Headlines
TikTok star taking Spanish food scene by storm
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on January 27, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 27, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on January 27, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 27, 2026
Elias Dosunmu, a TikTok star chef, is transforming Madrid's food scene with his restaurant Pecados, attracting a young audience.
By Margaryta Chornokondratenko and David Latona
MADRID (Reuters) - At Madrid's new restaurant Pecados, the main attraction is not so much its fusion food as the young Ukrainian-born chef running it - a "Gen Z" social media star who shot to fame teaching recipes during the COVID pandemic.
Elias Dosunmu, 27, boasts 9.6 million followers on TikTok, nearly 5 million on YouTube and 2 million on Instagram, making him - in his words - "Spain's most followed gastronomy profile".
Dosunmu's rise exemplifies a new path to culinary stardom in the digital age.
Where once chefs attained fame through Michelin stars, content creators and food influencers can bypass elite cooking schools to gain prominence through staggering subscriber counts.
"I started uploading videos and one of the ideas that I always had in my mind ... was to open a restaurant. In the end, social networks have helped me to get here," he said.
Born near Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine and moving to Spain with his family at the age of 14, Dosunmu's heritage and upbringing are as eclectic as the menu at his restaurant.
He speaks Russian with his Spanish-Nigerian father and Ukrainian mother, who also has Jewish and Polish ancestry, while he and his brother converse in Spanish.
While juggling a job at a fast food franchise with a degree in aerospace engineering, he was furloughed when COVID hit.
With research and the help of his partner, Dosunmu started making short recipe videos using techniques such as rapid-fire catchphrases, dynamic captions and loops, or seamless transitions from the end to the beginning.
The restaurant's target audience skews young, mirroring Dosunmu's online following.
Marcos Castellanos, 12, was in the restaurant eating with his parents, after having asked for a visit to Pecados (Sins) as a Christmas gift.
"I know Elias Dosunmu from YouTube and TikTok. I watch him because I like to cook and sometimes I use his recipes," he said.
Dosunmu's creations includes Ukrainian varenyky - dumplings inspired by his grandmother's recipe.
He puts his success down to a stubborn work ethic.
"I remember my mom used to tell me that our people are used to surviving - literally."
(Reporting by Margaryta Chornokondratenko and David Latona; Additional reporting by Michael Gore; Editing by Alison Williams)
Elias Dosunmu is a 27-year-old chef from Ukraine who has gained fame as a social media influencer, boasting millions of followers on platforms like TikTok and YouTube.
At his restaurant Pecados, Dosunmu serves a fusion of dishes, including Ukrainian varenyky, which are dumplings inspired by his grandmother's recipe.
Dosunmu rose to fame by creating engaging cooking videos on social media, leveraging his unique background and culinary skills to attract a large following.
The restaurant Pecados targets a young audience, reflecting the demographics of Dosunmu's online followers, many of whom are interested in cooking.
Before opening his restaurant, Dosunmu faced challenges such as being furloughed from his fast food job during the COVID pandemic while pursuing a degree in aerospace engineering.
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