Most 25-year-olds are only just finding their footing in the world. A couple of years out of college, they’re usually getting started in their careers, still figuring out where they want to be in life, and learning the ropes of young adulthood. Not Romilly Newman, though. But then again, Romilly Newman isn’t you’re average 25-year-old.
Born and raised in New York to parents in the film industry, Newman is a young foodie who’s been cooking intricate meals and hosting ornate events since her adolescence. “Before cooking came eating,” she says. “My real inspiration source was eating good food.” Newman, the youngest of three, credits having a British mother who grew up in Paris for her deep passion of fine dining. “She had this confluence of culture and a very European ethos when it came to eating and also parenting,” Newman continues. “She exposed me to different types of food and cultures, and just never really instilled this concept of having foods you don’t like.”
“I try to find beauty in the every day and some days are harder than others, but that luxury in food can be the simplest thing,” says Newman. “It can be a runny egg yolk, it can be the perfect salted butter on crusty bread. Like it doesn’t have to mean hosting a dinner party for 20 people. Um, but just living life in a way that’s, that’s thoughtful and that has some intention behind it, I think is, is really what I’m about.”
By the time she was 9, Newman had already familiarized herself with the kitchen. “My mom was like, ‘Go ahead. Use the stove, use the knives.’ Like, she had complete trust,” Newman recalls. “I think that’s what made me feel really comfortable and want to explore.” Her mother also pushed her to experiment with all sorts of ingredients: “She’d plant things in me, like simple French dishes that she had grown up with that she wanted me to try. I just went right for it.”
One of the first meals she learned how to cook? Risotto—no easy feat. In fact, her expertise on the dish even earned her a segment called “Revolutionary Risotto” at age 11 on the now-defunct CBS Early Show.
Around the same time, Newman was becoming something of an internet sensation. The then-rising wunderkind had a food blog and YouTube channel called Little Girl in the Kitchen, where she styled herself in her mother’s clothes and high heels (a non-negotiable, she says) and cooked dishes that would typically appeal to an adult with a discerning palate. “It got a lot of [attention], and I think it’s because people were so confused,” Newman says with a laugh. “They were like, ‘Who’s this 11-year-old who’s talking about having people over for a garden lunch, elderflower cordials, and simple roast chickens?’ It was so strange. I think people almost watched it out of morbid curiosity.”
By the age of 13, Newman became the youngest contestant to compete on Food Network’s Chopped. “That was a very surreal experience because I had watched all of those shows,” she recalls. “My brother and I would watch Chopped and then pause when they would get the baskets and think about what we would make with them. I just really could not believe that they wanted me to be on it.”
Newman says her family, who are in the film industry, were super supportive from the start. “I think they were really excited that one member of the family didn’t want to do the same thing,” she says. “They really enjoyed the fact that they weren’t experts in that field. They enjoyed watching it through my eyes and encouraging me, but not being involved.”
Despite getting “chopped” early on in the episode for overcooking her salmon, Newman is happy with the outcome. “I’d been on one episode of one cooking show and it really had a lasting effect. I was very lucky,” Newman gushes, noting that world-renowned Ethiopian-Swedish chef Marcus Samuelsson, one of the judges on her episode, took her under his wing. “It was honestly even better than winning the show because I got a mentor out of it.”
Samuelsson entrusted the then-teenager so much that he even asked her to speak in front of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia—yes, as in the King and Queen of Sweden!—during the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce one year. “The pressure was really high,” says Newman, “but I always felt from a very young age that I did best under pressure and I could really take that nervous energy and turn it into something positive.”
Romilly Newman’s Kitchen Must-Haves
Mauviel M’Heritage M150CI Frying Pan
Now 40% Off
“I love my copper frying pans. They seem very luxurious, but they really do make a difference. I have all these scratches and marks and I love it because it shows how much I’ve made. That’s my ethos with everything: You can set a perfect table with a linen tablecloth, and if it has wine and food stains at the end of the night, that’s a great sign.”
