,000 for his nominated charity, R U OK?

"If we all did a little good for everyone it'd be a better place to live. A lot of little drops of water makes the ocean," he said.

When the Northern Beaches Review spoke to Miguel at his home he was fresh from The Living Room's Best Lifestyle Program win at the annual AACTA (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards) - it was the first win for the show in its nine-year history.

Miguel said the win meant so much to the cast and crew of The Living Room. "Just winning that award after all these years, it makes us believe we're really doing something right," he said.

"We've found a place on Friday nights in people's homes and we love each other. We're just really good friends out of the show, Amanda will call me on a Sunday when she's baking a cake. Yesterday I was with Barry, he helped me to build a veggie garden in the front. They're some of my best friends and it's nice to work with people you like."

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This celebrity chef has cooked in kitchens across the world, has released three best selling cookbooks, with another on the way, and has a range of Miguel Maestre branded food sold in supermarkets across the country. He said everything he does has a taste of Spain.

"I'm not the best teacher in the world, I'm just a guy who cooks for a living. I cannot really educate, I'd say it's more sharing than educating in the art of cooking and sharing the values of food I love," he said.

"Everything I do, everything I cook, everything I live and breathe is Spanish but with Australian personality.

"My heart is cut in two, half of my heart beats 'ole' the other half beats 'how you doing'. My Australian and Spanish soul complement each other."

The decision to step out of the kitchen as a full-time job was easy for Miguel and it was all to do with family.

"I chose the dream of being a father over the dream of being a chef in a restaurant because I used to be working pretty full on, 18 hours a day in a kitchen," he said. "When my daughter Claudia was born I couldn't do that anymore so with the cooking running through my veins I had to still cook for people so I created the business Maestre Enterprises with my wife, Sascha is the CEO."

Among the things in his range of that he's extremely proud of is jamon, a cured dry ham, and also a pale ale beer and online store that launched on Monday.

"We created the first Australian jamon, it's like an Italian prosciutto, but it's made in Australia. It's like a really sweet prosciutto. It's made of free range Australian pork but normally it comes from Spain," he said.

RED underwear and 12 grapes, there's a few festive traditions in the Maestre household that are all about having fun.

Christmas is a big deal for father of two Miguel who says he's keen to combine Spanish and Australian traditions and food as he celebrates. On the table that day is ham, turkey, seafood, pavlova and trifle, along with Spanish pan de cadiz [marzipan bread] and turron [nougat confection, typically made of honey, sugar, and egg white, with toasted almonds or other nuts]

"We do the roscon de reyes which is a special sweet bread with glazed fruits that's got little presents inside, it's really cute and the kids love it," he said.

"Every mouthful of that brings me back home."

The biggest tradition at this time of the year is on New Year's Eve, and that's when the grapes and the red undies are needed.

"On New Year's Eve every Spanish person has 12 grapes in his hand and on the last 12 seconds of the year you eat one grape per second to start the year with good luck. I have done that all my life, even when I was in the jungle in Africa.

"In Spain there's a lot of different ways to do it, some people peel them so they go down easier, some people buy the really tiny little ones so they're really easy to eat. It's a massive tradition, I would say that's the biggest tradition of Spanish people. And you wear red underwear as well, always, for good luck.To do the grapes and wear red underwear on New Year's Eve is very much about good luck."

When it comes to Christmas presents, Spanish tradition sees them given out on January 7, but in Australia Miguel says his family celebrates it on two days.

"The big one is Christmas Day, in January it's only a little one, we go really hard on Christmas," he said.

"I couldn't live anywhere else, I love the northern beaches for many reasons. When I finish work and I drive through the Wakehurst Parkway I feel like I'm on a holiday, it's like a little village on the northern beaches. I know everyone who lives on this block, I know Mike from the IGA, Tom from the coffee shop, Patrice from Frenchies, Johnny from JCs, that's why I love this place.

"I miss Spain, don't get me wrong, your roots are very important and you always have that in your blood, but with this place there's something very spiritual. It's very easy to fall in love with."

Frenchies Brasserie, Pilu at Freshwater, Jonah's and Ormeggio at The Spit.

21 Grams at Narrabeen and Top Shot Espresso at Elanora Heights.

"Akuna Bay, there's 13 different natural tracks up there. I love Palm Beach and going to the light house, I love going for a walk all the way in the back to Bayview all the hills are very good for your heart. We love Bilgola because Sascha's dad lives there."