When you think of brunch, you might imagine the bland French toast, bottomless mimosas, and trying to split a check five ways. But if you hire Miami’s Chef Jay Lyon for a private meal, you’ll get something entirely unique — and decadent.
Lyon, you see, isn’t just laying out a spread of waffles and cantaloupe. Although he also does corporate events and weddings, his main clientele are groups of fun-loving women who want to experience his signature, seductive style. When he comes around to your seat, you’d better get your game face on because he’s about to feed you by hand. Sexily.
Lyon, who got his culinary training at Western Hospitality Institute in Jamaica, has been cooking for four years, he tells Rolling Stone. But it was only in the last year that he started injecting a bit of horniness into his tableside routine, a choice that has turned him into a figure of viral renown — not unlike Nusret Gökçe, the Turkish restaurateur better known as “Salt Bae” for the flamboyant way he sprinkles the seasoning.
“The practice came about from just wanting to try something different, feeding women to make them feel special,” Lyon says. “The idea came from just my natural way of being seductive with females, being a gentleman.”
His specialty move, which has no doubt earned him the most online engagement, is dangling a bunch of grapes for a woman to eat off the vine like a pampered Roman empress. Sometimes Lyon teases her by pulling them away at the last minute; in other cases, he’ll hold her chin or even put a hand on her throat to maximize the eroticism. But the grapes are usually dripping with a special blend of “homemade syrup and strawberry base to give it that taste of extra sweetness,” Lyon says. Of course, this makes a mess — and cleanup is just as intimate.
Lyon’s service has been a hot topic across TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter, with viewers either confessing their arousal or wondering why anyone would want to dine like that. “Just by watching this, I think I’m pregnant,” reads a typical comment on a grape video, while a man writes, “bro I can’t bring my wife to your resto.” That Lyon could effortlessly steal your woman is a running joke that has even inspired parody videos.
Lyon stresses that he does much more than the ladies’ brunch routine — he likes cooking for families and is interested in taking new corporate gigs. It’s just that “the seductive videos go viral more than the others, so I’m known for that kind of sexy service,” he explains.
They also give him a clear market advantage. “Trust me, it’s been the best for business,” he says. It’s not even Thanksgiving, and he’s already booked until January: “I choose who to cook for because of how booked I am,” he adds.
Meanwhile, the clips are only getting spicier. Lyon this week provoked both lust and horror by suggestively handling a piece of salmon that some argued was clearly past its prime. And at a recent brunch, he teamed up with a masseur named Emmanuel Lustin, who rubbed the guests with oil as Lyon fed them grapes. Twitter went so far as to put a “sensitive content” warning on the footage, and not without cause.
Like anyone with a following, Lyon has his haters. “Why everybody so horny all the time? I just wanna brunch,” asked one Twitter user in response to the grape gimmick. Another critic was somewhat harsher: “Everybody partaking in this needs jail time,” they wrote.
None of it bothers Lyon, though. “The seductive part is not for everyone to like, so I guess some will like it, and some don’t,” he says. “Can’t please everyone on social media. And moreover, I don’t read comments, I just make a video to set the fire and walk away.”
As a strategy for becoming a celebrity chef, you could do a lot worse. Lyon has talked about wanting to open his own restaurant — “maybe between something fine dining and classic” — and if his success continues, he may soon have the chance. Just don’t be surprised if it’s for adults only.