Courtesy of Ryan Nordheimer

Whether it is cheffing up buttery lobster rolls for a summer-in-the-Hamptons-themed apartment cafe, preparing a French onion focaccia for an onion-inspired dinner party, or whipping up his famous funfetti layer cake for New York City celebrities, recent WashU graduate-turned-chef and content creator Ryan Nordheimer is always on his A-game in the kitchen. With over 1.3 million followers on Instagram and TikTok combined, Nordheimer’s platform takes a twist on traditional recipes and dining experiences and inspires others to want to learn to cook. 

Nordheimer graduated in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and healthcare management and now lives in New York City. He discovered his affinity for cooking while stuck at home due to the pandemic, and his online platform would slowly take root in the years to follow. However, his apartment on Greenway was his first culinary stomping ground.

Between balancing the new world of hosting, cheffing, and having his own kitchen for the first time, his early creations were simple. His crowd-pleaser involved starting with apple slices doused in cinnamon and sugar and covering them in store-bought pie crust that he had cut up into a bunch of pieces before serving it to his friends. 

“I first started to cook that junior fall when I lived in Greenway, because it was the first time I’d ever had a kitchen for myself. I would just invite friends over to have dessert and hang out and maybe play Catan or something. Just really fun,” Nordheimer said. 

Hosting meals for his friends eventually transformed into weekly occurrences with new and sophisticated recipes, each one upping the next. One night during his junior fall semester, Nordheimer decided to pull out his iPhone and film his croissant-baking process for fun. After posting the impromptu video to TikTok, he woke up the next morning to 100,000 followers.

“I thought to myself, ‘I got a viral video, that’s sort of cool,’ but it did not impact my career at all or my visions or my plan,” Nordheimer said. 

Having a viral video and a short stint of fame was a fun flaunt to his friends and family, but Nordheimer stayed focused on his career goals, which included graduating from WashU and getting a corporate job at a major healthcare company. 

Despite this, the 9-to-5 world became exhausting fast, and Nordheimer looked back to his croissant video success and relished in his college apartment hosting days. He began to see the corporate world as a barrier to the potential he could achieve from cooking and social media.

“I realized that I could maybe do the food [content creation] full-time somewhat recently. [In] mid-2024, my videos started to gain momentum, and people started following me because they wanted to see me. They wanted to see my life, my apartment, and my friends and what I like to do on a weekend,” Nordheimer said.  

Although it may be easy for many to look up Nordheimer’s profile now, see his hundreds of thousands of followers, and think it all came easily to him, his journey was anything but easy. 

“It was definitely a long process, and most people don’t find success super quickly. At least for me, it was a really long journey to get to where I was in learning how to cook and bake and entertain, and then also how to film and edit to showcase all of that,” Nordheimer said. 

Now, as a full-time content creator, his most viral videos consist of his signature recipes, dinner parties, and apartment cafes. While his dinner parties are intimate gatherings catered for his friends and family with tasty classics like steak paired with his grandma’s home fries recipe, his apartment cafes are his signature once-a-month event that introduces a unique flair to the New York City dining scene. They each have a theme and invited guests bring an inventive dish reflective of it.

“I brainstormed and landed on the apartment cafe being a potluck and it being on my kitchen counter as the setting. We decided that we wouldn’t really feature coffee, and that we’d really just focus on food and making it look as insanely delicious and beautiful as possible,” Nordheimer said.

Themes of the apartment cafes range from “Italian Golden Hour,” featuring Sicilian pizza with pistachio creme and prosciutto, to “Gourds and Apple Orchards,” summoning the Halloween spirit with pumpkin black sesame rolls and other spooky pastries. Additionally, many of the apartment cafe themes honor different holidays and the cultural dishes that come with them. 

“We did one for Eid to celebrate the end of Ramadan. The food was really amazing,” Nordheimer said. “I made saffron rose brioche donuts and another creator made Sichuan peppercorn baklava. We also wanted to put a twist on Middle Eastern desserts.”

At the end of the day, his tried-and-true recipes anchor him amid all the creativity required of being a content creator.

“I always find myself always making a fun focaccia, challah, or babka, because those are all in the same category of forgiving breads, where you can sort of play around with different ingredients and if it doesn’t work out, it still tastes fine,” Nordheimer said.  

As Nordheimer’s platform continues to grow, he is constantly thinking of new ways to keep his brand refreshed. His future projects aim to engage more with his extensive fan base and cultivate an elite dining experience community.

“I want to be open to accepting more inquiries that I get on social media. A lot of the time, people would ask me over DM, ‘Do you do private chef?’ and I’ve just ignored them because I don’t have the time, so I want to accept more of those,” Nordheimer said. “To start, I just accepted a WashU friend’s mom’s surprise birthday party in Westchester that’s going to be 10 to 15 people. I’ve never catered a brunch before, so that’s going to be exciting and something new.” 

While a private apartment kitchen is ideal for all the food lovers hoping to recreate some of Nordheimer’s most signature dishes, those living on the South 40 with communal kitchens also have options.

“Definitely buy some disinfectant spray, lots of paper towels, and maybe your own knife. Keep it basic. Buy prepared ingredients. You aren’t going to want to do a lot of chopping yourself,” Nordheimer said.

But for those not up for experimentation and making a mess, you can check out Nordheimer’s two favorite restaurants in the St. Louis area: Louie and Bistro la Floraisan, located in Clayton.

From the South 40 to Greenway to the elevated New York City dining world, Nordheimer has cemented himself as the king of the apartment cafes and private dining experiences. With each new recipe, he transforms simple ingredients into elaborate creations that reflect different cultures, seasons, and holidays. The next time you stumble across Nordheimer’s videos on your “for you” page, remember how small ideas can take root on WashU’s campus and evolve into something larger than oneself.