4 Top Celebrities On TikTok Who Are Rockstars In The Kitchen

Show business or the entertainment industry is one of the sectors greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic that began last year. As celebrities are quarantined in their respective households just like the rest of the Filipinos, technology makes it easier for them to connect with their followers.

Fans enjoy seeing updates from their favorite celebrity creators on social media, which usually include daily fitness routines, outfits, the food they love, and even their hobbies.

On TikTok, people get a glimpse of what many celebrities are like offscreen. Celebrity creators get to share their “authentic” or real life with their followers.

A number of famous creators have even shown prowess in the kitchen, as seen through their TikTok posts. Some of them are actual chefs, while others simply love to cook, and happen to be good at it.

For TikTok, among the must-follow kitchen-savvy stars on the app are actor-turned-chef and restaurateur Marvin Agustin, singer-actress KC Concepcion, French-Filipino content creator Erwan Heussaff and vlogger Ryan Morales Reyes also known as Ninong Ry.

 Marvin Agustin

 According to TikTok, Agustin is so passionate about food that he studied culinary arts to become a professional, hone his taste, and elevate his skills in the kitchen. (He studied at the International School for Culinary Arts and Hotel Management, graduating in 2004.)

 Agustin’s TikTok content is filled with food, original recipes, and lots of cooking.

He posted on Jan. 22 a tutorial video on how to cook tuna caldereta, which received two million views and 155,000 likes from his followers. He also made a video of his Wagyu roast beef recipe, which was viewed 1.4 million times with 110,000 likes.

With his expertise in the kitchen, Agustin ventured into businesses during the lockdown last year and named them By Secret Kitchen and Mr. Vinmunchies. This was because his restaurant businesses were affected by the pandemic.

He started selling ready-to-heat meals and pasta dishes, and ready-to-cook popular merienda or snacks, different kinds of pastries, loaf and square cakes, and the best-seller “cochinillo.”

Cochinillo or “lechon” (Spanish word) is a roasted whole pig seasoned with spices and cooked over burning charcoal or oven. It is a very famous among Filipinos during family gatherings, fiestas and birthday celebrations.

In his Jan. 30 post on TikTok, Agustin featured the recipe of his famous crunchy cochinillo. It garnered three million views and 337,000 likes from the mobile app users.

The prices of the lechon vary depending on the size of the pig (medium and large). Price starts at P8,499 per order. He delivers to areas within Metro Manila.

“The pig is divine! Everything was well done. [The] flavor was great, perfect hint of spice and flavors. Super tender inside, and great crunch on the skin. It was really a wonderful dinner for us,” Anna Moncupa, one of his customers, said.

Agustin began making TikTok videos on May 18, 2020, and now has 376,600 followers with 2.2 million total likes.

KC Concepcion

Concepcion may have become independent at a young age while living and studying in Paris, France but the singer-actress only learned how to cook during quarantine. (Concepcion graduated with a degree in International Communications from the American University of Paris on Aug. 9, 2007.)

She was living by herself when the lockdown was imposed last year and decided it was time to figure out how to prepare her meals at home. As she learned new recipes, her interest in cooking grew even more.

In a TikTok video posted on Sept. 5, 2020 where she was interviewed by event innovator Rembrandt Flores, Concepcion explained how she started her cooking segment “Kitchen Collabs” on YouTube.

The actress said she "was really bored” while under quarantine and realized she wanted to learn to cook.

“I didn't know how to cook, but then I realized I have so many friends who knew how to cook, like so many chef friends, celebrity friends, billionaire friends…and I wanted to just like learn as many recipes as I could and make my parents proud,” she shared.

When asked about the favorite dish that she had prepared so far, Concepcion answered: “the Spanish paella which chef Jordan Andino, you know, of People Magazine's Sexiest Chef.”

She described cooking Spanish paella as “a really tedious process but super fun and so good.”

In her latest video posted on March 28, Concepcion, who has 206,000 followers on TikTok, cooked her own version of the Asian chicken curry. She captioned her post, “What else is better to do in life (or in lockdown) than…to #cook?”

The post was liked by 25,000 TikTok users and viewed 457,000 times.

Aside from food content, she also features her fashion choices, fancy lifestyle, and even her dance moves and singing voice on her TikTok account.

Since she started using the social media platform on April 13, 2020, she already got 315,000 total likes from the people who watched her videos.

Erwan Heussaff

According to TikTok, Heussaff takes cooking content to a whole new level. “He breaks down dishes expertly, prepares them masterfully, and presents them beautifully in each video that he shares,” TikTok said.

Heussaff is a content creator for YouTube and also the man behind the popular website, The Fat Kid Inside. On TikTok, Heussaff posts his favorite food discoveries as well as recipes.

His love for food and cooking has paved the way for him to connect with so many fans around the globe.

In his latest post on Feb. 20, Heussaff uploaded a video tutorial on how to spice up garlic prawns with a recipe that he made. The post was viewed 49,000 times and received 3,200 likes.

Featuring her celebrity wife Anne Curtis in a video posted on April 21, 2020, Heussaff cooked potatoes “to show some love” for the actress. It was seen by 2.4 million app users, the most-viewed TikTok content on his account so far.

“Show someone you love them today, cook them something, maybe some potatoes,” Heussaff wrote in the caption.

And as he said on his website, “from recipes to stories, everything is better over a meal.”

Aside from being a food vlogger and content creator, he is also an entrepreneur who runs restaurants.

At present, Heussaff has 290,000 followers and one million likes on Tiktok. He has been uploading food content since Jan. 26, 2020.

Ninong Ry

Reyes, popularly known as Ninong Ry, is a social media celebrity chef, and an internet sensation made famous for his refreshingly light and funny cooking videos.

Ninong Ry, who has enjoyed eating ever since he was a kid, now shares his mouthwatering kitchen creations on TikTok.

In his TikTok video uploaded on Jan. 13, Ninong Ry filmed himself eating fresh oyster flavored with lemon juice and a few drops of soy sauce and fish sauce. He captioned the post, “Sarap ng hilaw [na oyster].”

His most popular video caught the attention of 8.3 million users and received more than half a million likes.

On his TikTok account, Ninong Ry has shared his versions of sinigang, sizzling crispy kare-kare, pancit canton, shrimp pasta, pork binagoongan, and burger steak.

He already has 423,000 followers and 1.6 million total likes since he joined Tiktok on July 2, 2020.

TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service owned by Chinese company ByteDance that offers a wide range of options for customizing and combining videos. It was launched in 2017 for iOS and Android devices.

The mobile app is used to make a variety of short-form videos, from genres like dance, comedy, and education. The duration of the videos is from 15 seconds to one minute and three minutes for some users.