Swapping the stage for stove

Top image credit: Kyle de Vre

Rosie Kellett’s debut cookbook In for Dinner offers low-effort, high-reward recipes inspired by communal living. Once chasing scripts, now crafting suppers, Rosie Kellett tells Natalie Li, that her joy is the connection that food and creativity brings.  

For Rosie Kellett, cooking was never supposed to be the career. She was meant to be an actor, the kind that jumps out of bed, grabs a stale croissant, and rushes off to auditions.  

But food had other plans for her. As she describes her love of hearty, warehouse meals and the joy she finds in cooking for others, it’s clear that her relationship with food isn’t just practical, it’s deeply personal. 

Her debut cookbook, In for Dinner, out this month, is a product of that love. Influenced by years of living communally in her Hackney warehouse, the book is full of practical, approachable advice: how to stretch £25 across a week, build a reliable pantry, and cook for a crowd without stress. It’s a guide for real life, not restaurant fantasies. 

The book’s cover recipe, citrus mackerel spaghetti with pangrattato, perfectly embodies her ethos. “It was born out of a very cash-poor moment in my life,” she explains. “It’s super cheap, comes together in half an hour, and feels so chic and luxurious, it proves that delicious food is achievable on any budget.” That ethos, she hopes, will inspire hesitant home cooks to embrace cooking for their friends and family. 

Stage to stove 

For a decade, the stage was Rosie’s world. Originally from Derbyshire, she moved to London at 20, after a stint as personal assistant to Samantha Morton, at the age of 18, spending ten years acting and writing for theatre, film and TV. Throughout that time, she supported herself with jobs in food, working for eight years with Meringue Girls and assisting Claire Ptak at Violet Cakes, where she project-managed the royal wedding cake for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018. 

Though food brought her joy, she initially kept it separate from her artistic ambitions. “I just thought of it as how I paid rent. I never saw it as my career, but knew that if I turned it into one, maybe I’d lose that joy.” 

But as the dream of acting lost its shine, Rosie found herself at a crossroads. The financial instability, the grind of auditions, and the precariousness of a career in theatre became harder to justify. The milestone of 30 loomed ahead, bringing questions about what her life could and should look like. “I wanted to be a mother one day, and this just wasn’t sustainable for that.” 

Dating a musician highlighted the contrast. “I watched him spring out of bed and skip to the studio to write songs, and he wasn’t making any money either, but he had this zest for life. And I realised, I need to feel that way about what I do.” 

What got her out of bed every morning? Cooking. Feeding people. That realisation was transformative. 

Life in the warehouse 

Rosie moved into a communal warehouse home in 2020, embracing a way of living that prioritised shared resources and collaborative cooking. Initially, she struggled with the individualistic approach she had experienced in past shared homes. “I couldn’t understand the whole system of everyone has a shelf in the fridge and their own bottle of olive oil and we’re using the same things but we’re not sharing them.” 

In the Hackney warehouse, she found a different system. Here, food was pooled, and costs were shared. “It was music to my ears.” 

With a £25-a-week kitty covering food and household essentials for around ten people, her cost of living dropped dramatically. “Knowing that my living expenses were £100 a month, I knew I could live well on that, which was revolutionary.” More than just affordability, the communal structure provided support and comfort, making city life sustainable. 

Formative flavours  

Rosie’s upbringing in a large family laid the foundation for her culinary journey. “I’m one of four kids, so dinner time was like, well, actually I would say all mealtimes were pretty intense, but very much prioritised.” Food was central. “Every morning at breakfast my mum would make us eggs on toast or porridge, or she would cook something for breakfast every morning. And it was really, truly valued.”  

Dinner was a democratic, homemade affair for all six family members. “Both my parents are great cooks and everything was homemade, we all ate the same thing.”  

A ‘try everything once’ policy, with the fallback of bread and butter, fostered curiosity without force. “I learned quite quickly as a child that bread and butter is great and everything, but you go to bed hungry and it’s kind of boring.”  

This early immersion instilled an appreciation for cooking from scratch and making ingredients stretch. At 12 or 13, Rosie took the initiative. “I begged mum to let me cook dinner one day a week for the house, for the family.” 

With musician parents often busy, Rosie’s offer was a welcome solution. Tuesday nights became her culinary domain, a responsibility she embraced with genuine excitement.  

I begged mum to let me cook dinner one day a week for the house 

Viral success 

Her journey to becoming a food creator was not without hesitation. When she first started posting online in 2023, the experience was agonising. “It made me want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty nail. I didn’t understand the internet. It was so cringe.” 

But her Gen Z housemates patiently guided her, teaching her to edit reels, navigate TikTok, and master Instagram. Initially, only her mum and grandma engaged with her content but then, a single warehouse dinner video changed everything. 

“I thought maybe I’ll just make video where I explain how we live communally and how we share food and cook for each other. And I’ll just see if there’s any interest, you know.” The response was seismic. The internet’s reaction was a polarised mix of fascination and repulsion. “Half the comments were people saying “this is disgusting, you are all living in filth. And I bet you’re all, like, sleeping with each other behind closed doors. The other half of the Internet were like, ‘can I move in? This is what I need. This is amazing’.” 

By Friday, it had 100,000 views. The conversation around communal living, both its merits and its challenges, had struck a chord. 

Since then, she has built an audience of 300,000 across Instagram, TikTok, and her bestselling Substack newsletter, The Late Plate. Through sharing the stories, meals, and everyday rituals of communal living, she’s carved out a niche that resonates deeply with those craving connection, whether in kitchens, dining rooms, or life itself. 

Her seasonal supper clubs, once small, casual gatherings for friends, have become sought-after events. “The demand for tickets skyrocketed, and suddenly, we were selling out in minutes.” 

With In for Dinner now out in the UK and set for publication in North America in August 2025, Rosie’s journey, from stage to stove, from communal living to global audience, is a testament to the power of food, not just as sustenance, but as shared experience. 

And for Rosie, that’s what truly matters: feeding people – both their stomachs and their spirits. 

About Rosie Kellett 

Rosie Kellett is a chef, food writer and supper club host. Having made a name for herself sharing recipes and stories online from her communal home, In for Dinner is her debut cookbook, sharing 101 original recipes from her time working in professional kitchens, hosting seasonal supper clubs and cooking for her housemates. Since 2023 she has built an online following of 338k across Instagram, TikTok and her bestselling Substack newsletter, The Late Plate.