There’s nothing Nick Grimshaw likes better than a good old natter – which is just as well when his job is interviewing people.
But in his personal life the BBC Radio 6 Music breakfast show host admits he’s as guilty as anyone at allowing the art of conversation to suffer because he’s staring at his phone, even at the dinner table.
“I love talking to people, and my worst thing is when everyone is just sat on their phones – and I do it as well, so I’m not being judgmental,” he says. “I get so sucked in, and then I’m trapped in a doomscroll.”
So with the run-up to Christmas underway, the 41-year-old broadcaster has teamed up with Uber Eats and the Mowgli restaurant chain to come up with ideas that will spark chats at the Christmas dinner table, after Uber Eats research found more than a third (37%) of Brits struggle to make conversation and 65% report being regularly distracted by tech while eating.
Grimshaw has helped create a set of festive conversation cards featuring questions like ‘is there a lesson you’ve learned that’s stayed with you’ and ‘what’s a mealtime tradition you’d love to start?’.
“I always enjoy having dinner with people, having a laugh, and I just like the idea of encouraging people to put their phones away and to actually have a conversation around a table. Groundbreaking, I know, in 2025!”
The presenter, who also co-hosts the foodie podcast Dish with chef Angela Hartnett, laments the fact that people need reminding not to stare at a computer during dinner with friends and family.
“It’s become the norm,” he observes. “But when I was growing up, we’d always have our tea together as a family, and always sit at the dinner table every night.
“I was really happy that my mum and dad enforced that on us. They wouldn’t have allowed me to have been on a phone at dinner if it was now either.”
He says he always enjoyed sitting around the table with friends and family, and suggests: “I think it’s probably been instrumental in me doing the job I do, because it was just the norm to sit and have conversations every night.”
There are many rites of passage when a teenager goes to university, and one of Grimshaw’s was not sitting at the table for dinner. “Going to uni was the first time I had dinner on my knee. I couldn’t do it, it was so alien to me, and I remember being like, oh my God, how do I do this? I genuinely was never allowed to do it at my mum and dad’s house.”
But how thing have changed.
“I know it’s bad,” he admits, “but sometimes I do find myself eating my dinner on my knee, watching telly with my phone and doing work on my laptop. That can’t be healthy!
“So I actively fight doing that – I try and be phone-free as soon as I wake up, and I try not to be on it before bed. But it’s hard to stay away from it, it’s got everything on it, obviously – your schedule, your plans, and maybe a recipe, and as soon as I touch it, I’m sucked into Instagram or TikTok or something.”
He says he tries to move his phone away from him, and if he’s watching a film, he might even put his phone in another room.
And he points out that another reason for trying to limit screen time is that it can impinge on memories. “When you’re on your phone having dinner or catching up with people, I don’t know if this is fact, but I feel like I don’t remember the meal, or the moment, because I’ve just been on my phone. I think it’s important to remember full memories, rather than scrolling TikTok.”
So, as a professional conversationalist, does Grimshaw have any tips for dinner guests who may find it hard to naturally chatter away at the table?
“Asking questions and listening is really key,” he says. “I think people just ask and maybe don’t listen to the follow-up or try and relate it to themselves in some way. It’s about being quite real, listening, and asking open human questions and not yes-no questions.
“Ask about what you’re interested in. Whenever I’m interviewing someone, I always think, why do I care? What do I actually want to know, or what’s the one thing that’s stuck in my memory about this person. So I just try and find what’s naturally interesting in a person.
“I guess you can just apply that to dinner. Be nosy, politely. Be interested in people.
“And I also think if you’re going to a big event or dinner it’s always alright to offer up a bit of you, like ‘Oh, were you a bit nervous coming, because I was?’, letting a bit of vulnerability out as well.”
However, for all his advice about being a good conversationalist, Grimshaw admits that, as he’s got older, he’s relishing having a bit of quiet time.
He says that while he loves his jobs and feels very lucky to have them, “I also really enjoy shutting up as well. And the older I’ve got, the more I’ve felt happier having quiet time and time on my own.
“When I was younger it always felt like you’d been defeated, or it was maybe a bit sad or miserable to be on your own. But I actually really love it now.”
He says his partner, Mesh Henry, has just been away from home and admits: “I had the entire weekend on my own, and loved it – no disrespect to everyone in my life.
“So I think it’s good to have those quiet moments and have a bit of downtime and relax.”
Because when he’s doing the breakfast show his alarm goes off at 5:20am, he says sleep is very important to him. “I always like to indulge in sleep on a weekend or when I’m off,” he says. “And I also really like going to the gym – I never thought I’d be that person.
“Every time I go, I’m like ‘Wow!’ because you do feel better, it really does work. I know people have been saying it for probably about 100 years, but it never fails to surprise me how much better I feel.”
He goes to the gym three times a week, and lifts weights – something else he never thought he’d do. “But I really like it,” he says, “because it’s slow and I’m not being shouted at – it’s not like a bootcamp situation.
“It’s quite meditative, you’ve really got to breathe through it because it’s horrible. But I think it’s quite good to do something you don’t necessarily love – I do enjoy the fact that it’s hard and that it’s mind over matter.”
Nick Grimshaw has teamed up with Uber Eats and Mowgli to help create festive conversation cards which will be included in a lucky selection of Mowgli orders via Uber Eats across the UK to spark meaningful and entertaining chat.
