Take the lid off of the stock pot that is online cooking content and take a big whiff. What’s that you smell? It’s drama, of course (and a hint of thyme). Today’s special is a popular influencer accusing a legacy media brand of copying her idea — or, at the very least, not doing enough research before hitting “publish.” Meredith Hayden, a.k.a. Wishbone Kitchen, is claiming that Bon Appétit ripped her off in the creation of its new series, “Dinner With Friends.” While nowhere near as serious as the magazine’s 2020 reckoning — when several of its Test Kitchen stars publicly exited over a lack of equitable pay — this is still not a great look. Let’s dig in.
Who is Meredith Hayden?
Hayden, a content creator who first blew up on TikTok for her videos about being a private chef in the Hamptons, started a YouTube channel just over a year ago. Since then, she’s posted 12 videos, all under the title Dinner With Friends, which have done moderately well (the most popular one has 205,000 views). In the videos, Hayden walks viewers through a recipe that would be perfect for entertaining. If you have watched a video from former Bon Appétit employees Alison Roman or Molly Baz, you get the gist. (Interestingly, Hayden herself used to work in marketing at Bon Appétit’s publisher, Condé Nast.)
What is Hayden upset about?
On Tuesday, Bon Appétit announced the launch of a new series on its site called, you already know, “Dinner With Friends.” In it, Bon Appétit Test Kitchen editor Kendra Vaculin gives tips for how to host a better dinner party. “Each month Kendra hosts a real-life get-together in her apartment, then passes her expert game plan along to you: the menu, the grocery and prep lists, and all her tips and tricks,” the introductory copy reads. Hayden took note of the name and brought her gripes to TikTok.
@wishbonekitchen @Bon Appétit Magazine ?????
♬ original sound - wishbonekitchen
“So Bon Appétit launched a new video series today based on dinner parties, and guess what it’s called?” Hayden says in the video as Bon Appétit’s Instagram post plays behind her, revealing the name to be “Dinner With Friends.” (Despite Hayden’s assertion, Bon Appétit’s series does not appear to have a video component as far as I can tell.) “Now, in case you’re new here, Dinner With Friends is the name of my dinner-party video series that I launched on YouTube in January 2024. It is self-directed, self-produced, and self-shot (most of the time). I’ve done this all on my own, all by myself.”
“I’m not going to accuse them of copying me because I’m not stupid — I know the name Dinner With Friends is not a revolutionary title,” Hayden continues. “But they should’ve done some due diligence and at least given it a Google to make sure that title wasn’t already spoken for.”
Hayden also pointed out that the logo for Bon Appetit’s series uses a pink-and-red color scheme similar to hers.
Another sore spot came from the Bon Appetit Instagram caption announcing the series: “Head to the link in bio for Kendra’s menu, then get on the group chat to see who’s free Friday night.” “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Hayden says. “If you’re [unfamiliar], my newsletter, where I post all the menus from Dinner With Friends, is called The Group Chat. Bon Appétit, what the actual hell is going on?”
In a statement to the Cut, Hayden said, “The entire situation is extremely disheartening, and just another example of traditional media’s unwillingness to properly embrace, acknowledge, and credit digital creators.”
What do Hayden’s fans think about all this?
Hayden’s video currently has over half a million views on TikTok, and her 2.3 million followers are pissed. They’ve flooded the comments of Bon Appétit’s Instagram post, writing things like, “What in the Wishbone Kitchen is this?? That’s dirty,” and “Great concept — but it was already happening over at Wishbone Kitchen for the last year … down [to] the color scheme.” The Wishbone Kitchen stans are having none of this!
Is this a case of an already problematic Condé Nast brand deliberately cribbing from an independent creator? Or is this two separate cooking outlets with some shared DNA, both capitalizing on a post-pandemic, postelection desire for community? On Hayden’s side, there’s the fact that she’s a megapopular personality in Gen Z’s online-cooking world. But in Bon Appétit’s defense, when you do Google “Dinner With Friends,” the first result is a 2001 HBO movie starring Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette. We’ve reached out to Bon Appétit and will update this post when we hear back.