You’re Invited to Play Dress-Up With Meredith Hayden

Meredith Hayden knows how to keep her fans hooked. Across TikTok and Instagram, where she boasts over 3.6 million followers combined, there are scroll-stopping, Martha Stewart-esque tablescapes, easy-to-follow viral recipes, and dishes plated so beautifully they belong in a magazine. What makes Hayden different than any other lifestyle creator, though, is her pristine aesthetic: an elevated yet attainable coastal summer style that feels straight out of a Nancy Meyers movie.

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Meredith Hayden Credits

“A lot of people don’t necessarily follow me to cook my recipes and aren’t big home chefs—they just really love the vibe, and I totally get it,” says Hayden, hopping on Zoom from New York City after a physical therapy session in April. (In February, she suffered an ACL tear during a ski trip to Montana and has been sharing funny “proof of life” cast updates since.)

Known as Wishbone Kitchen, her social media moniker inspired by the chicken bones her mom would save from her weekly roasts growing up, Hayden’s fashion sense is a cross between “dressing like a little boy” and “vintage Lilly Pulitzer,” with gilded Oscar de la Renta princess gowns, baby blue suede Chanel slingback heels, ‘70s-inspired white eyelet blouses, and cutoff jean shorts living comfortably side by side in her wardrobe.

Back in 2022, the Hamptons private chef began going viral for documenting her New York City day-in-the-life reality against the tomato galettes and sun gold pastas she crafted in designer Joseph Altuzarra’s airy, quiet luxury-coded Hamptons kitchen. Highly-engaging “POV: I’m your chef” videos are now a TikTok staple, however, Hayden was a pioneer of the trend, in which amateur cooks whip up dishes for their loved ones.

Courtesy Meredith Hayden, aka Wishbone Kitchen. — Courtesy

Meredith Hayden, aka Wishbone Kitchen.

With social media virality came (seemingly) overnight success: Hayden popularized the term “Boyfriend Chicken” as a high-rewards first date recipe for anyone with a “dangerously small” city kitchen like hers. Last October, she moved to the Hamptons full-time and purchased a $2.8 million home. At 29, the full-time influencer is now swapping out her private chef’s apron to drop The Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook, a gift-worthy coffee table tome that’s as much a farm-to-table cooking instruction manual as a watercolor-filled look-book of her “vibe.”

Hayden is an expert at curating the perfect meal aesthetic for any occasion. After self-publishing two recipe book pamphlets with her own money, The Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook (out now) is themed around “Seasonal Recipes for Everyday Luxury and Elevated Entertaining.” Whether you’re hosting a swamp soup party, a Nantucket clam bake, or a “girl dinner” complete with hot crab dip, she’s got you covered in the book. Her ultimate goal? To create an enjoyable experience for non-cooks “who just want to buy the book because it is beautiful.”

“So much of hosting and throwing a dinner party is not about the food,” Hayden says. “I would argue the food is kind of the least important part sometimes.” A visual feast of on-trend butter yellows and powder blues, her new cookbook unapologetically celebrates the art of hosting just as much as it does the cooking itself, with photos from Hamptons farm stands, beach barbecue picnics, and breezy summer style inspo sprinkled in. For a chef, Hayden is not afraid to downplay the significance of what’s on the menu.

Amazon Meredith Hayden's 'The Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook.' — Amazon

Meredith Hayden’s ‘The Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook.’

Hayden believes entertaining is all about making guests feel welcome, excited, and at ease, even when the dinner party is “eating sushi on your couch, watching reality TV, pouring your soda in a fancy wine glass, and lighting a candle.” Who can’t relate to that? She says, “It’s fun to dress up and go over to your friend’s house. It’s fun to use the fancy plates on a Tuesday. I do think it’s really fun to almost put on a show. Life isn’t serious, so why should we take it seriously?”

To dress for food-related events, Hayden takes inspiration from the menu, the time of year, and the atmosphere, even when she’s telling guests to come over in sweats for homemade pasta, Chinese takeout, or reheated Shake Shack cheese sauce in a hand-painted espresso mug. In her world, romanticizing the entertaining process is always the assignment.

