Keonté Henson on Finding Home in Boston’s Food Scene

Keonté “Key” Henson — who can be found on social media @wannabeastayathomedad and is better known as “Boston’s food grader” — probably loves this city’s dining scene more than you do. In the span of three years (as of February 2026), he has amassed 108k followers on TikTok and 98k on Instagram, growth that culminated in his decision to become a full-time content creator in August.

In hindsight, it seems logical that he would end up in food: Food has long been part of the fabric of his life. His mother is a chef, and other members of his family similarly work in the industry. Yet Henson is professionally trained as a civil engineer and, until recently, worked in project consulting. That began to change in January 2023 when he posted his first food video. It only garnered a few hundred views, but the response signaled a current of resonance that he’s followed ever since.

When first testing the waters of content creation, Henson experimented broadly with formats and subjects — it was through food reviews, however, that he found a real audience. As we spoke with him, it became clear why that was. In an interview with The Crimson, he recalled large family gatherings and how they’ve bound food to a broad sense of community.

“We do these huge Thanksgiving dinners and these huge cookouts over the summer,” Henson said. “There was a point where we had to sell tickets to our family cookout because people outside the family would just try to pop up.”

From these events, the creator came to see food as a tool for building networks that may not have formed otherwise. Moving to a new city meant learning how to belong again, and mapping Boston’s food scene by reviewing its restaurants became his way of getting to know the area and its people.

“I’ve always thought of food as the thing that brings people together, and I think that ties well with what I’m trying to do with my content,” Henson said. “I’ve been here a couple years and [am] trying to build a new kind of ecosystem around myself and make sure I get a full understanding of it. And I think food’s been one of the best ways to learn for me.”

His move into content creation was rooted in personal history, and he speaks thoughtfully about centering diversity as the motivating purpose of his platform. He admitted that prior to relocating, he had little idea of how expansive Boston’s food scene was. Like many, he associated the city with North End Italian fare and seafood, but now believes that this prevailing narrative “pigeonholes” and “typecasts” Boston’s culinary identity, obscuring the diverse gems each neighborhood has to offer.

“There’s great pockets of Dorchester, Roxbury, Hyde Park, where you can find these delicious meals and delicious experiences, and people just don’t know,” Henson said.

His taste is wide-ranging, and his reviews brim with heartfelt appreciation and curiosity. He introduces food to his audience through a review format that assigns dishes percentages out of a hundred and corresponding letter grades — taking possibly unfamiliar bites into universal territory.

“We know what a C plus [in school] feels like, right?” he asked.

It’s a simple, clever device that seems to normalize across cuisines from Haitian to Vietnamese. When asked about his adventurous palate, Henson reflected on the first time he tried Thai food in college.

“I’ve sat here 20 years of my life and never tried this pineapple fried rice,” he said. “So there’s, like, one of my favorite dishes I’ve ever had.”

That particular feeling of discovery that comes with trying a new cuisine — when a novel combination of flavors hits the tongue and the senses — is what he hopes to bring to his audience, and not just in a screen-mediated, aspirational way.

“I want to make sure, through my content, that I’m opening people’s eyes to things and it’s close [by], right?” Henson said. “Like you can go and try these things and it’s right around the corner.”

As his following has grown, he’s learned to align his mix of content and brand partnerships with his ethos of authenticity. Early on, he accepted complimentary meals from restaurants. Over time, however, he moved away from that model, citing conflicting internal pressures to make genuine reviews while helping out those restaurants, as he would think to himself: “I hope this video does really well, because this restaurant just fed me for free, and if this video doesn't do anything for them, there will be a guilt on my end.”

Now, he pays for his own food and films his reviews in the driver’s seat, knowing that his videos will reflect the experience any of his viewers would have. He only takes partnerships he identifies with, like Applebee’s, an establishment he frequented growing up. Carefully resisting the influences that can come with access, recognition, and getting “bogged down in the numbers,” Henson focuses on simply appreciating the process.

“The biggest thing for me now is that I’m still enjoying it,” he said.

That joy is taking him places. He’s fulfilling childhood dreams of being on TV, working on recent and future episodes on the New England Sports Network’s “Meet Boston” series. This year, he’s planning to travel domestically, expanding his content to showcase the culinary landscapes of other cities around the United States. Still, his loyalty is to Boston and Bostonians.

“[The] same way I try to boost people’s awareness about Boston, I think I can boost some Bostonians’ awareness about different places to go,” Henson said.

For someone who moved here in 2022, he’s proven his allegiance to the city. When asked whether his content might ever shift focus beyond Boston more permanently, that commitment remained clear.

“Even if I did move, it would always be Boston at heart,” Henson said. “I don’t plan on moving.”

— In their column “Public Palate,” Ee Jenn Lee ’26 and M.H. Hans Bach-Nguyen ’26-27 discuss how people are shaping communities and culture with food. They can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].