The Soundtrack to Eating: How the Chaos of Jazz Boosted Bon Appétit into YouTube Culinary Stardom

Bon Appétit, the relatively unknown cooking channel in years past turned massive foodie phenomenon, owes their popularity in part to changes in the music genre overlaid in their videos.

The Soundtrack to Eating is a series in which staff writers write about how food and music are intertwined.

Written by Allison McCarty

If you’ve been on YouTube for any sliver of time in the recent past, you know who Bon Appétit is. The bright and bubbly food channel full of diverse, personable chefs (Brad Leone, I would risk it all for you) and segments that contain practical kitchen knowledge has been a fixture on the trending page for a few years now. They’ve amassed a cult following, not only among the seasoned millennial foodies for which their content would be easily understandable, but also among the percentage of the online population that thinks pouring milk over cereal counts as cooking. The love of the channel by people who have no active interest in actually making any of the food featured on it is due in part to one integral aspect: the use of high energy jazz as the staple for its background music.

Starting out as a culinary magazine in 1956, the publication started posting cooking tutorials on YouTube in 2012, mainly focusing on the kinds of intricate food and exclusive fine dining that only culinary students and food aficionados would be interested in learning. They featured videos which centered around reviews of high-end restaurants and film diaries of an exhausting day in the life of an executive chef, further catering to their niche audience. These debuting videos were professional, so professional they were on the verge of lifelessness. Impersonal chefs dully recited lines of their recipes to the camera, accented by the gentle high keys of a piano pressed monotonously in the background. Visuals of the videos focused on the motions of the chef preparing the sophisticated food, with the chopping of vegetables and sizzling of sauteing partially interrupted with what can only be described as most prosaic elevator music in existence. Reviews of bistros and brunch spots were accompanied by the strumming of guitar strings in the same consecutive four-note pattern for the entirety of the video.

In those early days, the banal keys of a piano or predictable sequence of a synth infested Bon Appétit like an incessant plague. It makes sense why almost every video struggled to garner even a fraction of the views that the channel casually pulls in today. Besides not including Amiel Stanek and the other beloved current chefs featured on the channel today, the videos were boring, formulaic, practically an audible sedative that released melatonin like a burst dam. There was no excitement, no passion, and no love conveyed in the uninspired music, which bled into the presentation of the chefs who looked like they’d rather be anywhere else than surrounded in a mediocre bassline. It is a real challenge to try and get through one of those ancient videos without immediately clicking on the thumbnail in the sidebar of Claire Saffitz grinning while happily displaying the candy she’ll try to recreate in the newest “Gourmet Makes.”

That trademark pedestrianism all changed when Bon Appétit, in addition to bringing in a fresh cast of ardent and quirky chefs, shifted to using jazz as the primary background music. The visuals of the videos stayed relatively the same, remaining similar to its predecessors with (newly ecstatic) chefs talking to the camera with an air of expertise and comfort. The biggest difference between the old and new videos: the background music fully transformed into the tumultuously bombastic harmonies and rhythms of jazz. Gone were the dulcet, unimaginative cadences of bland guitar strains and piano keys. Bon Appétit became exciting, wildly energetic, and full of joy.

As the emergence of emphatic hits on hi-hats sounded off with the accompaniment of drum brushes dragged and tapped against a snare, Bon Appétit videos began to foster a different kind of relationship with the audience. Cold professionalism of the previous chefs gave rise to a new vibe of casual aptitude and relaxed mastery with every beat of a bongo. Lifeless recipe instructions became intimate conversations shared between the featured chef and the viewer. The electric keyboard, exuberantly reverberating with every intertitle, made every scene feel like an inside joke, private and humorous and whimsical. Adding jazz to the background didn’t just add a sense of vivacity and wit to Bon Appétit, it added a sense of community. The chaotic nature of jazz is a force of feeling, passion, and love. Bon Appétit was now a dynamic harbor for positivity and friendship, centered around the universality of food.

Without the jubilant connection and joyful atmosphere forged through the pandemonium of jazz, Bon Appétitcould easily still be the lukewarm, characterless culinary channel from years past. Without jazz, restaurant reviews would still feel hollow, chefs would feel less approachable and holier-than-thou, and the channel's multiple established series would feel more like a chore to watch than a delight. The fan-favorite chefs like Chris Morocco, Andy Baraghani, and Carla Lalli Music absolutely add to the success of the YouTube channel through their dazzling personalities, but jazz arguably deepened the connection between those chefs and the viewing audience of culinary amateurs. Without jazz,Bon Appétitwould be a shell of a channel, nothing more than an artisanal ghost of the passion it had originally failed to arouse from its audience.