When we video chat in late January, Antoni Porowski is still riding a high from a trip to Costa Rica over the holidays. The Queer Eye star was vacationing with his buddies from CEGEP—pre-university in Quebec—to celebrate one friend’s 40th birthday. The gang rented an idyllic house set deep in the jungle, and surrounded by howler monkeys. “We were just nostalgic and trolling each other for a week,” he says dreamily. “And it was just perfect.”

AMI look. Antoni’s own Omega Constellation watch from the 1950s.

Porowski will himself turn 40 in March, and his friends want to celebrate in a similarly grand fashion. But it turns out, Porowski is not big on birthdays. “There’s something about being celebrated for surviving pregnancy every year that is just very bizarre to me,” he says.

So how does he feel about aging? “I was just talking to my therapist about this 15 minutes ago,” he says with a laugh. (Porowski appears as sincere and open offline as he does on TV.) He has become more assured with age, more grounded “personally, existentially, and psychologically.” In his 20s, he was nervous about becoming 30, yet that decade was better than the previous one, he says. “I had more of my shit figured out. I gained confidence. I was able to speak for myself. And I look at where my life is at now, as opposed to where it was 10 years ago, and I’m in a much better place.”

Dior look.

Porowski’s life has indeed changed in the last 10 years. The biggest catalyst is Netflix’s beloved reboot of Queer Eye, which catapulted him to fame of astronomic proportions. The show has been a massive critical and commercial success, winning Emmys and GLAAD Media Awards. But after eight seasons as the show’s food and wine expert, does Porowski feel that there are new stories to tell? At the beginning of every season, he wonders how many times he will have to reinvent how he says, “Let’s explore your relationship with food,” he jokes. “And then you realize one minute into a conversation with somebody, when they really start to open up, all that shit just goes out the door, and you realize it’s just two people trying to connect, and I’m trying to figure out how I can help them in a very short amount of time.”

Lựu Đạn coat, available at Ssense; Antoni’s own Omega Constellation watch from the 1950s.

For his next project, a National Geographic docu-series called No Taste Like Home, set for release later this year, Porowski has a wider lens through which to share stories of food and travel. In each episode he will travel to a new destination, from South Korea to Senegal and everywhere in between, with a celebrity guest. He describes it as The Amazing Race meets Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations meets Queer Eye.

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“It’s like that old adage: to know where you’re going, you have to know where you came from. It’s a gift to be able to be on a journey with another, all while exploring food and chasing down a meal that this person had when they were a kid to figure out exactly where it originated.”

 

In recent years he’s mastered the art of the Irish exit, preferring to retreat home to his bed and dog, a rescue named Neon. Leaving the party early is all part of trusting his gut more—an intention he’s set for the year ahead. He also wants to spend more time with Neon, plan a hiking trip with his dad, and visit Nepal and Japan.

Hermès sweater and Antoni’s rescue dog Neon.

Boss look; Omega Seamaster Grey Worldtimer timepiece.

Gabriel Paul Caron coat; LGN Louis Gabriel Nouchi shirt, available at Ssense.

Porowski treats resolutions not as concrete goals but as learning opportunities to reevaluate his priorities and clarify his focus for the year ahead. “I love impermanence, knowing that everything is fleeting, whether it’s joy, or whether it’s sorrow,” he says. “It’s an opportunity to look back, see what was working, see what patterns I was engaging in, that I don’t want to engage in anymore, and just having the confidence to stick up for what I really believe in. So I’m all for it.”

Louis Vuitton look; Hermès shoes.