Meredith Hayden Is The Chronically Online Ina Garten

To Food Network fans, summers in the Hamptons are practically synonymous with The Barefoot Contessa herself, Ina Garten. But to the TikTok generation, Meredith Hayden, aka Wishbone Kitchen, is the New York beach town’s resident cool older sister who can roast a killer chicken.

Becoming one of the Hamptons’ most sought-after chefs wasn’t exactly something Hayden had imagined for herself at first. The 30-year-old New Jersey native started her career in marketing at media company Condé Nast. But, as she told People, “the corporate life was not made for my brain.” So in 2019, she made a major pivot and enrolled at the Institute of Culinary Education.

Soon after graduating, she landed a role as the live-in private chef for designer Joseph Altuzarra, leading her to launch her @WishboneKitchen TikTok in 2020. She began sharing videos detailing her daily life working at Altuzarra’s summer home in the Hamptons. The vlogs, which featured Hayden picking fresh ingredients from the garden and cooking meals for summer dinner parties, quickly earned her comparisons to culinary icons Garten and Martha Stewart — compliments that the chef and social media star doesn’t take lightly.

“It’s an honor to be compared to them. It also feels like a lot of pressure,” Hayden says. “They’re both such inspirations to me and to my career.”

Hayden’s mouthwatering meals, the quaint charm of Hamptons summer living, and her celebrity clients were a recipe for social media success. Today she boasts 2.3 million followers on TikTok, 1.4 million on Instagram, a long-form YouTube series, Dinner With Friends, and a cookbook, with another in the works. (She has teased her second installment on TikTok but is still keeping the details under wraps for now.)

Hayden also locked down a partnership with Barilla. She’s joined the team to showcase the Al Bronzo line — bronze-cut pastas in seven shapes, including the brand-new Radiatori. The new, layered pasta shape will be available at Kroger beginning in June and will roll out to select retailers nationwide this summer.

“I have the same sort of mantra as [Barilla] when it comes to cooking, which is using really great ingredients and simple techniques to create elevated meals that are almost restaurant quality at home,” she says. “The secret there is relying on those ingredients, like a really high-quality pasta, for a very simple pasta dish.”

In fact, Hayden’s advice to new chefs is “to start as simple as possible.” Through TikTok, she’s aimed to make cooking feel less intimidating to viewers. She’s posted videos breaking down the basics of stainless steel pans and started a series called “Girls Who Grill,” tackling the stereotype of the male grill master.

As for advice she would give her younger self, Hayden wouldn’t change a thing. “I’ve always liked learning from my own mistakes rather than just listening to what everyone else tells you to do and not do,” she says. “I would say to any person in their 20s to take risks and follow your passions, especially if your passions are something that you’re really good at.”

Below, Hayden shares the viral recipes she loves, the TikTok audio she can’t shake, and her Jonas Brothers bias (she’s a Jersey girl, after all).

The Fast Follow With Meredith Hayden

Memorial Day is right around the corner. What’s your go-to dish for this summer?

Summer cooking is all about food that is effortless but still special, and celebrates all those seasonal ingredients that we’ve been missing over the winter. I’ll be doing lots of tomato-based dishes, some simple grilled dishes. I love a summer pasta, a seafood pasta, big salads, and just very casual, family-style meals.

Who is your dream dinner party guest?

My parents, because they clean up and they know where all the dishes go. I can literally cook and then go lie on the couch. Martha Stewart or Ina Garten would be a dream, but the amount of anxiety I feel just thinking about that, I don’t think would be a dream. I would rather go out to dinner with them.

What is your favorite viral recipe you’ve tried?

These are two throwbacks. I loved the baked feta pasta. I also really loved when birria tacos were taking over because it was a technique I had done with French cuisine, but I had never seen it used in Mexican cuisine, mostly because my culinary school didn’t have a very extensive international food program. It was one of those recipes that unlocked so many possibilities of flavor combinations with different techniques.

What do you always have on hand in your fridge?

I always have pasta. Growing up in New Jersey, the default lazy weeknight dinner was always pasta with red sauce. If I don’t have a jar of homemade sauce and a few bags of pasta in the pantry, I am stressed.

Speaking of New Jersey, you’re from Wyckoff, the same town as the Jonas Brothers, so I have to ask: Kevin, Joe, or Nick?

I was definitely a Joe girl. His rebellious and comedic personality — I always gravitated towards it.

Do you have a favorite TikTok audio, or one you find yourself quoting constantly?

Right now I’m really loving the Nicki Minaj quote where she goes, “I don’t fly on those kinds of planes.” If you don’t like something, but respectfully, you’re like, “Oh, I don’t know anything about that, actually.”

I’ve been stuck on the “30,000” one.

There are some that have become so ingrained into my vernacular that I forget that they’re TikTok sounds. I quoted “30,000” a few weeks ago in front of a group of not chronically online people, and they were very confused.

What artist would be the soundtrack to your life right now?

I grew up in a John Mayer house, and all of his albums are so closely associated with all the different eras of my life. Continuum came out when I was a preteen, and I remember so vividly my parents blasting that album while cooking dinner after the beach, my cousins and I showering, putting on our PJs, and getting ready for dinner. Those family memories are so core to how I’ve built my philosophy on food, and his music has been that constant through line.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.