Tini made a splash on season two of Next level Chef, but it seems like this talented young chef still has a big career ahead of her.
Gordon Ramsay’s high-stakes culinary competition show, Next Level Chef, has now officially returned for its third season. As has the fan-favorite young chef from season two, Tineke ‘Tini’ Younger.
Tini joined the cast of Next Level Chef season 3 for the April 18, 2024 “Picture Perfect” episode. But unlike in the previous season, she was the one giving the lesson on how to recreate a dish using only a photograph as a reference.
From social media chef to Next Level Chef superstar
Tini has always been a fan-favorite within the Next Level Chef fandom. And seeing her again during this new season (albeit very briefly) has reminded us of just how entertaining it is to see her in her element in the kitchen.
In classic fan-favorite Next Level Chef contestant fashion, Tini has seemingly only gone from strength to strength since leaving the competition.
And she is now busy building a culinary career that stretches far beyond the realms of her social media and Next Level Chef fame.
A recap of Tini’s Next Level Chef run
(Skip this section, if you have not watched season two of Next Level Chef yet, as there are some major spoilers to follow).
In case you need a reminder of what happened in the second season of Next Level Chef, Tini ended up making it to the Top 8.
Her impressive run on this season can be summarized as follows:
| Week | Episode | Status |
| 1. | “A Next Level Welcome” | Safe |
| 2. | “Party Like a Guac Star” | Win |
| 3. | “No Pain, No Grain” | Safe |
| 4. | “Rice Guys Finish Last” | Safe |
| 5. | “Game Time” | Win |
| 6. | “Sugar and Tea and Rum” | Safe |
| 7. | “Here Fishy, Fishy” | Safe |
| 8. | “Going Global” | Safe |
| 9. | “Happy Hour” | Safe |
| 10. | “That’s What Cheese Said” | Safe |
| 11. | “Fry Me a River” | Eliminated |
Why Tini almost did not make it to the show
While Tini has certainly made the most of her run as a reality competition cooking star, she revealed shortly after her exit from the show that she almost did not enter the competition at all.
In a statement posted on her Instagram page in April 2023, just after fans saw her leave Next Level Chef, she explained “I took a huge risk entering this competition choosing between this and a culinary internship I had been wanting ever since I got into cooking.”
Fortunately, though, Tini also added “I’m so glad with the outcome of my decision. I don’t regret anything, I would do this over and over again X100!!”
And, now only a year down the line, it looks like Tini is enjoying more fame and success than she ever would have if she had stuck to cooking in regular, non-filled kitchens.
No longer cooking for her boyfriend
Though most Next Level Chef fans got to know Tini through her impressive skills in season two’s first few episodes, she had actually already started building her social media following about two years prior, in 2021.
As the story goes, Tini decided to record herself cooking the dinner that her boyfriend had requested one night. The TikTok video of her cooking unexpectedly went viral and amassed 14 million views almost overnight .
This is how Tini’s hit series, “Cooking for my boyfriend” was born. However, it looks like Tini’s life has changed in more aspects than one recently.
And you may notice that the series is now called “Cooking for my fiancée,” which alludes to this longtime couple’s engagement in November of 2023.
Regardless of this name change, Tini’s social media career is still going strong, and her TikTok page boasts 7.2 million followers with over 240,000 likes.
Tini’s growing culinary empire
With Tini’s relative social media fame and the additional Next Level Chef publicity, she has been able to build quite an impressive culinary career for herself since her exit from the competition.
Tini now stars in her very own show called “From Scratch with Tini” on the Gordon Ramsay-backed YouTube channel, Bite Originals.
This series contains in-depth cooking videos for some of Tini’s most famous recipes, including her viral Chicken Sandwich recipe, a game day wings recipe and many more.
However, Tini is not limiting her culinary prowess to the digital space, and she has now also released a cookbook titled “Cooking for My Boyfriend,” which includes a wide selection of her favorite recipes.
And it seems like this young chef may just shape up to have a career that rivals that of her mentor, Chef Gordon Ramsay, one day.
