This Buff Bear Loves Cooking in the Nude

The star of gay chef and internet sensation Adrian De Berardinis is rising. In his viral YouTube videos, The Bear-Naked Chef—as De Berardinis is better known—prepares simple, mostly Italian dishes while dressed in nothing but a tiny apron. Last weekend Adrian made an appearance at Milkshake Festival in Amsterdam, where he prepared an anti-hangover brunch for about fifty gays and lesbians—in the nude, of course.

After brunch, I spent half an hour with Adrian's hairy face. We talked about his sexual relationship with food, how 'bears' in the gay scene stay heavy, and the challenges of cooking tasty meals without any underwear on while in front of an audience .

MUNCHIES: Hey Adrian, how did you get your start as a nude chef? Adrian De Berardinis: I did it for years, just me and my ex in the kitchen. On the weekends we cooked our breakfast together in the nude, and I kept doing that even after we broke up. There's definitely a sexual undertone: you're naked in the kitchen, you're cooking, you're kissing and touching each other. It's somewhat of a fetish for me.

Where does this fetish come from? Food was very important in my family when I was growing up; we owned a chain of restaurants and I learned to cook when I was young. Food is in my DNA. But my first erotic memory that involves food is a scene from the American film 9 1/2 Weeks with Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke. I remember sneaking into the living room to watch that scene over and over again on VHS. I think I was 7 or 8. I was really turned on by it.

What about it turned you on? The way the movie puts food in a sexual context—feeding each other on the kitchen floor and how erotic it was. I'd never seen that before.

And now you're the naked host of your own cooking show. Was that the plan from the beginning? At first, I was only going to cook without my shirt on, or suggest nudity. But eventually I ended up in a small apron. I don't think people want to see my junk swinging around while I'm cooking.

Does being naked make you a better chef? Absolutely! When you're cooking in the nude, you're forced to take your time to do everything. I have to work around the heat, can't rush, and have to focus more.

Does it worry you that people might take your cooking less seriously? People can pretty much see the dimples on your butt cheeks when they play your videos in HD-quality. Not at all. I'm proud of the quality of my show and it's a way for me to show my love for food. My catering business has also flourished. In the end, it's all quite tasteful and the amount of food porn balances things out. But I admit that it's a grey area and people are often confused: do I want Adrian because of the delicious food he makes, or do I want to see him naked in my kitchen?

Apparently it works. Will you be applying the concept of naked cooking to your catering business? Customers have asked me to come and cook without my clothes on, but I'd rather keep it separated. People who ask for the naked me usually have some kind of fetish. I get mostly cheeky responses on social media, but I've also received very blunt messages from people who think I'm a pornstar or something. I'm not an escort! I'm a chef.

Have you encountered people who don't appreciate the proximity of your naked eggplant to their food? I do get hate mail and YouTube comments like, 'This is disgusting' and, 'What are you doing? This isn't sanitary'. But I don't take those too hard. What I do isn't for everyone, but I don't have to please every single person.

You're open about your homosexuality. Who is your audience? [My being gay] is reflected in the visitor stats of my website: 90 percent is gay, the rest are women. But that makes sense: it's an LGBT-show. I think our community could be more visible, and needs more channels where we can make our voices heard.

You're not afraid of being pigeonholed? Like, 'Hey, there is that naked bear who likes to cook again'? I put that label on myself. I put myself in the gay bear category. Bears aren't all that worried about the amount of calories they eat.

Yes, another thing I have been wondering about. What do bears eat? Everything. There are different bear categories, though. I'm not a typical bear: I'm not big and fat, but a bit smaller and less chubby—a muscle bear.

How do bears stay bears? Aren't they afraid of losing weight? Haha, yes. Bears do the opposite of what is popular these days. They don't diet and are happy with the way they look. The food I cook doesn't fit into a healthy diet. I make things my family used to eat that remind me of my childhood.

Tell me: what is the sexiest thing you can cook? I find seafood very arousing. It's light but tasty. Think about lobster and other shellfish, [like] mussels, oysters, scallops, those kinds of things. I love making lobster gnocchi.

What is so arousing about that? The gnocchi's texture is al dente, firm on the inside and pillowy soft on the outside. The feeling when it touches your mouth, your tongue, with the taste of lobster and some tomato… and especially if you add some butter to that…