Connecting with Comfort
Chef Davon Moseley of Royale Eats leaps from the screen to the page with his new cookbook.
It’s no easy feat to break through the noise and succeed as a creator in the social media space, but Davon Moseley has done just that.
“I think of myself as a comfort food chef, but I don’t keep myself in a box,” says Moseley, a chef and the creator of Royale Eats. “Comfort, Italian, Asian—I want to make food that people want to make over and over.”
From barbecue Jerk baked beans to garlic butter steak bites, sausage fajita pasta, cinnamon roll cake, and more, Moseley covers a gamut of flavors with his roster of must-try recipes. Other favorites include his hot honey Old Bay wings, and “the one that really, really cemented me in what I’m doing,” his honey garlic lemon pepper chicken thighs.
Moseley has more than 2.5 million followers across TikTok and Instagram. He rose to prominence with the success of his bestselling ebook The Home Cook, which features more than 100 flavorful recipes spanning myriad genres. November 4 marks the launch of his first hardcover cookbook, Let’s Get Into It: 130+ Comfort Food Recipes for Novice Cooks, which already stands out for its top-spot status among Amazon’s New Releases.
“I would love to say that I knew every step was this or this, but I think with me, it just began step by step,” Moseley says of his culinary journey. “Early on, I didn’t have the initial thought that: Hey, I want to be a chef, or Hey, I want to have my own food company. I had the route where, genuinely, I just enjoy food for what it is.”
He created Royale Eats in 2021, a time when “things at home, things in the world, were not the best,” he recalls. He had a lot of time on his hands and was making dishes at home, then posting them on his Instagram page. Within a few months, he says, “it took over a life of its own.”
Family has been a strong driving force behind his cooking. One of the first videos he created, perhaps even the very first, was a crab dip with cheese and spinach. He made it for his mother on Mother’s Day because “it’s what she said she wanted.”
Incredibly sweet gesture aside, Moseley says that when he looks back on the video now, he can’t help but see areas for improvement: poor production, lighting that wasn’t the best, an overall vibe he would describe as “cringey.” A self-described perfectionist, Moseley admits that he is his toughest critic.
“For me at least, it starts with a curiosity and constantly looking to get better,” he says. “I think: I could’ve got this shot at a different angle to emphasize frying here, or a pan searing, or incorporating audio into cooking or chopping. I try to think: What is the story I want to tell? and What do I want people to feel when they watch this video? I don’t think: This is going to get a ton of views, but What is going to tell this story best? I take it day by day, month by month, year by year.”
Moseley emphasizes the gratitude he feels regarding his success. He cites “being able to create a physical product, working with a distinguished publishing house in Penguin Random House, being able to craft a book of foundational recipes to help anyone of any level, and just being able to do that in a book as an accumulation of everything I’ve been through” with the kind of humble enthusiasm that reflects a person of genuine character.
Beyond the page and his self-produced videos, Moseley’s most recent venture takes him into the world of long-form content—specifically, a YouTube series called Borders that melds his pursuit of culinary excellence with an exploration of the intersection of community, food, and cultures. The series, produced by First Bite Studios, is the product of a chance meeting with other content creators aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship.
“I connected with these two guys who are constantly in nature, and I happened to have dinner with them one night,” he says. “We talked just briefly about working together, and usually people just say stuff just to say it, but I’m the type of person that will hold you to it. Probably a year or so later, I was in a space in my life where I was asking what’s next in my life, what challenges, and I called them up.”
The team filmed in California, and the episodes are being rolled out now.
“While I was out there, I just had this spiritual, out-of-body experience of just being in nature and cooking,” he shares. “I didn’t have phone service pretty much the whole trip, and just being able to disconnect from the world, be grounded and present, wake up at 4 a.m. to watch the sun rise. … If more people could experience that, it would probably allow more people to be present.
“Being able to capture those moments on camera, being able to share that with the world, felt like I would possibly impact the world,” he continues. “Honestly, that’s what keeps me going. When people comment that they say they made a dish, and that their kids are picky eaters, but are now asking for seconds, that’s the most amazing feeling ever. Allowing me to serve people, that’s where the true impact is.”
Photo courtesy of Davon Moseley
Published (and copyrighted) in Suburban Life, September 2025.
