When Sophia Roe learned she’d won a James Beard Award—one of the most prestigious honors in the culinary world—she was at home, in her underwear, doing laundry.“The greatest honor of my life? It couldn’t have happened in a more Sophia way,” Roe says, recalling the flood of texts from chef friends practically screaming that she’d taken home the top prize for “Emerging Voice” in the Broadcast Media category (2022).

Roe’s two-time Emmy-nominated show, Counter Space, which she hosted and produced with VICE, aired for two seasons and debuted amid the chaos of November 2020. Her expansive knowledge of food—where it comes from, who controls it, and how it’s distributed—hit screens at the most perfectly imperfect time, during a global reckoning with supply chains and food access brought on by the pandemic. “Making a TV show is hard—making one in the middle of a pandemic, with a five-person crew because you’re worried someone might get sick? It was a huge undertaking.”

When asked how Roe became such a scholarly creator, mixing facts with culinary skills with unequivocal impressionability, she responds matter-of-factly: “Be curious about people that are not you,” she says. “People unlike you, people outside your circles—people you have to work to understand—New York is really the smallest, biggest place.” The chef encourages all of us to be better consumers: to spend a little more time reading, watching and thinking, to be actively “knowledgeable, aware, curious, and concerned.” Why is our food so expensive? You’d think we’d all be curious enough to actually…know.

Here’s the thing about Sophia Roe: she’s prepared. Winning an award might feel surreal, but never accidental—not for her. Roe would rather stay home watching videos of men harvesting salt in Africa (“What is this magical little thing that you dust on your food to make it taste perfect? It’s salt! The only rock we eat—we need it to survive”) than attend a slew of New York City parties and afters. “I don’t know what FOMO is,” she says. “I’ve never had that in my life.” She spends hours strategizing, taking prompter classes, and preparing for every media opportunity. She nails her screen tests—often better informed than the producers (which is how she became one). “I’ve always got my acting coach on speed dial... and I think that says a lot about my career goals—just being prepared.”

Roe’s openness seems to increase with her amassing fame. Given the opportunity, she makes herself accessible. In 2021 and 2024 she received Emmy nominations for Counter Space in the “Outstanding Culinary Host” category—the first Black woman ever nominated. Four years have passed, and she remains the only one. “I still feel the isolation of that,” Roe says. “And it’s a simple fix: give Black women more TV shows.” She reflects on the irony of historically male-dominated nominations in a culinary landscape long shaped by women. Still, she’s deeply grateful—for those who recognize her, for those who support her, and most importantly, for herself.

Roe’s “next big move” is one she can’t fully plan for: motherhood. Currently in her third trimester, she’s preparing for maternity leave this July—“a really great month for a farmer’s market.” As for advice to other soon-to-be parents, Roe doesn’t gatekeep: “If you’re interested in having a family, you need to do three things: One, lean on your people. Two, work on your health—your immune system and your mental shit—especially women working in food,” she urges.  Young  women in dingy kitchens with oil burns splattered across their forearms, who feed their families after days of feeding thousands of strangers—get your health in check, do what you can with what you have and then lean on your neighbors some more. “Before you talk about mothering—you gotta mother you.” Lastly, “You don’t need half of what they say you need—make mom friends and take hand-me-downs.”

Becoming a chef made sense to Roe in the throes of youth. She grew up food-insecure—worried about where her next meal would come from during an era of “Goopified” diet culture (restriction by choice). Health looks different for everyone, she reminds us, but that nuance is often erased within trend-driven frenzies. “A happy person is a fed person… If a McDonald’s hamburger is all you can get your hands on—I want you to have that.” Roe knows hunger intimately—its quiet violence and disempowering rhythm. “As a kid, I remember thinking, I never want to feel this again,” she says, describing memories of friends’ homes where the kitchens overflowed with food, knowing her own sat empty. She giggles at the food media FAQ—“highlight a favorite meal from childhood”—“What do you mean? Butter and toast? Fried rice from the Chinese spot? Because that’s what I had for Christmas.”

Roe believes there are three main camps: people who make food for the people they feed, people who make food because they honor the land and the food it produces, and people who make food to honor the land, food, and people they feed. “Now, there’s this new camp of people that do it for the celebrity of it all. And my response to that is, baby girl, there are easier ways to be famous, yeah?” Throughout Roe’s early years as a chef, she would kill her body feeding fancy people—in restaurants, in unimaginably chic Hamptons homes—clients she’ll never mention by name. “Fifteen years ago, being a private chef meant most notably being private—you didn’t prop your phone up on your client’s shelf and make videos… fired on sight.”

Five years of fulfilling, isolating, TikTok-free work later and it was time for Roe to move on. She reflects on that period as formative, fueling her desire to make an impression on a larger scale—for every little girl who watched food shows and never saw a face like hers, for every meal skipped out of necessity, not choice.

In Roe’s world, food is not just sustenance, but a social mirror; media isn’t a vanity project, it’s a vehicle for truth. As she enters this next chapter, balancing motherhood with media, advocacy with artistry, Roe continues to lead with radical empathy and unrelenting curiosity. Her legacy isn’t just in the awards she’s earned, but in the stories she’s told, the systems she’s challenged, and the people she’s nourished along the way. You want to change the world? Sophia Roe suggests starting with what’s on your plate. 

Photographed by Diego Urbina

Styled by Dylan Wayne

Written by Anya Wareck

Hair: Chuck Amos at Statement Artists 

Makeup: Jocelyn Biga at The Only Agency 

Styling Assistant: Selena Aiyla