Falcon Enamelware Bake Set
“I love these British enamel roasting dishes. They look beautiful. I display ’em, but then also you can cook anything.”
MIYABI Mizu SG2 Chef’s Knife
“A really good chef’s knife is a non-negotiable.”
Staub Enameled Cast Iron Round Dutch Oven
“I once moved to London for six months and all I bought was that. Because I can sauté things in here, I can braise things in here, I can bake in here. It’s just one piece of cookware that’s so trusty and so dynamic that it’s an non-negotiable. I think everything tastes better when I cook in one.”
Maldon Chef’s Bucket Sea Salt Flakes
“I love my Maldon salt—especially the Malden salt buckets, which seem ridiculous but are actually are very necessary.”
Microplane Microplane Master Series Zester
“I put zest on top of everything. I use this microplane maybe 15 times a day.”
Tenuta di Capezzana Organic EVOO
“I like trying a lot of different Italian unfiltered olive oils because they have that like spiciness, real fruitiness. You can just put olive oil on a tomato and then all of a sudden it has this whole life to it. Or if you buy like a really beautiful, supple piece of mozzarella and then just put olive oil, salt and pepper, that’s a dish.
Ebury Publishing River Cafe 30
Also always in Newman’s kitchen: a cookbook. She’s a fan of Ruth Rogers’s cookbook featuring simple Italian dishes from London’s beloved River Cafe.”
Her cooking style has come a long way since then, too. “When I started I was really concerned about just doing everything technically right. I didn’t necessarily let myself play around,” Newman says. Now, “my style’s been pretty consistent in the fact that I really like to take old school techniques from France and Italy and then apply them to simple, very seasonal fresh dishes that aren’t traditional,” she continues, adding: “One thing I’ve learned is to scale it back. If you have a perfectly cooked piece of meat or fish and then just amazing olive oil on the side of gorgeous vegetables, that’s enough.”
Among some of her most requested dishes from friends and family? Stews in the winter, a modern take on coq au vin, and a tomato-less bolognese made with veal, pancetta, and lemon. “I also make a really good, if I say so myself, roast chicken with anchovy sauce,” adds Newman. “Just very elemental things that kind of feel like a hug. What I look for is food to evoke some kind of feeling, whether it’s comfort or excitement.”
“As a kid, going to spending time in France and being lucky enough to have all of these cultures around me, that really inspired just the baseline of my cooking,” says Newman.
By the time she graduated high school, Newman’s career began picking up even more steam. After a short stint at NYU, she landed her first gig at Cherry Bombe—the indie magazine celebrating women and the food and beverage industry—at age 19. She was hired as an intern, but instead found herself making the staff lunch every day. “Of course I took that as that being my only job,” says Newman. “I would go to the market and five different grocery stores, and then make this extravagant over-the-top lunch.” It impressed Kerry Diamond, the founder of the publication, so much that “she was like, you’re really good at cooking and really mediocre at desk work, so why don’t you do all the food recipe testing and development for the magazine,” recalls Newman. “It was such a lucky break for me because that’s how I learned everything, but also had so much exposure to all these amazing people in the food world.”
Before she knew it, Newman was getting calls left and right from people in the lifestyle industry, including interior designer and influencer Athena Calderone. Only what Calderone wanted was not cooking-related. “She said, ‘Babe, can you food style a shoot for me?’ I’d never styled. I barely knew what food selling was. I just knew it was making things look pretty,” recalls Newman. “I was like, ‘Sure,’ and she was like, ‘What’s your rate?’ And I was like, ‘I’ll have to call you back.'”
Newman food styled this squab meal for a recent collaboration she did with Curio Shop & photographer Noah Fecks.
It was then when Newman picked up a knack for taking food and creating gorgeous tablescapes with it. “I’ve always been a very visual thinker,” says Newman. Not long after, Newman landed even more food styling side jobs, working with fellow foodie Sophia Roe, and her work even landed on a Cherry Bombe cover with Samine Nosrat, the author of James Beard Award–winning cookbook Salt Fat Acid Heat. Looking back, she adds, “I did all these things that were career-making moments from the start.”
