New York chef and TV host Sophia Roe talks taste

My personal style signifier is a vintage T-shirt. I have hundreds. They’re not all band T-shirts – I have one that’s a Japanese comic – but there’s a lot of character in them. Some of them are 50 or 60 years old and still in great condition. My most prized is probably my original Queen II T-shirt, which has a picture of Freddie Mercury looking beautiful and perfect. I love that album.

The last thing I bought and loved was the ceviche at Maty’s in Miami. It was unbelievable. It had chocolate clams, rock shrimp, octopus and yuzu kosho, one of my favourite condiments. It also had geoduck clams, which a lot of people are weird about, but are actually delicious. 

The place that means a lot to me is Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, a botanical sculpture garden in Miami’s Coconut Grove neighbourhood. It’s a magical haven in the middle of the city; I used to go there as a kid.

And the best souvenir I’ve brought home is an obsession with bread. I went to London in 2021 with the goal of eating really good bread. We went to Rochelle Canteen: I got bread. We went to Brat: I got bread. Everywhere we went: bread. I brought back this incessant need to make it, eat it and put my hands in it. Now I feel like almost every time I’m in the kitchen, I’m making something bread-related.

The best book I’ve read in the past year is Wellness by Nathan Hill. I mean, what a book. It’s about family. It’s about faded promises. It’s about compromises and it’s about mental health. It’s just a doozy of a read, and it’s inspired me to read more fiction.

I listened to 98,326 minutes of music in 2023, which was in Spotify’s top three per cent

The podcast I’m listening to is The Run-Up, a political podcast by The New York Times. The way Astead W Herndon talks about politics in America is inspiring.

The last music I downloaded was It’s My Life by Talk Talk, which is one of those albums that gets better and better. I’m quite the streamer: I listened to 98,326 minutes of music in 2023, which was in the top three per cent of Spotify listeners that year. I don’t know whether that’s good or that’s bad, but it’s pretty wild.

My style icon is Donna Summer, a Black woman who had the courage to wear bangs when people weren’t doing that; I have bangs because of her. She personified confidence. 

The best gifts I’ve given recently are probably edible ones. You have your love language and you have your gift language: my gift language is stuff that you put in your mouth.

I have a collection of spoons. You can do so much with a spoon; a lot of chefs like them. There are spoons for tea, salt, meringues, sugar… spoons with holes in the back. My favourites are part of a set of wooden spoons made by my partner, Chris Cushingham, who is a carpenter. I look at them and I can’t believe they were made by a human. They’re perfect.

In my fridge you’ll always find a ton of miso. You can kind of make miso out of anything: beggars can’t be choosers. And I always have butter: salted, unsalted, European, American. I use a lot of it.

The thing I couldn’t do without is salt, which I get passionate about. I must have 20 tonnes in my studio right now. The king of salt is Diamond Crystal kosher. There’s no ingredient that’s more beautiful: the lightness, the taste, the diaphanous structure. It’s the one. 

An object I would never part with is my foot-shaped footstool from Barbora Žilinskaitė, a Lithuanian designer. It’s just the coolest, weirdest thing. 

There isn’t one artist whose work I’d collect. Instead, I’d just collect mushrooms. It would be an endless collection because new mushrooms are discovered all the time. My favourite species is Tremella fuciformis – also called snow fungus – which is common in Asia. It holds up to 500 times its weight in water, and has more collagen than any other fungus in nature. 

The last item I added to my wardrobe was a ring from Simuero, a Spanish jewellery company. They work with beautiful recycled metals. 

The beauty staple I’m never without is Golde’s Clean Greens Face Mask. It’s made up of simple ingredients, but it works. If you’ve got redness or a pimple that’s about to come in, you’ll want to use this. I’m also obsessed with Dieux Skin: I have a crinkled-up tube of Instant Angel Moisturizer in every purse. Dieux Skin Instant Angel Moisturizer, $45; dieuxskin.com. Golde Clean Greens Face Mask, $34; heydayskincare.com

The indulgences I would never forgo are boba tea – I can’t get enough – and salt and vinegar crisps. At my all-time low, I’m in a bathtub drinking boba tea and eating crisps.

My favourite room in my house is my living-room-dining-room, which is big and open. Similarly to my wardrobe, nothing is new in my home. I’m two steps below a maximalist, so I have lots of things I’ve brought from one home to another: a Herman Miller chair, a Beni rug, a chaise longue. I let a space tell me what belongs there and what doesn’t. There’s no couch, but I have a lot of seats. 

My beauty guru is Lisa Vasquez at New York’s Pearlman Aesthetic Surgery, who has been helpful in getting me into a skincare routine. She’s got me on a prescription-strength retinol – it took me a long time to understand them – and she also has me taking care of my body: I use U Beauty’s Resurfacing Body Compound. She’s mindful not to use terms like anti-ageing. It’s more about supporting your body as it goes through an ageing process and making sure your skin is hydrated. U Beauty Resurfacing Body Compound, £118; theubeauty.co.uk

My favourite apps are Airbnb – I go upstate at least once a month – HotelTonight for last-minute bookings, and AllTrails, which is the nerdiest thing ever. It’s a hiking app that tells you where the trail heads are and where they’re headed. You can download your map onto your phone, so even if you’re in the middle of nowhere with no service, you’ll have access to it.  

In another life, I would have been a musician or a mycologist. There’s an obsessive quality to food, music and mycology that makes a nice through line: you do those things because you have a passion for them.

The meal that changed everything for me was the first time I was able to order whatever I wanted at a restaurant and pay for it. I don’t remember when that was, but I remember the feeling. I spend my money on trips, dinners and entertaining people: that’s what I work so hard for.  

When I need to feel inspired, I talk to Chris. He’s the best at getting me to think about things differently because he’s nothing like me. He’s pragmatic and logical; I lead with the emotional part of my brain. He’s good at getting me to tap into that in a way that is really special. It’s something I’ve been looking for in a partner my entire life. 

The best bit of advice I ever received was “dare to be brand-new and terrifying”, from a random kid at a party. It feels nice to do something safe, but I try to have the courage to be new – and a little scary. That’s where the special things are.  

I’ve recently rediscovered “I Love This Life”, a song by The Blue Nile. When I was young, I wanted to feel the way the lyrics describe. I wanted to scream to the heavens about how much I loved my life. Recently the song was playing in an airport and I thought, “Oh my God, I feel like this song now.” I never could have imagined that I would.

And the best gift I’ve received is my community; the gift they give me is just receiving me. I didn’t grow up feeling very accepted. I didn’t have much self-reverence. Now I do. I feel lucky to have an online community that, for the most part, accepts me the way that I am. It’s like Nina Simone said: “I’ll tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.” And I have a half a million people who give me that gift every day. 

Make-up: Nicole Bueno using Danessa Myricks Beauty for The Only Agency