Early history (1956–2010)

Bon Appétit was started in 1956 as a liquor store giveaway and was first published as a bimonthly magazine in December of that year in Chicago.^[3][4][5] It was acquired by M. Frank Jones of Kansas City, Missouri, in 1965.^[4][6] Jones was owner, editor, and publisher until 1970, when he sold the magazine to the Pillsbury Company, who in turn sold it to Knapp Communications in 1975. Jones remained the editor of the magazine through both of these transfers. Knapp Communications also owned and published Architectural Digest, which was edited by Paige Rense. Jones recruited Rense to restructure Bon Appétit. She converted the magazine from a giveaway into a subscription-based, monthly magazine, as it remains today.^[4][7][8] Rense became the editor-in-chief in 1976. Condé Nast Publications, the current owners, purchased Knapp Communications in 1993. Bon Appétit's sister publication was Gourmet, before the latter was discontinued in October 2009.^[9]

Move to New York (2010–2019)

The magazine's headquarters was moved from Los Angeles to New York City in early 2011.^[10] Concurrent with the move, Barbara Fairchild, the editor since 2000, was succeeded by editor Adam Rapoport, who was previously the Style Editor at Condé Nast's GQ magazine. Prior to joining GQ, Rapoport edited the restaurant section at Time Out New York and worked as an editor and writer for the James Beard Foundation's publications office.^[11]

In 2011, Bon Appétit launched the "Bite me" advertising campaign, which had an estimated $500,000 budget that included print and online ads, billboards, posters, and sweepstakes. The ad campaign came after a period of "sluggish performance" following its sibling magazine Gourmet's cancellation in 2009, during which a limited number of readers and advertisers shifted to Bon Appétit. During the same period, other food magazines, such as Every Day With Rachael Ray and Food Network Magazine thrived. Bon Appétit sold 632 ad pages in 2012, which was a one percent increase from 625 ad pages sold in 2009 but a decline of 27 percent from the 867 ad pages sold in 2008.^[12] Condé Nast reported 1,452,953 paid subscriptions and 88,516 single copies in 2012 for the period ending November 2012. The median age of its audience was 48.4, of which 74% were female.^[13]

In August 2014, Condé Nast combined Bon Appétit and Epicurious into a single digital food platform led by Pamela Drucker Mann, Bon Appétit Senior Vice President and Publisher. Adam Rapoport was named Editorial Director of Epicurious.^[14]

Starting in the late 2010s, Bon Appétit was noted for increasing their web presence through the use of social media, their website, and their YouTube channel.^[15] From 2018 to 2019, Bon Appétit saw a 40 percent increase in video revenue and a 64 percent increase in subscriptions generated from digital channels such as social media plugs, podcasts, and newsletters. The company worked to leverage the popularity of Bon Appétit's YouTube and streaming channels towards increasing magazine readership. This included the November 2019 edition of the magazine, which had eight separate covers featuring the staff of the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen seen on the channels. As well, advertiser interest increased, with many companies being drawn to the connections the shows’ hosts have with their audience. These companies included Goose Island Beer, The Mushroom Council, Mitsubishi, Kerrygold and Glossier.^[16][17]

Racism allegations and fallout (2020–present)

On June 8, 2020, Adam Rapoport resigned as editor-in-chief after a photo of him in brownface was posted by food and wine writer Tammie Teclemariam on Twitter and sparked widespread criticism.^[18] Rapoport also received criticism after food editor Sohla El-Waylly accused the magazine of discriminating against employees of color, claiming they were subject to lesser pay than their non-minority counterparts.^[19][20] Amanda Shapiro took on the role of interim editor-in-chief soon after.^[21]

In an interview with Business Insider, Rapoport's former assistant Ryan Walker-Hartshorn, who is black, revealed that she had not been given a pay raise in almost 3 years with the company and was subject to numerous racist remarks and microaggressions, with a number of other employees of color agreeing that there was a "'toxic' culture of microaggression and exclusion" at the company.^[22] Vice President and Head of Programming and Lifestyle at Condé Nast, Matt Duckor, apologized and later resigned after past tweets seen as racist and homophobic were revealed, as well as accusations of being complicit or directly responsible for the pay disparities at the company.^[23][24][25]

In August 2020, two months after the initial fallout, several members of the Test Kitchen announced they would not be returning to film videos for the Bon Appétit YouTube channel due to a continued lack of progress in resolving issues at Condé Nast Entertainment.^[26][27][28] Additionally, Walker-Hartshorn and Jesse Sparks, the only two black editorial staff members at Bon Appétit, quit on the same day.^[29] Dawn Davis, a black woman, was named the new editor-in-chief on August 27, effective November 2, 2020. This followed the announcements of Sonia Chopra as the new executive editor and Marcus Samuelsson as a brand adviser and guest editor.^[30][31][32]

Condé Nast employees, including all Bon Appétit employees, formed a union in September 2022.^[33][34][35]

History

Productions

The entire lineup of on-camera staff and contributors at Bon Appétit appear in the series From The Test Kitchen, which features more traditionally structured instructional recipe videos, as well as Test Kitchen Talks, with videos of the chefs competing in cooking challenges and answering common cooking questions. Several other series feature the individual chefs. Chris Morocco stars in Reverse Engineering, in which he attempts to reverse engineer a recipe by a celebrity chef from taste, touch, and smell alone.^[53] Carla Lalli Music starred in Back-to-Back Chef, in which she cooked along with and instructed a celebrity in preparing a dish while facing away from each other and using only verbal instructions. The series' guests included Natalie Portman, Antoni Porowski, Ninja, Miz Cracker, Braun Strowman and more.^[54] Additionally, chefs Bobby Flay, Daniel Boulud, and Gordon Ramsay have guest hosted the series.^[54]

Bon Appétit has filmed several collaborations with other notable YouTube channels, including First We Feast^[55][56] and Binging with Babish,^{[57][58][59][60]} with Sean Evans of Hot Ones and Andrew Rea of Binging with Babish appearing on multiple Bon Appétit series, and Bon Appétit personalities appearing on First We Feast and Binging with Babish's respective series. El-Waylly's first appearance on YouTube after the Bon Appétit YouTube channel became inactive was teaching Rea to temper chocolate, before eventually moving entirely to the Babish Culinary Universe with her own show titled Stump Sohla.^[61][62] Several other guests have appeared on It's Alive, including Elias Cairo of Olympia Provisions, chef Matty Matheson, chef Samin Nosrat, and musician Orville Peck.^[63]

Videos are produced by Condé Nast Entertainment and were filmed in the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen on the 35th floor of the One World Trade Center in Manhattan, where it is part of Condé Nast's headquarters.^[64] Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, videos were filmed at individual chefs' homes and other filming locations. Bon Appétit won the 2020 Webby Award for Food & Drink in the category Social and 2020 Webby Award and Webby People's Voice Award for Food & Drink in the category Web.^[65]

Bon Appétit staff and contributors on YouTube channel