is that nihal durmaz , rocking the new burberry ? wow , she look just like hafsanur sancaktutan! last i heard , they are a twenty-four year old elite from istambul , turkey . they’re a well known culinary chef who likes to travel around the world loooking for inspiration in their free time , and despises the bureaucracy that comes with the job . i think they’ll do fine at the berry , since they seem to be dauntless ; but i don’t know , others have said they’re quite heedless as well !
background.
raised by two famous surgeons, her parents were basically known as the it couple in medicine at some point. they worked together through a lot of researches, published so much work they began circling the globe giving classes and speeches. and then, when nihal was around four years old, they moved to germany after a company offered them their own hospital and a never ending budget for researching a new mechanism they've been working on.
growing up, nihal was always at the hospital, wether it was at the hospital daycare while her parents worked way too many hours or laying on a chair in their offices while they stayed overnight working on their papers. she didn't really mind, she enjoyed being included and mostly, she enjoyed how insane their routine always were.
she was a great student growing up, nothing less would be acceptable in her household. and for a long time, she really thought she wanted to follow into her parents footsteps. she worked hard through high school and managed to get accepted into oxford with a honor scholarship to pursue a medical career.
it lasted a whole two years. while she managed to get good grades and the teachers would swear she was promising, there wasn't anything that exciting about it. she'd often find herself disassociating during class and whenever people fell on the subject of working after college, there was a weird taste in her mouth. but the real pin drop was when they started working on real people, the thought of a single fuck up ruining someone's life or ending it, was too overwhelming for her. between the disgusting classes with dead bodies and the clinic hours, she couldn't handle it anymore and decided to drop off.
she hid it from her parents for a few months, until it was christmas time and she had to go home. she news weren't well received, as expected, but they agreed to allow her another year in london to figure herself out, granted she would find a job as soon as the break was over.
and that's how it started, without a college degree, she started looking for any place that would take her. and soon ended up working for a restaurant just three blocks from her home. at first, it was cutting vegetables and cleaning off fish before the executive chef started paying more attention to her and allowed her to weight in a little more. funny enough, her skill with scalpel seemed to be just as useful in the kitchen.
she started going professional, doing courses on the side while working at the restaurant, and soon enough she started getting promoted. in about three years, she was already second in command and craving new experiences and environments. she quit her job at the little italian restaurant near her place and used her connections to get herself a bigger job, a famous restaurant in town that would make people see her.
and they did, only a year later she was opening her restaurant a few blocks down, in the most bubbling neighborhood in london. founding was easy to get, between her parents name being a reliable one and her online presence becoming stronger and stronger, the opening night was filled with big names and her place a must see.
six months later and nihal is basically the internet's go-to for anything food related. from her tiktok series visiting famous places around the world to taste their street food, trying hollywood movies recipes and asking her to comment on the new show the bear (she can't stand it anymore). she's an internet sensation, going viral more often than she'd like, and the joining berry was just another marking decision she couldn't pass on.
personality.
funny enough, nihal was a quiet kid growing up. even with the success her parents had achieved through their work they always made sure to keep her feet on the ground and humble themselves as much as possible. hard work was always appreciated in her house and that carried onto her life.
she doesn't really enjoy the attention, honestly. you wouldn't be able to tell frm how many stories she has to post a day and how much she's on tiktok but having her personal life on a billboard is an insane concept for her. she started doing the internet content and tv show's appearances thinking that would lead people to care for her work, but it backfired and now she doesn't know how to walk away from that.
ever the know it all and she's not afraid to correct you on anything. tends to yap a lot once she knows you well, will jump from subject to subject non stop and ask everything about your life on any chance she gets.
the internet character she made for herself is an exaggerated version of what she's like in real life, being a hard critic from time to time is good for the likes and shares but she'd hardly behave like that in real life.
