Personal Info
- Country of residence: Jordan
Information
Basil Al-Hajj (born June 15, 1989)
is a Jordanian YouTuber, media personality, and food blogger. Al-Hajj is famous
for his program The Smartest Food in the World on the YouTube platform, where
he travels around the world in search of the best types of foods to learn about
the cultures of peoples and evaluate their foods. He also presented several
other programs, most of which are also centered around food.
Al-Hajj uploaded the first episode
of The Smartest Food in the World on October 13, 2017, starting his journey
from Camden Market in London, and after uploading only four episodes, his
channel’s views exceeded one million, and within two months of opening his
channel, the number of subscribers reached 100,000. As of March 6, 2021, the
number of views of his YouTube channel has reached more than 329 million views,
and the number of subscribers has reached more than 2.7 million subscribers.
Early life and education
Basil Al-Hajj was born on June 15,
1989 in the United Arab Emirates to a Jordanian family whose origins go back to
the Palestinian city of Gaza. Bassel had a love and passion for food and
cooking since he was young. Al-Hajj began studying mechanical engineering at
the American University of Sharjah in 2006 and graduated with a bachelor’s
degree in 2010. Al-Hajj felt that his future did not lie in the field of
engineering, so he moved to London to study a master’s degree in media and
communications at Kingston University, and graduated after completing the two
years in 2013. This gave him sufficient experience. To enter the media fields
and social networking sites.
Career and YouTube
After Al-Hajj graduated with a
master's degree in mass media from Kingston University, he founded and managed
the Twenty30 media company with his wife on December 22, 2014 in London. The
company designed several websites and logos, and produced a number of
advertisements. While Al-Hajj was watching food tourism content in English on
YouTube, he wondered why there was no Arabic content that combines travel and
food, so he decided to create his own content in which he travels between
countries of the world to try the foods of different peoples and cultures, as
well as between Arab countries.
Al-Hajj communicated with the
production manager at Roya TV and presented the idea to him. The production
manager asked Al-Hajj to film a pilot episode, with a suitable presenter
selected. Bassel decided to present the episode, film it himself, and then send
it to the channel. Roya TV agreed to adopt the idea and support it financially,
and stipulated that Hajj improve his camera and microphone. Al-Hajj wanted to
try out the new camera and microphone before he started filming with Roya TV,
so he filmed another pilot episode from Brick Lane in London. Al-Hajj opened
his own YouTube channel on October 11, 2017, and uploaded the two pilot
episodes before he started filming with Roya TV. The two episodes were well
received and achieved a large number of views in a very short period. After
that, Basil Al-Hajj continued filming more episodes and uploading them to his
YouTube channel under the title “The Best Food in the World”, and producing
other episodes for the Roya channel at the same time under the title “Eating
and Traveling”. Basil Al-Hajj produced 27 episodes for the Roya channel of the
“Eat and Travel” program, the last of which was on March 30, 2019. The number
of episodes of the program “The Best Food in the World” until March 6, 2021
reached 122 episodes over 8 seasons.
On April 28, 2019, Sadeem Studios
produced the first episodes of the Belly Dalili program, with the participation
of Basil Al-Hajj and Abdul-Rahman Bakhsh, where they visit major cities and
villages in the United Kingdom and try traditional foods for each of them, and
then challenge each other to prepare the best version of these foods, and the
winner is decided by a group of judges The people of each city. 13 episodes of
the program were produced, the last of which was released on July 21, 2019. All
episodes were made available for free on YouTube as well as on the official
website of Sadeem Studios.
family life
While Basil Al-Haj was studying at
the American University of Sharjah, he met his classmate at the university,
Mona Abdullah, who is of Palestinian origin. After their engagement in May
2011, they moved together to London to complete their studies and then got
married there on December 22, 2011. Basil and his wife Mona had their first
child, Rayan, in September 2015, and later their second child, Zaid. Bassel and
Mona returned to the UAE after 9 years of residence in the United Kingdom, in
October 2020, and settled there.
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Achievements and Awards
- Years in active
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