There is a particular intimacy to watching someone cook online. A hand reaches for salt. A knife taps against a chopping board. A face leans close to the camera to explain why olive oil matters, or why onions should never be rushed. In the age of endless scrolling, cooking videos have become a kind of visual comfort food.
Few people understand this language better than Eitan Bernath.
Bernath has been cooking in public for more than half his life. He does not just cook to feed people. He cooks to connect with them.
“I grew up in Teaneck, born and raised in Teaneck, New Jersey, and went to dual-curriculum Jewish school my whole life,” he told The AJN over Zoom. “Half the day Judaic studies, half the day secular studies. And grew up in a very strong community. Obviously, as a Jew, food is very central to our life.”
That grounding matters. Bernath speaks often about food as something central rather than decorative. It’s a language and when you hear his story, it’s not surprising that Bernath found his way there early.
“I got started with cooking, I would say, when I was around nine years old,” he recalled. “I wasn’t really good at sports. The little leagues were not exactly my forte, but I really liked watching the Food Network and cooking shows on television. I was really fascinated by them and wanted to start cooking food of my own.”
“I, very likely, am one of the only Jewish people that many, many, many millions of people who see my videos every year know by first name. I take that responsibility seriously.”
What began as fascination quickly became vocation. His parents let him loose in the kitchen, patiently accepting the mess and the learning curve.
“It really became my passion,” Bernath explained. “I was always known as, like, ‘Oh, he’s the kid that cooks.’”
At 11, that kid competed on Chopped on the Food Network. For most children, appearing on television might have been a novelty. For Bernath, it became a launchpad. He started a food blog, began documenting recipes, techniques and ideas, and slowly built an audience.
“Now, creating content on all platforms, 12 years later,” he says, “I have now lived more of my life doing this than not.”
Bernath has grown up alongside his audience, moving from child prodigy to cultural presence without losing the sincerity that drew people in.
Part of that sincerity comes from his insistence that cooking is not an elite skill but a human one. He talks about friends his age, often newly married and newly independent, calling him for advice.
“I literally send my friends voice memos all the time explaining how to cook things,” he laughed. “I really think it’s an extremely valuable skill. Cooking was not cool when I started… but I think it should be, especially for kids.”
As his profile grew, so did the range of platforms he inhabited. After Chopped came Guy’s Grocery Games, following a chance meeting with Guy Fieri.
“He gave me his assistant’s business card,” Bernath recalled, “I emailed her like he told me to and then she said he wanted me to be on the show.”
These television appearances led to something more enduring: a role as principal culinary contributor on The Drew Barrymore Show. What began as a single booking turned into an ongoing collaboration.
“We just really vibed very well on camera,” he explained.
Alongside traditional media, Bernath was quietly laying the groundwork for something bigger. He had been posting on Instagram and Facebook since he was 11, but during COVID his audience exploded.
“The exponential growth on TikTok, and frankly across the board, during COVID. It was like it was the best time to be teaching people how to cook,” he said.
Confined to their homes, millions of people turned to food not just for nourishment but for distraction and comfort. Make-your-own sourdough trends exploded, banana bread recipes became highly searched online, and people became obsessed with their slow cookers, ice cream makers and juice makers.
Bernath’s content met that moment. It was practical without being preachy, and polished but not intimidating.
Something that was important to Bernath, and has remained important to him ever since, is speaking up and sharing his Jewishness. He cooked with his grandmother, he baked for Jewish chaggim and he never shied away from being open about who he was.
“I’ve been very vocal since the day it happened,” he said, talking about the period following October 7, explaining that his brother was in Israel that day. “It’s a hard time to be Jewish in any sense but especially online.”
Bernath said losing followers – which he did – doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things on social media but he did receive quite credible death threats.
“I was in touch on multiple occasions with the New York office of the FBI. It was not a fun time to be on the internet,” he said.
The gravity of that statement sits heavily, but Bernath does not frame his experience as exceptional, rather as symptomatic.
Yet he did not retreat. If anything, he became more intentional.
“Ninety-nine per cent of the people that view my content online are not Jewish,” he explained. “A huge percent of them probably don’t interact or even know personally any Jewish person.” It’s something Bernath is highly aware of, and it most definitely shapes how he cooks and how he speaks.
“I, very likely, am one of the only Jewish people that many, many, many millions of people who see my videos every year know by first name,” he said. “I take that responsibility seriously.”
It is an extraordinary idea that a cooking video might be someone’s primary exposure to Jewish life, through challah, schnitzel, matzah ball soup. There’s one video actually where Bernath makes a whole chicken into a schnitzel. But it’s something he relishes – exposing viewers to the beauty of Judaism through food.
Beyond food and representation, Bernath is also very aware of his fortune, and is keenly aware of his responsibility to give back. Philanthropy is something that has become simply part of who he is, and the roots of this attitude are very personal, dating back to when he was just a child.
“After I was on Chopped, I started doing these cooking demonstration shows around the tri-state area. And I remember the first time I ever got paid, maybe it was like $100, my parents said, ‘okay, you can choose wherever you want it to go, but you need to donate 10% of it to charity’. And it was something they really always instilled in me,” he said.
“To see people’s smiles and to know that you’re physically making someone’s day better, and putting food in someone’s mouth. It’s good for your own soul.”
That lesson stuck. Now, food insecurity, in particular, has become a focus.
“It’s so easy for anyone who’s not food insecure to take for granted that, you know, right now, I could get up from the chair I’m sitting in and just walk to my fridge or my pantry and get something to eat,” Bernath said gesturing to the cupboards behind him. “When you work in food, whether it’s in a restaurant or in media or in any sense, you know you can very easily start seeing it as kind of an object that is part of your work in the same way, almost like a tool. And so I think it’s easy to forget and take for granted how fortunate I am; how much access to food I have.”
Bernath also explained that sharing how food insecurity impacts communities around the world is easy given his role in content creation. He is able to tell a story, rather than just instruct people to give back.
Bernath acknowledges though that everyone has different means, and while some people may be able to donate money, others can donate their time.
He works closely with City Harvest in New York, volunteering at mobile markets that distribute free produce. “It feels good to wake up on a Sunday morning, early, drive 30 minutes, go there, stand outside and hand out, I don’t know, like 800 apples,” he said. “To see people’s smiles and to know that you’re physically making someone’s day better, and putting food in someone’s mouth. It’s good for your own soul.”
Bernath knows that he is not saving the world. He doesn’t claim to be solving problems worldwide. His ambitions are simple, but important.
“I love educating people,” he said. “I like entertaining people.”
Some of his videos are practical, designed to be replicated at home. Others are theatrical, almost absurd in their ambition, like deboning the entire chicken to make schnitzel.
“I’m not posting that for someone to actually go do that,” he admitted. “That’s just kind of entertainment.”
What he hopes for is modest.
“I think at the end of the day, I feel lucky to have a job where, I can do something that makes some positive thing in someone’s day,” he said. “I don’t think I’m changing the world by making cooking videos, but whether I’m inspiring someone to cook or when mums or dads will send me videos of their kids cooking from my cookbook, that’s super, super gratifying. But I think, if someone’s at work and if I can entertain them for 30 seconds, fantastic. I think that just being able to connect with people, and hopefully give someone 30 seconds of their day to be entertained or receive some happiness, that’s good for me.”
Follow Eitan Bernath on social media: @eitan on Instagram and TikTok
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