“It’s not just the exchange of goods,” Hayden says, arguing that an immersive hosting experience has the power to temporarily take your guests out of their current reality. “You know when you go into those restaurants and you feel like you’re in a play or theater, where every single detail has been thought of? It almost transports you and it feels so special.”

Similarly, The Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook transports readers to her go-to, idyllic seaside community, although she’s the first to say she was “not a Hamptons girl” up until recently. Raised in Wyckoff, New Jersey, Hayden now splits her time between New York City and a renovated barn in the Hamptons’ Water Mill neighborhood.

“Life isn’t serious, so why should we take it seriously?”

Meredith Hayden

After interning at Tommy Hilfiger early on in her career, the Clemson University graduate worked in theVogue beauty department in a turn straight out of The Devil Wears Prada. Feeling pressured to fit in with editors wearing designer brands that she’d never heard of, Hayden quickly realized that a career in fashion wasn’t for her.

“[Working in fashion] forced me to think about my fashion choices a bit more than I might have liked because I was really just desperate for, I wouldn’t say approval, but I really wanted to fit in,” Hayden says. She supplemented her day job with night classes at ICE’s Culinary Arts program and subsequently worked as a line cook at Charlie Bird before seeking out a part-time, private chef position. Her first client, CFDA Fashion Awards winner Altuzarra, appreciated her love of food and fashion, long before she even sought out to make that combination her thing.

“The funniest part is that I had no idea who Joseph Altuzarra was when I first started working for him, until they were like, ‘We’re gonna be out of town next week, we’re going to Paris for Joseph’s show’” Hayden says, admitting she had to go home and Google him while initially on the job. After Hayden was furloughed and then laid off fromVogue in early 2020, she spent the summer with Altuzarra and his family in the Hamptons.

She credits the French-American star—beloved by celebrities like Michelle Obama and Meghan Markle—for shifting her once maximalist aesthetic into a “less is more” look. “When I first started working for Altuzarra, I was a very statement piece sort of maximalist in terms of my outfits,” she says, revealing she used to gravitate towards “something loud, really bold, and bright with a lot of color and a lot of ruffle.”

“In my early 20s, all I wanted to do is fit in, chase trends, and try on a bunch of different aesthetics. Now, it’s just kind of giving myself permission to invest in the pieces that I like, and not because I know other people like them,” she says. The question she asks herself before swiping her credit card while shopping? “Would you wear this outfit if no one would ever see you wearing it and you would never get your photo taken in it and it would never be on Instagram? Or, would you buy this piece of furniture if only you could see it and only you knew it was there?”

Nowadays, Hayden’s wardrobe is full of staples she’s happy to rewear. “80% of the time I’m in jeans, in a white T-shirt or jean cutoff shorts and a tank top, but then whenever I want to dress up, I go towards really girly and feminine silhouettes. I love a puffy sleeve and a gorgeous neckline,” she says of “the tension between [her] tomboy sort of wardrobe” and her girlier one.

Hayden hesitates to use the term “Barbie-adjacent,” but her post-Altuzarra style aesthetic falls in that realm. “I love pink, I love vintage Lilly Pulitzer dresses and ruffles, and flowers, and I love wearing a bow in my hair,” she says. “I also like dressing like a little boy and throwing on a baseball cap, and I still feel just as confident.” Across the pages ofThe Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook, fans will catch Hayden in a “borderline costume” Carolina Herrera skirt paired with an asymmetrical Vince blouse, or, “cutoffs and a gauzy linen top on the beach with barely any makeup.” Multitudes!

With her cookbook finally out in the world, Hayden says her style is “defrosting,” evolving beyond the cozy fair isle sweaters she wears in snowy, wintery backdrops to enjoy creamy truffle pasta. For summer, bringing a little extra make-believe magic to any party is her M.O.—one she’d like her readers and followers to take for a spin: “It’s fun, once in a while, to be like, Let’s dress up, let’s drink Champagne and pretend to be super fabulous people for the night.”

Next time you’re serving up Hayden’s heirloom tomato galette for your guests, consider pulling out that ruffled dress, a glass of Chablis, and your fancy plates (yes, even on a Tuesday).