Who is Omi Hopper? TikTok helped Next Level Chef contestant become a chef

Omi Hopper is all set to make her appearance on season 2 of Next Level Chef, which premieres on Sunday, February 12, 2023, after the Super Bowl at 10:30 pm ET.

From the second episode onwards, the show will be moved to every Thursday at 8 pm ET on Fox. The series will document Omi and 17 other chefs battling it out against each other to win the coveted title and the $250,000 grand cash prize.

Omi has had an unusual journey competing on Next Level Chef. COVID and the subsequent lockdown closed down her makeup studio and her day job at Sephora. This ultimately led to the chef spending time cooking in the kitchen for friends and family while recording herself to keep her Puerto Rican cooking traditions alive.

She began her journey on TikTok and her one-minute videos went viral, instantly gathering thousands of views. As she competes in the cooking competition series, the chef and fellow cheftestants have been divided into three teams, each having a mentor in chef Gordon Ramsay, chef Nyesha Arrington, and chef Richard Blais.

The winner will not only earn the title and the cash prize, but also a one-year mentorship with the three legendary chefs.

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Next Level Chef contestant Omi Hopper launched her culinary career through TikTok

After losing her job to the pandemic, Omi decided to fend for her family by keeping her Puerto Rican roots alive in her cooking. Her one-minute videos on TikTok garnered the chef a lot of attention.

The Next Level Chef contestant is now best known as "Cooking Con Omi" (Cooking with Omi) on all her social media pages and has over 295K followers on Instagram, 52K followers on YouTube, and more than 410K followers on TikTok.

Omi was born in Rio Grande Puerto Rico and moved to Providence, Rhode Island at the age of 11. She fondly remembers the summers she spent at her grandparent's house, which inspired her to keep the Puerto Rico tradition alive through her cooking.

In an interview with TODAY, the Next Level Chef contestant reflected on her inspiration and her huge social media presence. Omi wanted her cooking to mirror what the women in her life taught her. She said:

"I started cooking at a very very early age with my grandmother and my aunts. They were a pack of women; the energy was through the roof. So, I grew up seeing them happy all the time in the kitchen, cooking, dancing, telling jokes, excited to try each other’s food."

Her food has now helped connect people together and has even taken them to memories of the past. With her social media accounts gaining attention, Omi told the outlet that she was aware of the responsibility she had to not only remain relevant but also make food for her people.

To keep herself relevant on social media, Omi told The Providence Journal that the only way she could help her videos gain attention was to create new content every day. The chef had to study the right algorithms to ensure her food videos reached the correct demographic. She said:

"I have to be inspired by the recipes and the cooking, and I want people to feel good when they are watching it."

The Next Level Chef contestant is now collaborating with sponsors and fellow influencers to grow her business. She also honored her grandmother by creating her ow sofrito brand, Mi Sofrito Fresqusito, a mix of herbs, spices, and other flavors used as a base for Latin cooking. The chef also continues to work on other products.

Omi's journey to create her own food business started when she was inspired by an online Zoom class and got a business grant. She then met Lisa Raiola, the president and founder at Hope & Main and began her program to start her business in the culinary field.

The Next Level Chef cast member doesn't speak in the usual "recipe-style" like many food bloggers/TikTokers out there. As per news outlets, she finds recipes challenging as she has her own method and style of cooking.

Omi is now transitioning to become a food entrepreneur and is creating two new products. One is a freeze-dried version of her sofrito and the other is a marinade made from the sofrito.

Both these products, she said, can be good add-ons to the Latin dishes. Her husband, Kradin Hopper, who she calls the "thinker," is helping her with the development of her own brand.

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Omi competes on Next Level Chef by being part of chef Nyesha Arrington's team. The contestants on the cooking series will create incredible dishes to secure their safety until one of them wins the title, cash prize, and the coveted mentorship. Viewers will have to tune in to witness all of it.

Don't forget to catch the season premiere of Next Level Chef season 2 on Sunday, February 12, 2023, at 10:30 pm ET after the Super Bowl on Fox.