At new Madrid 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-19 pandemic.
Elias Dosunmu, 27, has 9.6 million followers on TikTok, nearly five million on YouTube and two 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 says.
Born near Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine and having moved to Spain with his family at the age of 14, Dosunmu’s heritage and upbringing are as eclectic as the menu at his restaurant.