Chef-restaurateur turns influencer at 49

When he decided to produce a supermarket series of TikTok videos on the best-tasting brands of pasta, olive oil, and butter, little did restaurant owner and chef Gero DiMaria expect it to kick-start his second career as a social media influencer at age 49.

- Hedy Khoo

The Singapore permanent resident from London started producing social media content in April 2022 (@kucinaitaliansg on TikTok) to drum up business for his halal-certified Kucina Italian Restaurant.

He realized his 269,000 TikTok followers craved educational and informative content when his cooking tutorial on aglio olio pasta scored 2.7 million views, and one on classic carbonara served up one million views.

Following his carbonara video, his restaurant at Kinex in Tanjong Katong sold 400 plates of the dish within a month.

He had removed aglio olio from his menu in 2020 because he felt the dish was too basic, but customers who watched his video showed up asking for it. It is now available off the menu for $18.90++, but will be reinstated officially in 2025.

Chef DiMaria, who turns 50 in December, recalls: "When the aglio olio video went viral, I knew people wanted to learn and understand how to cook Italian food properly. I have always wanted to teach people, and TikTok gave me the platform to do it."

Born and raised in London, chef DiMaria, whose family is Italian in heritage, came to Singapore in 1996 on a holiday to visit an aunt living here at the time. He decided to stay on when he found a job as a chef at Italian restaurant chain Pasta Fresca.

He had taken a culinary course at East Surrey College in Britain and worked at a few restaurants and hotels in London before coming here.

He met his Singaporean wife, Rohana Yusof, on a blind date in 1999 and became a Muslim in 2001. His father refused to speak to him for eight months, but eventually relented and flew here to attend the couple's wedding in 2002.

Ms Rohana worked as a primary school teacher until 2015, when she quit to help her husband with the accounts for Kucina Italian Restaurant, which he started in 2016.

The couple have two daughters, aged 14 and 20.