Antoni Porowski

How I show love has always been through food. That, for me, has been the foundation of how I express gratitude for anybody around me.

Food can offer a moment of pure emotional pleasure in an otherwise hard and difficult world.

I was a busboy, a waiter, a manager, a sommelier... like... all of it from a family-run Polish restaurant, with, like, grandmas in the basement hand-making pierogies, to working at Bond Street for a while. I've done it all.

On 'Queer Eye' I come in with what I know, and I try to parlay that into lessons for our 'heroes.' But that's really listening to what they need. Sometimes it's a little more ambitious. Sometimes it's very simplistic. But it's got to be something that's condensed into a short amount of time.

When you're entertaining, and I still haven't accomplished this because I'm always stuck in the kitchen, but spend enough time actually with your guests. It allows you to chill with your friends and be an actual, normal human as opposed to being in the kitchen cooking all the time.

If I'm in Italy at a certain time of year, I'll make sure to try fresh porcini mushrooms in risotto, or puntarelle, a sort of curled chicory leaf that's only available for a few weeks in May.

I don't get to do quiet time.

Since puberty, I've always known there was a possibility of me being with a man. It wasn't anything I felt the need to explore until the time came to explore it.

I would want to do a cooking show. But I want to honor the opportunity that's been given to me with 'Queer Eye.' I feel like my work is cut out for me with the show alone. If it ever goes bust, then I'll explore that possibility.

The truth is that it has not been my pipe dream to have a restaurant. I know restaurateurs, and the amount of work that goes into a restaurant is nothing short of insanity. It's a real commitment, and most restaurants don't make it, so the odds are really against you.

I make the same noise after I eat too much as I do after I work out.

I really enjoy being vulnerable, and it's how I connect with other people, and part of how I do that is through food, by sharing something that I feel is very intimate and personal because it's something that I create out of nothing.