In order for humanity to evolve, pioneers take risks as guinea pigs and open paths — this is how it is in medicine, with volunteers testing new drugs, or in the space race, with astronauts investigating planets. Gastronomy also has its combatant: he eats sweet noodles first, so that other mortals know the risks of the experience.
His name is Brian Rizzo. Gaucho, 32 years old, he works on the front of low cuisine, the one equipped with a lot of monosodium glutamate and trans fat. His official title: “sommelier of dubious things”, as his biography on the networks says. The guns: a decade of experience eating junk, and two cameras to record it all.
There are already almost 150,000 followers on his Instagram profile, confident in the assessments that Rizzo makes of processed foods such as soft drinks, cereals, chocolates and sandwiches. It all started last April, with the first video-recorded review — a proof of a chocolate-flavored noodles, released in limited edition by Nissin.
The sommelier not only survived the test but also agreed, the next day, to try the “beijinho” version of the same instant noodles, prepared with milk instead of water. He hated it, but moved on.
Before exposing courage on video, Rizzo subjected himself to the ultra-processed only in photographs. He would post the food records on his Instagram stories, and there he began to notice the growing interest of his followers in his opinions.
“I asked in the caption ‘so, can I try it?’. One of the photos that rocked was the pastel burguer, which I confronted in 2020. I ate and felt very sick, it was very greasy. The stories broke records, it was very cool “, remember.
“Now that I’ve decided to take the project more seriously, in a more promising format, I thought I had to try the burger again. It’s still absurdly greasy, but now it’s much better. I think they learned from my feedback”, he laughs. the sommelier.
By observing the numbers on his Instagram account, he believes that the great migratory movement of followers coming from Tik Tok to “the network next door” was due to his video trying out powdered beer, a little package similar to that of ready-made instant juices. to be dissolved in a glass of water — the production garnered more than one million views.
“I already had about 26,000 followers on Instagram who liked other content I make. There’s my podcast, there’s a book. But it took me about 12 years to get these people together. And when I posted food stuff, the stories hit almost 100 % in audience, with 20k views.”
Rizzo has no formal relationship with gastronomy. In college, he was studying marketing. He passed the entrance exam in 2013, in the city of Rio Grande (RS), where he was born and raised, but in the same year he decided to move to São Paulo. The diploma was for later.
“When I arrived here, I really missed the x-coração, a snack made with chicken hearts. In Rio Grande do Sul chicken hearts are a flavor of things, there are pizzas from the heart, snacks from the heart. My favorite foods are things with heart and, in São Paulo, I saw that people don’t think that’s normal.”
“I’ve always been fat”, summarizes Rizzo, a white man with long black hair and beard, always wearing glasses and carrying an expression on the border between helplessness and unimpressed.
“When I was young, we couldn’t order food or eat out. When I started working, I started eating junk food. I’ve always been a eater of different things in my personal life”, he adds.
The videos, of a maximum of one minute, are produced at Rizzo’s house, in the Aclimação neighborhood, in São Paulo. The food of the day is chosen based on recommendations and requests from followers.
He buys the products himself, although several brands have already understood the potential for publicity that his profile has and risk sending some ideas via mail.
“I’ve ignored them all [as marcas], otherwise I won’t be able to say it’s bad. I don’t want them to influence my opinion of the video. Unless it’s advertising, which is still going to happen, but I don’t want the payer to be the person who created the product,” he explains.
He currently posts three videos a week, but says he’s already been planning to make daily updates. The recordings are the least complicated part of the job: two tripods hold the cell phones, one for him and the other for his girlfriend.
“The editing, which is the creative process, I record without knowing what I’m going to say. There are some products, where the label has something nice written on it, or those of oriental products, and these I leave to see the stickers already recording.”
“But when it’s time to bring it to the computer, I start to see what joke I can make in which part. I don’t write a script for the production. When the video is edited, I put in the voice.”
“You don’t play with Jesus, and with Guaraná Jesus, much less”, he begins, for example, when showing the bottle with the most famous pink liquid in Maranhão. “By opening the bottle, Jesus has already punished me”, he continues, trying to deal with the explosion of the guarana on camera.
The narration is one of the great differences between Rizzo’s reviews and others available on the internet, from people who also risk their stomachs — with his gaucho accent and a barrage of humorous remarks about the taste and appearance of food, he satisfies and stirs the spectator who arrives there wondering “is this really good?”.
Spoiler: It almost never is. But that’s okay — especially because of this.
I am currently a news writer for News Bulletin247 where I mostly cover sports news. I have always been interested in writing and it is something I am very passionate about. In my spare time, I enjoy reading and spending time with my family and friends.
