“You can be everything. You can be the infinite amount of things that people are.”— Kesha
Chef Shaheen comes up as the Master Chef, by actually setting an example to follow your true interest, breaking the jobs that society and parents force their kids to follow. His life encourages people to find their passion and be who they really are.
Shaheen was originally from Iraq and migrated from there after completion of his sixth grade. He went to Britain and did a foundation year. As he was late to join, just a signed paper including his grades was the option given for him to apply into a university, which was not an option with much probability. Fighting much, he applied for architecture to a few universities and kept trying hard to meet all possibilities and felt desperate. An incident of donating food to a homeless man happened and had struck him. But later, he received letters of acceptance from all where he applied and chose Northern by for architecture.
Even after becoming an architect, Shaheen’s part time work or hobby was cooking. A cooking show from a British Chef, James Martin, on BBC made Shaheen lose himself as he watched it, and realized this interested him more than The Grand Design, a show related to buildings and design. He started learning from that cookery show, cooking by himself and teaching recipes for his friends. By the beginning of 2017, as per an advice from his friend; “Chef Shaheen” started a YouTube channel and uploaded videos there. Every little comment of appreciation received, made him happy and realized that he loves the process. Architecture is something that takes time, but cooking was found to be instant and quick, which he liked better.
Shaheen later started posting videos on Instagram and got 2000-3000 followers. After this point, he decided to join a culinary school in London and also got his father convinced regarding the decision. At school, he understood that cooking was something really big. He achieved his certificate in culinary which boosted his passion for cooking.
Making videos on social media brought him zero income for a year. Meanwhile, he started an architecture company in Britain which took off. The pandemic hitting Britain, stopped the company. Cooking got better at the same time as he could run his first campaign and got a paid promotion. Views kept increasing and he kept working on cooking content on social media.
As of now, his Instagram account has 3.4 million followers and owns a restaurant – Yaba serving modern Iraqi cuisine at Vita Mall, Dubai. Every video uploaded by Chef Shaheen has a number of views with overwhelming comments from the fans of lip smacking tastes.
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