Local also and very sensitive to overwrought cringy videos, and I don't find his presentation offputting. He's quick enough, genuine and to the point that the little jokes (parrot milk) are easy enough to ignore if you don't like them.
I feel the same way about Joshua Weissman. He has fantastic recipes but I could really do without all the weird faces and the mistakes that he should've just edited out.
I can't do the close face action in his cupboard but I really do appreciate folks who don't edit out their mistakes. It really helps knowing that it's ok to mistakes when you're learning to cook, that there's a lot of leeway with cooking, and getting better is just a process of doing it again and again.
I should clarify: I don't mean cooking mistakes! I really like when e.g. Binging with Babish admits he accidentally forgot the salt.
I mean mistakes where he drops something, forgets to plug in his stand mixer, fumbles with his words, etc.. An example is here [1] where he accidentally spits in the camera. Just do another take!!
Yeah I agree about the mistakes. A few YouTubers do it and it really helps, along with the casual "do this or that doesn't matter, whatever you want" to make it all a bit less scary and stressful.
Adam Ragusea is pretty good at that too I think. And he also does the occasional more scientific video where he looks into stuff like whether teflon or olive over high heat is actually dangerous, which I find very interesting.