Gabriel
Smilovic

I cooked on the line at one of the best restaurants in the country. Loved every second — the heat, the precision, the controlled chaos. But I also loved photography, and music, and writing, and the act of creating in general. So I left the kitchen to pursue a career that would let me scratch every creative itch at once.

At Tibi, I build things from scratch. Tibi Close Friends started as an idea in my head sitting in Austin a year before we shot the first episode. The Tibi Creative Lab, CP Radio, (Almost) Reckless, the Il Caroseno campaign — each one began as a seed, a conversation, a cold message. I find the people, develop the concept, produce the project, shoot it, and write about it after.

I write about food and the people behind it. I curate music monthly for an audience of thousands. I shoot on 35mm and digital. I travel to Puglia to photograph marble artisans and nonnas hanging laundry. The throughline is that I care deeply about the things I make, and I'd rather do fewer things with full conviction than many things at surface level.