Flash forward to now, Newman is busier than ever. These days, you can typically find her hosting impressive dinner parties, creating edible masterpieces, and designing gorgeous tablescapes for well-heeled individuals and brands, including Oscar de la Renta and Soho House. She’s also a contributor for EyeSwoon, Calderone’s lifestyle brand-turned-e-commerce platform that sells a stunning curation of home essentials and features blog posts on everything from current design trends to in-season recipes. Among her most noteworthy recent accomplishments: co-hosting a Kentucky Derby event with the one-and-only, Martha Stewart.
“I owe so much to Martha,” says Newman. “My line of work wouldn’t exist without Martha. I always make this joke that I’m a housewife to myself, but I cook and I clean and I set the table and I do all these very domestic things, but it’s all for my own enjoyment and as a career. And I think Martha really started that. It was like, you can take these things that are seen as a woman’s work in the home and have been traditionally forced by my men and turn it into a billion dollar career like Martha did. I think there’s so much power in that.”
Newman had met Stewart many times over the years, but first solidified her relationship with lifestyle guru after doing the food spread at event planner and mutual friend Chris Hessney’s holiday party. “Martha loved it,” says Newman. “I don’t think I’ve processed that yet.”
According Stewart, getting to know Newman and her success has been a pleasure to watch. “Romilly is a creative, enthusiastic, and fun person to work with when planning one’s party,” the lifestyle guru tells T&C. “She offers useful and exuberant designs for buffets, food displays, and special events.”
Don’t expect things to slow down for Newman anytime soon. She has a homeware collaboration with decor brand Claude Home coming out soon and on top of that, she’s working on her debut cookbook with her mother. “It’s a love-letter to mother-daughter relationships,” Newman says, explaining how her mother instilled “so much confidence” in her and inspired to express her creativity through cooking.
“It’s broken up into different sections. There’s childhood, there’s France, there’s holidays, there’s comfort food,” she continues, noting that none of the recipes are random, but instead, are seminal food moments. “For every recipe I write, she writes a little anecdote, a short story, or a life lesson. Something that not only relates to the recipe, but also adds an emotional element to it.”
“I’ve been doing a lot of food for fashion,” says Newman, “creating these tablescapes and doing these experiential food moments that can exist in a space that’s not necessarily a dining room or a kitchen.”
Newman also has some business ideas of her own brewing. “My vision is to start a lifestyle brand for young people looking to get into entertaining and cooking,” she says. “I want to create future heirlooms and things that really matter and are made well but also serve a real purpose and will hopefully be a mainstay in your kitchen or dining table. So really thoughtful and intentional homework.”
In the meantime though, Newman is still pinching herself over the way her career trajectory has been going. “I love to look at these full-circle moments, like I was an intern at Cherry Bombe and then food-styled the cover with Samin Nosrat,” she says. “If you told me two years ago I would be doing this, I wouldn’t believe you. It’s a nice way to mark how far I’ve come.”
- Do make family style food that is not temperature sensitive. “Big abundant bowls of salads and vegetables, and beautiful breads and things like that, but they can sit out all day long so people can come and go and really enjoy them,” says Newman.
- Don’t make intricate desserts with icing or buttercream—and skip the cheese board while you’re at it! “I love making poached fruit or a fruit tart, things like that,” says Newman. “You can’t force something in the summer. You have to serve what’s natural and what the climate and surroundings will allow.”
- Do make pre-batched cocktails. “Doing as much beforehand so you can actually enjoy yourself is such a big thing to me,” says Newman. “Also, it feels special to have a cocktail already made, something that you could put a lot of thought into beforehand and then no thought into during.”
- Don’t serve anything hot. Newman says you shouldn’t cook anything “that needs to be served extremely hot or that needs to come out of the kitchen and be consumed immediately.”
- Do entertain in a shady area. “Any kind of shade is very important,” says Newman. “You have to offer a shady environment.”
Sophie Dweck is the associate shopping editor for Town & Country, where she covers beauty, fashion, home and décor, and more.