John Gregory-Smith on coming out, a new cookbook and the Middle Eastern flavours he can’t get enough of (EXCLUSIVE)
Releasing his Sunday Times bestseller The Greatest Traybake Cookbook Ever, online cooking sensation John Gregory-Smith shares how he got to where he is today through self-development and a love of food
By Conor Clark
With a title like The Greatest Traybake Cookbook Ever, it’s only natural that John Gregory-Smith is feeling “pretty confident” about his newest collection of recipes. “I’ve put my stake in the sand, so it now has to work!” Made up of 100 “effortless” traybake recipes, it’s his biggest release to date, says Gregory-Smith, but also a culmination of his life’s work so far, which, as our interview makes clear, reflects his personal journey over the years.
After starting out as a “terrible” recruitment consultant “who didn’t recruit anybody”, Gregory-Smith quickly found the confidence to pursue his real dream of becoming a chef, author and, eventually, content creator (because who can afford not to be the latter nowadays). Despite being “1,000 per cent” sure he was gay from the age of 11 or 12, it took him until he was nearly 30 – and drinking so much red wine in one night that he was sick – for that confidence to translate into coming out to his family, who he says are his best friends. Their reaction? “For fuck’s sake, you really dragged that out! We’ve all been waiting for about 10 years for you to drop it.”
“It wasn’t a surprise to a single person when I came out” – John Gregory-Smith on coming out as gay
He laughs telling the story, not just because they “couldn’t have been nicer”, but because his handling of the situation was quintessential John. “I am very dramatic and it’s a key skill that I can turn anything into a drama. I made such a mountain out of a molehill with that, because, listen, it wasn’t a surprise to a single person when I came out. I hadn’t even stood close to a woman for about 15 years!”
Now in his forties, Gregory-Smith highlights how shows like Heartstopper have changed things for the younger generation when it comes to being LGBTQ+. Finding answers back when he growing up was a much more complex task, not least because it would often involve physically going to a library to look something up. “I think I was deeply unhappy for quite a long time, and I think when you live the majority of your early adult life – well, it was all of my early adult life, really – controlling yourself in a really odd way, it does lead to you making quite strange decisions, and also just being in a state of flux all the time. And it was totally self-imposed.”
“We realised very, very, very quickly that we cannot cook together” – Smith on cooking with his fiancé
Gregory-Smith’s mindset has come a long way since then. Now engaged to his partner, who used freshly made pitta bread to woo him when they first met (“I honestly thought, ‘I am never letting this guy go’”), the two clearly share food as a love language.
But when it came to their first Christmas together, his Croatian partner wanted to make a fish speciality, as is tradition on Christmas Eve in his home country. This was the first and last time the two attempted to cook at the same time. “We shared the kitchen and it was a disaster. I went into sort of like dictatorial mode and was just constantly sort of wiping and like, ‘Oh God, you’re using that – why are you doing that?’ And we realised very, very, very quickly that we cannot cook together.”
The couple now have an agreement of how time in the kitchen together is spent: Gregory-Smith cooks while his partner sits at the island making them margaritas. “That works out a treat,” he laughs.
When did Smith’s online cooking career take off?
Despite having a successful career for many years, including regular food columns and TV appearances, things took a turn during lockdown when the world came to a very abrupt halt. “Everyone ghosted me during Covid. It was just tragic!” He began posting videos of himself cooking in his now infamous kitchen on social media and has since amassed a following of more than 1.1 million on Instagram and 500,000 on TikTok. But keeping up with the industry can still be difficult, not least because so much of it is dominated by what Gregory-Smith describes as “blokey” men – something that has made him avoid working in restaurants for the most part.
“I have had days where you’re like, will being gay affect what you can do, or how far you can go, or the visibility you get? And you just have to go, ‘Do you know what? If it does, fuck it.’ There’s nothing I can do about it. I’m very confident in who I am, and I’m not afraid of who I am in any way. I don’t hide who I am, I never do, and you just have to go for it. And you have to think, ‘Well, if somebody is offended by who I sleep with, they’re probably not the right person to be following me anyway.’”
“I kind of feel like my sexuality has got nothing to do with me being there” – Smith on cooking abroad
Describing himself as “bizarrely lucky” to have had a mostly pleasant experience of the food industry, much of Gregory-Smith’s work has focused on cuisine from the Middle East, with past cookbooks of his exploring food from Lebanon and Turkey. He’s always had a great time during trips there, despite the poor reputation it has for LGBTQ+ rights and equality. “What I really wanted was just to hang out with a load of old grannies and get them to show me their recipes and food,” he says. “I kind of feel like my sexuality has got nothing to do with me being there. If I had a massive problem with it, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I’ve never had a situation where I felt uncomfortable or uneasy… For my own personal experience, I feel like I don’t want to not go somewhere because I feel like I ought not to be there.”
Recipes in The Greatest Traybake Cookbook Ever include cuisines from all around the world, including the ultimate Turkish meatball traybake, Seoulful Korean garlic chicken, and harissa salmon with crispy lentils and garlicky yoghurt, mirroring his travels in a unique way. Will you be able to taste them in a restaurant of his one day? “God, no! You can’t really talk all day, which is what I like to do. Basically, I work on my own. I just talk to my phone all day. If I’m with someone, you can’t shut me up.”
For now, at least, you’ll have to just buy the cookbook.
The Greatest Traybake Cookbook Ever by John Gregory-Smith (Penguin Michael Joseph) is available to order now via Penguin Books and other selected online stores.
This is a feature appearing in the March/April issue of Attitude magazine.