 West. Now there's a Donegal chef who's become something of a sensation on TikTok. He's Daniel Lambert and Daniel actually has a new cookbook out now called Lush, but he's a past student of ATU Lerrikenny over at their campus in Achille Beggs and he studied culinary arts for four years and went on to work at Harvey's Point and Evan McGuire's restaurant at McNean House. And unfortunately then when COVID hit Daniel lost his job and to keep busy he decided to download TikTok and create some videos and his first video actually got over a million views in one night. Well we're streaming now if anybody wants to have a look on Facebook or YouTube and Daniel joins us and on air as well. Daniel, how are you? John, what is the crack? Thank you so much for having me on. That's good to talk and good to talk about your new book and your experience on TikTok. Million views, was that really your first video on TikTok? Seriously? Yeah, yeah. So FM104, one of the radio stations shared us and overnight it just got over a million views on their channel. No, it was 900,000 on their channel and then basically they were like, Daniel, we just want you to come up with a series of Lambert's Lockdown recipes. So basically I was just doing recipes for them over the space of like three, four months and one thing led to another and eventually a couple of TV kind of people came up to me and they were like, hey, we'd like you to get John to do this, this and this. Couldn't more than America contact me. It was just, it was madness to be honest. And now it's been a full-time gig, you know what I mean? It's crazy. Yeah. Well, this is a bit crazy, but so was COVID, but it worked out well for you. Yeah, dude. I'm very grateful for everything that's happened to me, you know what I mean? I kind of had a bit of a plan on my head. I always wanted to do something like this online. You know, kind of teach people how to cook and stuff. But yeah, my road to get here wasn't as easy as people think, just deep frying stuff. I had a bit of a plan behind it, like, you know what I mean? I was deep frying everything. I mean, I was deep frying double cheeseburgers with McDonald's, crunchies, Terry's chocolate, orange, you name it. I put it in the fryer and people were like, what are you doing? Why are you putting this stuff in the fryer? Look, it's generating interest, it's generating views. And I thought to myself, if I generated enough interest and enough views, eventually I'll have a big following behind me, potentially people that like food. And then once I can build up that following, I can actually show people how to cook proper stuff. Yeah. Because you're not going to build up a following fast by showing people how to cook spuds. Well, actually, you will, if you do it my way. Do you know what the thing was? They call chips. Dave fried the cold chips. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, it's an unusual approach because I suppose there's loads of people up on TikTok and they're cooking all the regular stuff. So you've got to find a niche, you've got to create a market. And you've done that with deep frying a lot of unusual stuff. Pretty much. And I kind of realized, when you're working with brands that people like and are already familiar with, let's just give Doritos for an example. And cheese, I mean, everybody loves cheese, unless you're lactose intolerant. But if you cover the cheese and Doritos, people are like, oh wait, I had Doritos, my friend says the last day, I like cheese. This guy's just deep frying it in the fryer and it looks amazing. And it's that emotional connection that people have with food is what works. Do you know what I mean? That's what it's all about. Like I was doing Coca-Cola sticky ribs. I was making a Coca-Cola barbecue sauce. I was putting on ribs. People know what Coca-Cola is, but they wouldn't associate it with putting on ribs. So this is what generates public interest online. Yeah, I suppose it actually makes perfect sense for ribs because it's sweet and there's, you know, it's got like a nice texture when you put on ribs. It makes a pretty good barbecue sauce. After all, barbecue sauce is sugar and onions. Nice little extracts and stuff. So yeah. So it really just blew up on TikTok. It didn't happen overnight. You put a lot of thought into it. And then a lot of effort after that, because people think that people who who get like millions of views on social media that it just happens just a matter of fact. But there's a lot of work and effort that goes in behind the scenes to make it all happen and to feed the beast to keep on putting them up as well. Exactly. Yeah, you have to be like the secret to kind of any online success is consistency. Now I did take a break from TikTok for a while and I started to see my father was kind of paused. They paused in around 320,000 mark when I took a break and I'm back up posting again. So my followers are increasing again. So it's all about being consistency kind of the key to success online is consistency. But I kind of a lot of that, as you were saying there with kind of the behind the scenes work, a lot of the stuff I was doing, I actually had a whiteboard in my room. And basically what I did was every time a video did well, I would stick it up on the whiteboard and say, okay, well, at this video, I did this. The next time a video did bad with like, well, I did this. And eventually I had enough videos and I was saying, well, why is this video getting 100,000 views? Why is this only getting 20,000? It turned out that in the end, it basically, any time I put something in the deep fryer, the views just went up and up and up and up. And I was saying, right, so I just started deep fried everything. And that's how I figured that out. So then when I did the way from that, I started to do normal food, you know, teaching people how to do the basics, but like restaurant quality style mashed potato, all this