Books Dinner’s On! Role Cook | Name Barry Lewis Website MyVirginKitchen.com | |
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Full Name Barry Conrad Lewis Spouse(s) Rebecca Gardner (?-present) Children Phoebe Jane LewisChloe Anne Lewis | ||
Barry Lewis (born 15 July 1982) is a British cook, author and founder of the YouTube channel, My Virgin Kitchen, which, as of 2017, has over half a million subscribers.
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For a short period of time he ran the channel with his wife, Becky, who he affectionately nicknames Mrs Barry.
Lewis is also part of three other channels, Barshens, a joint account run with Stuart Ashen, where the two play games and do vlog style videos every week, The Barrys, a vlog channel of behind the scenes footage of My Virgin Kitchen and the Lewis' family life in general and Super Size Guys, a channel where he and his friend James react to previous Giant Food videos, as well as make more.
A self-taught cook, Lewis began filming recipe attempts online from his home in Weston Super Mare in 2010 when he saw Jamie Oliver on a television show. After being signed up by Oliver to appear on his YouTube channel Lewis attracted media coverage. His cookbook, entitled Dinner's On, was published in May 2014. His second cookbook, entitled My Virgin Kitchen - Delicious Recipes You Can Make Every Day, has also been released on 24 August 2017.
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 quantity surveyor for Wates Group 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 being uploaded including simple dinners, cooking with kids and stunts such as cooking using hair straighteners. Eventually, Lewis was discovered online by the man who originally inspired him, Jamie Oliver. Lewis decided to take a sabbatical from his surveying job to push his cooking passion further as a career.
Lewis also started making videos with fellow YouTube personality Stuart Ashen, 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being Ashen's Food Specials, which are either reviewing foods of certain themes, or looking at (and sometimes eating) out of date food. As of February 2016 Stuart & Barry have created a joint channel called Barshens.
Lewis has written two cookbooks, and has appeared on a variety of television shows including Channel 5's Gadget Show testing barbecues & ABC's Nightline, as well as appearances at food festivals.
Personal life
Lewis has two daughters Phoebe and Chloe and lives with his wife Rebecca in North Somerset. He also has two pet pugs, Boston and Amy.