Sit down with Alexander Smalls and explore his appetite for life.

“I’ve always done too many things”, says Alexander Smalls, chef, writer and Grammy award winning opera singer, “but right now, if you said to me ‘I have this great idea’ I would say well... what is it? Maybe we can do this together!”

Now, this may sound like Alexander is easily persuaded, but in reality, it’s quite the opposite. He is the real persuader.

This is because if you hear him speak for five minutes, you cannot help but see the world, and all its boundless opportunities, from his point of view.

From the opera halls of Europe to the Gullah kitchens of South Carolina, Alexander has travelled the world without forgetting where he came from. And in this way, serves as an inspiration to anyone who has ever asked ‘why do one, when you can do both?’

"Our lives revolved around the conversation of food"‍

Born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Alexander was raised by his whole family - flitting from his parents’ house, to his uncle and aunt’s, then onto his grandparents’. This close knit “triangle” was even situated around a garden planted by his grandfather, so he was never far from a meal or a relative.

“If I timed it right, I could have three lunches, and I could have three dinners” he laughs, “you learned very early that food was a currency, and the person who made the food had the power”.

This was a lesson that would go on to define Smalls’ life, although food was far from his only focus as a young man.

“My parents were grooming me to be a doctor, a lawyer, a professional” he recalls “just imagine their faces when I came home and announced that I was going to be an opera singer!”

Smalls’ introduction to music came largely through his aunt and uncle; a classical pianist and opera lover respectively. They had been involved with the Harlem renaissance, and the couple moved back south for Alexander’s birth - a true testament to the closeness of the family.

Precocious and headstrong, Alexander dreamt of a future for himself that was not immediately obvious to his family.

“You can just imagine a little black boy in the early 60s, running around a Southern town, singing in three different languages” he says “nobody that looked like us black people were opera singers”.

Luckily for Smalls, his family raised him with an ethos which is rare enough today, let alone in the 1960s.

“The greatest gift [my parents] ever gave me was that they never said no, they absolutely encouraged everything I ever wanted to do” he states, “do whatever, swing from the chandelier! Just be the best at it!”

"Music was the vehicle that took me around the world"

Alexander spent time singing in many of the great opera houses around the world, spending much of this time in Europe. But as a black man in a predominantly white profession, he often felt the weight of a system that was rigged against him.

Despite an impressive career (not to mention a shelf bowing under the weight of both a Grammy and Tony award), Smalls’ appetite was larger than what the archaic world of opera was willing to feed him.

“It’s very difficult to matriculate in a profession that has no place for you”, he says, “I hit the glass ceiling”.

Alexander recalls the realisation he had at the time, “I was not going to be the opera singer I wanted for myself. I couldn't own an opera house, but I could own a restaurant”

These two dreams would have appeared disparate to many. Yet no matter where Smalls’ musical career took him, another passion was always waiting in the wings.

“I travelled all over the world and whether it was Paris or Dakar, I was always looking for my identity - and I was looking for myself in everything I ate”.

It wasn’t until the 90s that Alexander fully understood where his path was leading him.

“Music was essentially the vehicle that took me around the world… to get me out of a small town, but... Food. Entertainment. Hospitality. These were the things that nurtured and cured my soul!”