Barry Lewis (born 15 July 1982) is a British

cook Cook or The Cook may refer to: Food preparation * Cooking, the preparation of food * Cook (domestic worker), a household staff member who prepares food * Cook (profession), an individual who prepares food for consumption in the food industry * C ...

, author and founder of the

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel, ''Barry Lewis'' (formerly "My Virgin Kitchen"), which, as of June 2023, has over 996,000 subscribers. A self-taught cook, Lewis began filming recipe attempts online from his home in

Weston-super-Mare Weston-super-Mare ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the North Somerset unitary district, in the county of Somerset, England. It lies by the Bristol Channel south-west of Bristol between Worlebury Hill and Bleadon Hill. Its population ...

in 2010 after he saw

Jamie Oliver Jamie Trevor Oliver Order of the Star of Italy, OSI (born 27 May 1975) is an English celebrity chef, restaurateur and cookbook author. He is known for his casual approach to cuisine, which has led him to front numerous television shows and o ...

on a television show. After being signed up by Oliver to appear on his YouTube channel, Lewis attracted media coverage. His cookbook, ''Dinner's On'', was published in May 2014 and a second,'' My Virgin Kitchen – Delicious Recipes You Can Make Every Day'', in August 2017. In January 2019, the My Virgin Kitchen YouTube channel was renamed to Barry Lewis.

Career

Lewis set up ''My Virgin Kitchen'' as a way to inspire himself to learn to cook. He was working at the time as a

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for

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and would make recipe videos in the evenings in an attempt to gain confidence in the kitchen. Each video consists of Lewis cooking a recipe for the first time to inspire others to do the same; hence the name 'virgin kitchen.' Over time his reluctance to cook slowly began to turn into a passion, and a broad range of cooking videos were uploaded including simple dinners, cooking with kids and stunts such as cooking using hair straighteners. In 2013, Lewis was discovered online by the man who originally inspired him,

. Lewis decided to take a sabbatical from his job to take his cooking passion further as a career. Lewis also started making videos with fellow YouTube personality

Stuart Ashen Stuart Clive Ashen (born 16 December 1976), better known online as Ashens ( ), is a British comedian, filmmaker, critic and YouTuber best known for reviewing counterfeit consumer goods. Since 2006, his YouTube videos have centered around exam ...

, with most videos being Ashen's food specials, which are either reviewing foods of certain themes, or looking at (and sometimes eating) out-of-date food. In February 2016, Ashen and Lewis created a joint channel called Barshens. Lewis has written two cookbooks, and has appeared on television shows including Channel 5's ''

The Gadget Show ''The Gadget Show'' is a British television series which focuses on consumer technology. The show, which was broadcast on Channel 5, is presented by Ortis Deley, with reports from Georgie Barrat and Jon Bentley. Originally a thirty-minute ...

'' testing barbecues, and

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's ''

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'', as well as appearances at food festivals. Lewis has appeared as an actor in 'Ashens and the Polybius Heist' as 'Chef Assistance', marking his first appearance in a feature film as an actor.

Bibliography

*''Dinner's On'', HarperCollins, 2014 *''My Virgin Kitchen-Delicious Recipes You Can Make Every Day'', HarperCollins, 2017

Personal life

Barry is married to Rebecca (Becky), referred to as ''Mrs. B'' in the videos. They have two daughters, Phoebe & Chloe and a pug, Boston.

References

External links

Barry Lewis website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Barry 1982 births Living people British chefs