Jarrett Melendez is a GLAAD Media Award- and Eisner Award-nominated comic and graphic novel writer, cookbook author, and food journalist. He’s best known for the award-winning graphic novel Chef’s Kiss, a queer romance set in a restaurant, which he co-created with Danica Brine. The sequel, Chef’s Kiss Again, will be released in 2026. Jarrett has also contributed to award-winning and nominated anthologies, including Young Men in Love, All We Ever Wanted, and Young Men in Love 2: New Romances. Jarrett is currently working on Tales of the Fungo: The Legend of Cep, to be published by Andrews McMeel, Fujoshi Warriors, an action comedy comic miniseries, and love letter to both fujoshis and magical girl anime and manga, and a yet-to-be-announced (but currently in progress, I promise) licensed Webtoon.

As a cookbook author and food journalist, Jarrett has written countless articles and developed hundreds of original recipes that have appeared on Bon Appetit, Epicurious, Saveur and Food52. He’s written a total of seven cookbooks to date, including My Pokémon Baking Book, RuneScape: The Official Cookbook, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Official Cookbook, The Official Wednesday Cookbook, The Official Borderlands Cookbook, and two completed but unannounced cookbooks slated for release in 2025. 

Jarrett has also appeared on the popular tv series YOUは何しに日本へ？ (Why Did You Come To Japan) on TV TOKYO in February 2024—in his segment, he and the crew visited the town he went to college in, and visited the bakery he frequented as a student, and one of his favorite restaurants, Sakuranbo. While Jarrett specialized in the food of his heritage, French, Italian, Spanish, and Mexican, he was lucky enough to learn a great deal of Japanese cuisine from friends and endlessly patient host mothers during his time living in Japan.

Jarrett grew up on the mean, deer-infested streets of Bucksport, Maine, but currently resides in Somerville, Massachusetts, with his collection of Monokuro Boo plush pigs.