With 1.9M followers and $100K in partnerships, Las Vegas TikTok chef truly influential

Genevieve LaMonaca keeps her eye on the numbers.

The Las Vegas chef, caterer and social media cyclone (@chefgenevieve) has 1.9 million followers and 28.1 million likes on TikTok, 217,000 followers on Instagram and 255,000 subscribers on YouTube, all for her short snappy videos on how to cook small bites, platters, healthy meals and other dishes, especially for holidays.

She has achieved these numbers in less than three years. In Vegas, a city brimming with “influencers” trying to mooch free drinks, meals, tickets and whatnot because they can point a smartphone, LaMonaca is truly influential, as witnessed by the social reach that brought her $100,000 in brand partnerships last year, she said.

But what the numbers bring they can also repossess if the flow of content and views isn’t maintained. And so LaMonaca keeps her eye on the numbers, with TikTok her main channel.

“You constantly have to post, constantly keep up the interest for new followers,” she said. “If you take a break, TikTok sees that, and it’s hard to get back in the swing of things.”

Social media has begun to generate a real livelihood for the chef, one that depends on her creativity and talent, yes, but also — significantly — on the whims (eyeballs, clicks, swipes, shares) of strangers.

“Sometimes, you start noticing a lower number of views,” LaMonaca said. (She shoots for at least 100,000 per video.) “You feel down on yourself. You feel discouraged. You just have to keep going.”

Because the numbers never sleep.

Hours of work for 30 seconds

LaMonaca’s videos run less than a minute, with many around 30 seconds. They combine even lighting, quick cuts of the recipe steps and brisk cheerful narration.

The videos are entertaining while also being useful. These are dishes people can make — from cheesesteak footballs to pulled pork sandwiches, from BLT-stuffed cherry tomatoes to pancakes stacked into Christmas trees, from braised short ribs to low-cal low-carb dishes to tips on reducing kitchen waste.

@chefgenevieve Oven Pulled Pork. Recipe below ⬇️ #pulledpork #pulledporksandwiches #ovenpulledpork ♬ Players - Coi Leray

Behind each rapid-fire demonstration lies about eight to 10 hours of work, LaMonaca said.

”There’s research, planning, shopping, recipe development, recipe testing. There’s two hours of footage — a lot of different shots, a lot of different clips — edited down to one minute. Then voiceover, captions, uploading. If anyone is thinking of doing food content, they need to keep that in mind.”

How the videos are made (alone)

Shooting in the kitchen of LaMonaca’s Summerlin home follows a standard format.

A Sony digital camera on a tripod captures LaMonaca smiling and presenting the finished dish. After that, a Gooseneck clamp with a flexible arm holds her smartphone, which captures up-close preparation from overhead. A ring light and extendable lights clamped to the counter illuminate the action.

The draw of TikTok, versus a longer-form (and more slowly paced) cooking video, is apparent.

“It takes out all those lulls,” the chef said. “You can learn to sear a steak in one minute, or 20 minutes on YouTube.”

Every week, hundreds of thousands of people drop by LaMonaca’s kitchen for that quick fix. Or, more accurately, they drop by a slice of that kitchen: a patch of Calacatta marble, a cutting board, a burner, a sauté pan, a quick look at cabinets and hood. If many social media creators offer a window on their worlds, LaMonaca offers only a keyhole.

Does she ever allow viewers to see the full kitchen or her home beyond?

“Never.”

Getting a start by catering

LaMonaca moved to Vegas in 2014. She enrolled in the culinary program at the old Art Institute of Las Vegas, hoping to expand upon her professional background in fitness and nutrition.

Before graduating with high honors in 2016, LaMonaca interned at Alizé, André Rochat’s restaurant atop the Palms, where Vetri Cucina is now. LaMonaca also worked as a private chef. In 2017, after giving birth to the first of her two children, a daughter, she took a break from her culinary career.

“When my daughter’s first birthday rolled around, I did this big spread for her birthday party. After that, friends started asking if I could cater this party, that party,” LaMonaca said.

Later in 2018, LaMonaca and Jackie McMahan, a caterer and friend from culinary school, merged their catering efforts to form Finesse Catering and Events. When the pandemic shut down caterers in 2020, “Jackie and I stayed in business by delivering charcuterie boxes to homes. That’s how we stayed afloat,” LaMonaca said.

Today, Finesse has 19 employees, the chef said, and specializes in stylish small bites like beef tenderloins with caramelized onions and blue cheese, or spoons of miso-glazed Chilean sea bass jabbed with pickled daikon.

And the stylish small bites that built Finesse have continued to star on social media.

Culinary credentials help fuel success

LaMonaca launched on TikTok in summer 2020.

Much of the appeal of her videos arises from their visceral credibility, even for people who don’t recognize the proper way she holds her knife or the evenness of her cuts or her understanding of color and texture in plating. LaMonaca’s culinary background contributes to this credibility and, by extension, to the initial and ongoing success of her videos.

“I know what I’m talking about,” LaMonaca said. “I’m not just some random person saying I’m a chef. A lot of food video creators do it only for entertainment. I want people to try these recipes.”

And in an example of savvy synergy, the dishes featured in the videos are offered in searchable full-recipe format on LaMonaca’s website, chefgenevieve.com.

LaMonaca can also remind herself of her food bona fides when the online trolls emerge from behind the stylish small bites.

“I’ve gotten so many mean comments. TikTok can be rough,” she said. “Comment such as: ‘Go back to baking cookies. Women don’t know how to cook a steak. You’re not a real chef.’ But I know I have the professional background.”

How brand partnerships work

So do the brands who have recruited her to be a partner, among them, LaMonaca said, Best Foods, Walmart, Cacique, Hunt’s and Kretschmar Ham. Sometimes, the chef is paid to create videos that are used only for brand marketing. Other times, the videos appear on the brand’s and LaMonaca’s social channels.

Her brand partners, she said, also appreciated the crisp clean look and feel of her videos. The other afternoon in her kitchen, just before a shoot, LaMonaca said she could again paint her nails white. She couldn’t before because a brand required her nails to have clear polish on video.

What happens if TikTok goes away?

These are challenging times for TikTok, the main source (along with Instagram) for the chef’s brand partnerships.

Tensions were already high between the U.S. and China, where the app is based, before Chinese spy balloons began moseying above the U.S. TikTok has been banned from federal government devices, and there has been bipartisan congressional talk of blocking the app entirely in the U.S.

“That’s why I post on as many platforms as I can — just in case,” LaMonaca said when asked about a potential ban.

And it’s not hard to imagine, if that day should come, that LaMonaca will simply take her videos to the next hot app, develop a big following there and continue to keep her eye on the numbers.

Contact Johnathan L. Wright at jwright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ItsJLW on Twitter.