sort of stuff, you know, how to make homemade yardic mayonnaise, everybody knows yardic mayonnaise. Well, I hope they do anyway. But yeah, you know what I mean? So I kind of, I did the exact same process there with the whiteboard. I was like, well, why are these videos doing well and why aren't these? And it turns out that every single video that did well had a potato in it. So I figured out that if you put a potato in front of a camera, people just stay longer. Oh wow. And why is it because we're also used to them and they're easy God and they're easy bought. I'd say like it's like a lot of people have spuds in the house. They're easily accessible. Like they're not too expensive. They're very versatile. You can do a lot of stuff with them. So yeah, that's pretty much like what I was doing. So you had Americans, then my one of my favorite followers, they were going, oh, you must be Irish. Have a potato. As it turns out. So what about the book then? Is there a mixture of recipes? Do you mean at some point your most deep price? I'm with the stuff in the book. Yeah. I've got a few deep pride, different concoctions in that book. But yeah, the book's called Lush. It's available in every single bookstore in the country. And you can also get it on my Instagram and TikTok bio. So it's just at chef Daniel Lambert on all my socials. You'll be able to see it up there. But yeah, pretty much the book is a little bit different than any other cookbook you'll see out there. A lot of the cookbooks out there are kind of like your standard midweek meals and all this sort of stuff. Mine's completely different. I've got hangovers in there for food for the night after, for the day after, whatever you're into. A chapter on potato party. So it's just all potatoes. Everything you can do with potatoes imaginable. So it's really at the end of the younger readership or younger cooks or a younger audience? Well, it isn't because in the chapter, I've got a chapter called A Big Push. So I actually have some of my fine dining stuff in there. So if someone wants a bit of a challenge to make a nice week dinner or show off to their friends, I mean, you can definitely do that as well. Because I've got a lot of my knowledge from working in a good few different restaurants. So I decided to put it all up there. Okay, okay. But it's offering something different because you say that a lot of the regular recipes or different takes on regular recipes are widely available. But if you do something that's a bit off the wall, well, again, you're creating a market. You're creating a market and you're filling something that hasn't already been done. Have you ever had a chicken curry lasagna, John? No, no. You're missing out. Okay. I'll need to check that one out. I like them both separately. Together, well, worth a try. Yeah. But yeah, no, that'd be one of my favorite recipes now, the slow cooked chicken curry lasagna. All right. And so lots of different stuff in there, as well as you say some of the regular stuff, maybe even with the posture stuff that you've learned in fine restaurants along the way. And it's called Blush. It's available now. And you are also, you've sort of moved from TikTok now on to TV because you've been on Good Morning America. And also you do like a regular slot on Ireland AM. Is that right? Yeah. So I'm usually every kind of second week I go, when I'm on with Tommy Bowen Allen in the mirror and Simon and all of them, I'd be up on the end kind of every Thursday. So yeah, that kind of happened during lockdown as well. They've seen a couple of my videos. I was making Elvis Presley's favorite snack and I started dancing with a sandwich and they were like, Hey, we want this guy. That's how I got it. That's how I got on there. It was funny. Brilliant. Brilliant. Now, it's a bit left field and it's obviously it's all working, which is fantastic. The book, no more than what you were doing on TikTok, it didn't just happen overnight. I'm sure there was a bit of, you know, a bit of practice and you had to come up with the recipes and then, you know, turn it back and stuff. Yeah. The book took the book. It was here in half, 92 years. It took to write that book. Right. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff in there. Pretty much everything I've learned kind of technique wise is in there. So you're now a published chef. You've joined the Pantheon. You're there on the bookshelves. You're now a published chef. It's mad, isn't it? It is. It's great though. Yeah. Anyhow, listen to Continued Success and what's next after, will you be promoting this book now up to Christmas and beyond? Yeah, I'll be promoting the book now for a good long time. I'm working with a good lot of food brands now as well. I'm very grateful for all my kind of food sponsors and stuff like that. So they've been very good to me, you know, the last two years. I endorse them and stuff with their products. And then, yeah, the future, the future, I'll be working, I'll be actually, I'll be working with Artie Eastern. So I'll have a wee surprise in there in a few months. Okay. You're not going to tell us any more, but we'll just keep an eye out. I might tell you in a few weeks. All right. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, we look forward to seeing you on the TV more often and the best look with the book is called Lush is Out Now and people can get it in bookshops and also on your YouTube link and Instagram link and take a look on my Instagram. It's just at chef Daniel Lambert. Okay. YouTube channel yet? I have a YouTube channel yet. I'm having a lot to it, but it's all the same. It's just at chef Daniel Lambert on all my socials. Okay. Daniel, wishing you the best of success and well done. And listen, thanks for having a chat with us. Awesome. Thank you so much, John. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. passenger cars, lowering harmful emissions and providing certainty.