- Bon Appétit has announced a new talent roster featuring eight new chefs that will help rebuild its YouTube channel.
- Bon Appétit underwent a reckoning over how it treats and compensates employees of color over the summer, leading to eight of its video stars announcing that they would no longer appear in videos.
- Each new host will appear in a "recipe driven" three-episode miniseries, with plans to develop other new series that will begin airing in November.
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Food publication Bon Appétit has announced eight new chefs that will help rebuild its YouTube channel, which has been quiet since the website's reckoning with race began in June, according to Variety.
The new talent, which includes DeVonn Francis, Tiana "Tee" Gee, Melissa Miranda, Samantha Seneviratne, Christian "Chrissy" Tracey, Harold Villarosa, Rawlston Williams, and Claudette Zepeda, will join previous Bon Appétit hosts Brad Leone, Chris Morocco, and Andy Baraghani, who did not leave the publication.
Per Variety, the company will launch "recipe driven" three-episode miniseries for each of the new chefs, with plans to develop and greenlight new series with Condé Nast Entertainment to begin airing in November. Leone, Morocco, and Baraghani will each continue their respective series "It's Alive," "Reverse Engineering," and "Andy Explores." Both new and old talent, as well as new leadership, were teased in an unlisted video uploaded to the Bon Appétit YouTube channel.
The new talent roster comes after a summer of reckoning at the publication which resulted in the departure of many of its personalities. In August, Sohla El-Waylly, Priya Krishna, and Rick Martinez announced that they were leaving Bon Appétit's YouTube channel after what they said were failed contract negotiations that would have still left them paid less than their white peers. Soon after, test kitchen manager Gaby Melian also announced that she would no longer appear in videos. Senior food editor Molly Baz, editors-at-large Carla Lalli Music and Amiel Stanek, and "Gourmet Makes" host Claire Saffitz have all since announced that they will no longer appear in Bon Appétit videos.
Condé Nast has repeatedly denied pay disparities based on race, as Business Insider's Rachel Premack reported. An internal email shared with Business Insider said that the company had completed a pay review study that determined that compensation was fair and not based on race, saying that a "lack of open communication about video compensation created confusion."
The company has made several new hires over the summer in an effort to turn the brand around. Simon & Schuster VP Dawn Davis is set to start at the publication on November 2 as its new editor-in-chief, replacing Adam Rapoport, who resigned in June after a photo of him in what some called brownface resurfaced online. In July, Condé Nast announced that former Disney Plus executive Agnes Chu was taking over as president of Condé Nast Entertainment, the company's video arm, replacing former president Oren Katzeff, who faced controversy over resurfaced old tweets he wrote about women and people of color. In August, Bon Appétit tapped former Eater director of strategy Sonia Chopra as the publication's new executive editor.
"What I really want to do is create a place where we are talking about food and culture together," Chopra told Variety, saying that she outlined her vision for the publication while reaching out to new chefs to join the publications video team. "We're building a really inclusive place, where everybody can find stories that resonate with them and also learn something new."
- Read more:
- Bon Appétit's editor in chief just resigned — but staffers of color say there's a 'toxic' culture of microaggressions and exclusion that runs far deeper than one man
- Bon Appétit announced a new editor-in-chief after 7 of its stars left the popular YouTube channel. Here's how the magazine devolved into chaos.
- Watch the first episode of former Bon Appétit star Sohla El-Waylly's new YouTube show
- 7 Bon Appétit Test Kitchen stars have left amid a reckoning over how the company treats employees of color — here's the full list