Gigi Hadid Is Already Cooking With Khai — and Swears Taylor Swift Makes the Best Bolognese

Gigi Hadid may not be the one to say it, but she truly is the hostess with the most-est — and she’s got the credentials to back it up. Even with a schedule chock-full of literal hosting duties (she just wrapped up her first hosting gig on the freshly premiered second season of Netflix’s Next in Fashion alongside Tan France), high-profile runway appearances, and the typical responsibilities that come with being a mom, the multi-hyphenate still manages to find time to gather around the table and enjoy meals with family and friends ... even if that meal occasionally consists of her 2-year-old daughter’s leftovers (not that she’s complaining).

“Since becoming a mom, I find myself fully eating whatever's leftover from Khai; pancakes, chicken nuggets,” she tells InStyle. “I think that life's all about balance and sometimes I'm really craving a salad, but sometimes I want ribs and a Coca-Cola.”

Balance, it seems, is the name of the game for Hadid — whether she’s building her dinner plate or planning the party that’s going on around it — and she says it’s one of the many reasons why her latest partnership with Coca-Cola couldn’t have come at a better time.

“If you know me on set, a Coke is my go-to drink, it's just comfort for me. It's just like wherever I go in the world, I know I can have a Coke,” she says, adding that she even enjoyed her favorite beverage during a recent trip to India. “Like this week, I was having samosas and a Coke, and I just feel like it's always the one thing that ties it together wherever I am. So, life's a balance, but I really have fun with my comfort foods and treats and such.”

On a mission to “inspire a table renaissance,” Hadid and Coke are teaming up (just in time for dinner party season) to promote three ingredients that make up the most magical moments: cuisine, comradery, and — of course — a Coke. And while Hadid is quick to point out that she’s always had an affinity for hosting, hence the new partnership, she also explains that these shared moments have become even more important to her since welcoming her daughter, Khai, back in September 2020.

“I think that becoming a mom has made me realize that you just really have to start to get your eggs in a row and prioritize your time between being a mom and a person and then also a working mom and person,” Hadid says of parenting her daughter, who she shares with ex Zayn Malik. “I think it really starts for me with just prioritizing and organizing that time first, and then making sure that the jobs and partnerships and opportunities that I do make time for are ones that feel genuine to me and feel fulfilling once the day is done.”

And with a schedule as jam-packed as Hadid's (see: jetting off to India, walking runways in Los Angeles, and seemingly being everywhere between), saying yes to projects comes with even more pressure: “I need the time away from my daughter to feel worth it and like it's fulfilling me in a way that I can go back and be a better mom,” she adds.

It’s this exact shift in priorities that’s influenced the opportunities Hadid has pursued in recent years, shifting away from the hustle that came with being one of fashion’s hottest up-and-coming models in her early 20s and towards gigs that can offer a bit more stability to both her and her sacred inner circle. Enter: Hadid’s Coke partnership and her aforementioned hosting gig on Next in Fashion, along with her clothing line, Guest in Residence.

“I felt like they were more settled situations where I'm going to the same office for Guest In Residence or the same studio for Next in Fashion every day,” Hadid says. “I feel like it's a safe place for Khai to come and I know what to expect for her. I just love those jobs because I can feel more settled into my life and my schedule.” 

Another added bonus of all of the above? It offers a little extra time for Hadid to come home at the end of the day, regroup, and enjoy those special moments around the table. “In relation to making time for friends or to host a little dinner party, I know what time I'm off of work,” she says. “Just things that are kind of new for me in terms of just being more settled in my schedule.”

Read on as Gigi chats about her favorite food to make with Khai, which of her celebrity BFFs makes the best bolognese, and the moment from Next in Fashion that she’ll never forget.

When you’re not hosting, whose dinner party are you never missing and what's on the menu?
Taylor Swift is an exceptional cook, and I love her. She also makes a really good bolognese sauce and a really good chili that I love. So, I love to cook, but it's also such a treat to get cooked for. And when you have friends that really also care about those special moments and the more intimate spaces and what can really come from putting an effort into making the time for that, I think that that's when you start to find the friends that you really connect with, because you're both working towards manifesting those really special moments.

How do you and Khai spend time in the kitchen together?
Every day, we're cooking in the house together. Even if it's just her and I, she will get up on her little step-up stool and help me mix, or we do banana bread. Especially in the winter, when I'm like, "OK, what can we do that's warm?" It's a lot of, "OK, mash these bananas," and help her do the stuff that's exciting to her. But she'll get to a point where she's like, "OK, mama, you finish that. I'm going to do Play-Doh. I'll sit over here in my highchair and do Play-Doh and you cook." But it's still fun times together and we have the funniest conversations when it's just me cooking and her doing some craft and I love even when it's just us.

Have you found that she's a picky eater at all?
She's only 2-and-a-half, but she'll try stuff, but she'll definitely tell me if it's not for her, which I'm cool with. I'm like, "As long as you're trying it, I'm proud." I try not to be too hard on myself as a mom and just try to make positive conversation around food.

Switching to your other hosting gig, Next in Fashion, who was your favorite guest judge on the show and why?
Oh, that's tough. I guess I really enjoyed both Donatella Versace and Isabel Marant, because giving them a new platform to really show their personalities and show the designers [on NiF] what I get to see behind the scenes while working with them during Fashion Week was special for me. 

I think when they were young designers, they didn't have the same social media and opportunities to show themselves more than you would just see them maybe in one picture, maybe a little line in an interview. But I think that they showed so much warmth and obviously knowledge and they're so iconic, but so much warmth and compassion for the designers, that it was really special. I think people didn't expect it. And it was emotional for me. It was really sweet.

Did joining the show change the way you looked at your own personal style?
I don't know if there was specific moments that I like in terms of emulating ... but not everything on the show is something that I would wear, even if I liked it on the show. That's not the point. The point is finding your voice and your style and being brave enough to put on that extra funky thing if it makes you feel good. And I think that the way that the designers express themselves just inspired me to continue to get dressed in the morning for myself in however I'm feeling that day and go for it. 

I think that hopefully that's what Tan and I were trying to inspire through this season is like this wasn't about every episode making something that could be sold tomorrow. It's about being a creative director and just using this space to really explore themselves as creatives, even if it doesn't directly correlate back to something that they would do in their business.

What’s one moment from hosting Next in Fashion that you’ll never forget?
Something that Tan and I did that was really nice is right before our press tour started, we planned a dinner with all of the contestants — just private, with none of our producers or anyone that we shot the show with. It was our first time that we got together without people that we work for and got to sit down and have a dinner and get around a table and ask more questions.

Because obviously, with a competition show, there comes a lot of regulations and rules, because at the end, someone legally has to win money. So, we're only really allowed to talk to each other and get to know each other when we're in the four walls of the set. Once we leave that set, we're not allowed to, because we're judges, we're not allowed to hang out. Even though I would try to run by and be like, "What are you guys talking about?" A producer would be like, "Gigi, move along." But that was really nice to all get together and sit down and really get to know them more before all the craziness of launch week.