The UK’s youngest chef – Omari McQueen.

12-year-old Omari McQueen is the founder and CEO of his own restaurant Dipalicious.

Omari McQueen is a 12-year-old chef and entrepreneur who has just landed his own television show on CBBC. At just 12 Omari has accomplished far more than the average school goer. Winning awards, a restaurant, a line of dips and a cook book. Now onto his next endeavour, his own cooking show broadcasted on CBBC ‘What’s cooking Omari?’ Which will feature Omari teaching other children how to cook delicious vegan recipes. Each episode is seven minutes long and will air every Sunday at 9.30am in an aim to inspire the next generation to cook, enjoy and eat plant based meals. 

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Omari started his YouTube channel at the age of 8 and has over 7,000 followers enjoying his vegan recipes. Omari regularly posts on his instagram account that has over 26 thousand followers. He is the youngest award winning vegan chef in the UK and at just 11 years old Omari became the founder and CEO of his own Vegan restaurant Dipalicious. The young entrepreneur claims he has held a life-long passion for cooking which started at a very young age when he would bake with his mother and siblings, they enjoyed creating new and different sweet treats. He learnt how to cook at the age of seven when his mother became ill and was unable to cook in the kitchen and needed extra help when Omari’s father was working long hours at work. Since then Omari’s passion for food and cooking grew stronger, creating meals for his family and peers to enjoy. Through his love of cooking, he decided that he wanted to focus on plant based recipes, something that everyone can enjoy. Going from strength to strength Omari has been able to expand and reach children all over the world through social media. 

Omari’s restaurant Dipalicious’ core belief is to provide healthy vegan snacks for everyone to enjoy in the hopes to encourage young people to be more conscious about what they are eating and how it affects the environment. Omari became so aware of the impact of eating meat after watching a PETA video that explained how some animals are unethically kept and farmed for produce. Omari is paving the way for a new type of young ambitious environmentally conscious chefs.