The Chef Is Dead, Long Live the Chef: How Social Media is Redefining Culinary Fame

The idea of what it means to be a “chef” isn't what it used to be.

It's no longer about the traditional figure presiding over a restaurant.

It's no longer about years spent sweating it out on the line.

It's no longer about Michelin stars or hats.

Increasingly, and for some this is will be triggering to read, it’s about what plays on our phones and what can hook an audience in under sixty seconds.

Content creators on are becoming the next generation of celebrity chefs.

The rise of culinary influencers on reveals something deeper about both the industry and the audiences. When we look at today's Eater feature "The Next Gordon Ramsay Is Already Huge on TikTok" (via Rebecca Roland ) or last week's The New York Times article "Why So Many Chefs Don’t Want Restaurants Anymore," (via Frank Bruni ) we see two sides of the same coin—the collapse of the traditional hospitality career path and the rise of something more democratised, but perhaps more fleeting.

The fact is, many of these creator chefs—and yes, I will refer to them as chefs because reader, whether they worked in a professional kitchen or not, today's food-enthusiast (nope, not calling them foodies, never calling them foodies) doesn't know the difference between a cook and a chef—never wanted restaurants in the first place. They don't fit the mould of what a chef once was. They’ve bypassed the traditional path through culinary schools and kitchens entirely, instead opting to learn from cookbooks, food television, and even other creators on social media.

The new frontier of cooking is less about credentials and more about content.

And here’s the kicker: those food-enthusiasts don't care.

Yes they want the deliciousness or the illusion of deliciousness, but they also want the story, the charisma and charm behind the camera, the authenticity (sorry david nobay ) of a creator who feels like a friend cooking in their own home. Reviews are being replaced by recommendations. The authority of (and sometimes over) a chef is shifting from Michelin to TikTok and Instagram.

So, as clients and friends in the business have heard me ask (or is it pontificate...don't answer that) in recent years - what is a chef, anyway?

Not just a cook who knows how to turn ingredients into a meal, but now a creator, a brand, and often a media personality. Today’s successful chefs are hybrid creatures: part culinary artist, part influencer, part entrepreneur. They are increasingly less tied to the brick-and-mortar restaurant and more bound to the screen. Social media doesn’t just give them a platform—it turns them into a platform, a living, breathing space for creativity, partnerships and collaborations. For many, opening a restaurant feels outdated, even quaint. Restaurants are risky, notoriously hard to make profitable, and hinge on a very old-school notion of success—that your food alone can draw people in. But food today isn’t enough. What pulls people in now is personality, relatability, and something that can be packaged neatly into a video. That’s where the economics have been rewritten: where a restaurant could take years to build a reputation and stabilise financially, a well-timed viral video can bring in millions of followers, and with them, cookbook offers, sponsorship deals, consulting agreements, and yes, even the opportunity to open a restaurant.

There’s also a freedom in this. For years, chefs were tethered to their kitchens—long hours, grueling work, always in pursuit of perfection. The pandemic accelerated the break from this model. When fine dining shut down, the allure of cooking in isolation, filming in your own kitchen, and interacting with an audience from behind the safety of a screen became a new kind of success. No staff, no investors, no nightly dinner service to stress over. The kitchen became decentralised—a private space turned public through a lens, but without the constant pressure of real-time diners.

And what about the hospitality industry itself?

Many traditional restaurateurs are struggling to adapt to a world where chefs don’t need their infrastructure anymore. The social media platforms have become the new dining rooms, with creators cultivating vast digital “tables” that serve thousands, maybe millions, every day. Restaurant experiences, once defined by physical spaces, service, and ambiance, are now competing with thirty-second recipes filmed in a home kitchen, set to music and designed to trigger a dopamine hit.

For some chefs, this shift feels like an affront. They’ve spent years perfecting their craft, sweating over the stove, only to find out that the most bankable culinary talent is a twenty-something who learned to fillet a fish from YouTube.

But there’s a tension here, too.

Restaurants aren’t dead—far from it. They still serve as cultural landmarks, places where communities gather, and where a dish is an experience shared in real life. What’s different is that fewer chefs seem to want them. For those that do, they really need to want them. For others, restaurants are increasingly becoming stages for one-off events, pop-ups, and collaborations, as well as merchandise and consumer products, where the brick-and-mortar space becomes a temporary manifestation of a omni-channel presence.

And for creators, there's a darker side to this democratisation.

Social media fame is exhilarating—overnight, a video can turn an unknown cook into a household name. But what’s here and big today is often gone tomorrow, replaced by the next trend or viral star. The culinary world has become as ephemeral as the content that fuels it. Just as quickly as a chef rises to fame, they can fade into the background of an endlessly scrolling feed. The grind of restaurant life has been swapped for a different grind: the constant pressure to live publicly, to churn out new content for the perpetually hungry beast of social media’s algorithm. Where restaurant service demanded consistency night after night, now it’s the algorithm that demands to be fed. Visibility is a new form of currency. Staying relevant in a world where attention spans are measured in seconds can be just as gruelling as running a kitchen—and, for many creators, just as exhausting and damaging. The democratisation of food may have reduced the traditional barriers to entry, but it’s replaced them with a different set of challenges. The stakes now are not just in how good your food is, but in how well you can package, share, and sell a version of yourself that people want to keep watching.

The intersection of hospitality and media has shifted from one of complementarity to something more complicated.

Hospitality is media now. Media is hospitality now.

Content creators are expected to serve up more than just a meal—they offer entertainment, comfort, and intimacy that’s accessible with a swipe, not a reservation. This isn’t just a food trend: is reflective of how we consume culture today - across industries, audiences are looking for more than just a product. Meanwhile, restaurants have to offer more than food—they need to deliver an experience worth leaving your couch for. Chefs are no longer just behind the stove—they’re behind the camera, too.

But as the lines blur between chef, creator, and brand, where does it leave the future of food?

It’s not about whether these chefs will ever go back to restaurants—it’s about how restaurants, chefs, and media evolve together in a world where audiences want more than just food. 

To be clear, I struggle with a lot of this too: while I don’t necessarily love this reality—restaurants will always be my favourite place, more vital than ever in an ever-virtual and disconnected world, and chefs are as important to culture and community and change as any musician, songwriter, author, filmmaker, show-runner, artist—the shift in how we define and consume food and engage with the broader food system is undeniable, and it’s reshaping the industry in ways we can’t ignore.

One thing is clear: the audience no longer wants just food. They want a story, a personality, and a connection—and that’s the new recipe for success.