Bon Appétit’s ‘Test Kitchen’ Crew To Host YouTube Variety Show Benefiting Coronavirus Relief

The beloved Bon Appétit ‘Test Kitchen’ crew — the chefs and YouTube personalities that have catapulted the Condé Nast title to online video renown — are doing their part to give back amid the coronavirus crisis.

The crew — including Gourmet Makes host Claire Saffitz, It’s Alive host Brad Leone, and Chris Morocco — will headline a first-of-its-kind live variety show this Friday on YouTube. The telethon-style event, sponsored by Bush’s beans, will be facilitated by Zoon, hosted by Bon Appétit editor-in-chief Adam Rapoport and comprising cooking demos, game-show segments, interviews with editors, surprise guest appearances (from the crew’s pets), and more.

The event will also serve as a fundraiser that harnesses YouTube Giving tools, with viewers being asked to donate alongside the stream and all proceeds raised going toward World Central Kitchen’s COVID-19 response efforts. World Central Kitchen is a nonprofit that furnishes meals in the wake of natural disasters, founded in 2010 by celebrity chef José Andrés. In light of the pandemic, the organization is providing fresh meals to those in need and front-line healthcare workers, while also endeavoring to get restaurants back to work.

The Test Kitchen crew, who typically produce their videos out of Conde Nast’s headquarters in lower Manhattan, has gotten inventive about continuing video output in quarantine. Each of the chefs has been producing content from the comfort their own homes, their parents’ homes, or rentals in the desert, Mexico, and Long Island.

The Bon Appétit YouTube channel counts 5.8 million subscribers and recently been nabbing upwards of 70 million monthly views.