Elijah Quashie — also known as The Chicken Connoisseur — shot to fame in 2015 after the success of his YouTube series, The Pengest Munch, and led to his own Channel 4 series, The Peng Life.
The Pengest Munch features detailed reviews of chicken shops in London, from the burger sauce to the seating to the construction of the burgers. Each episode, after a crep (trainers) check of the latest style he is wearing, he visits a restaurant and orders the same thing: chips, a chicken strip burger and wings. All is reviewed with hilarious critiques and his trademark London street slang.
Just months after launch his show went viral, and support from celebs including Star Wars actor John Boyega and Radio 1’s Charlie Sloth led to TV appearances, features in Buzzfeed and The Huffington Post, getting flown to New York to sample the city’s chicken shops with A$AP Mob member Bari and soon racked up more than 41m YouTube views.
There’s even a book, The Pengest Munch: In Search of the Nation’s 50 Favourite Chicken Establishments and a cameo in a Samsung phone advert. A crossover in 2017 saw Elijah interviewed by the internet’s other big chicken shop fan, Amelia Dimoldenberg, for an episode of Chicken Shop Date.
Elijah’s success led to his own Channel 4 TV series in August 2019 called The Peng Life, where he was joined by friends Nelson and Wilson to taste the high life – traveling by private jet, and rating and reviewing the most expensive haircuts, kebabs and watches. He was joined by celebrities including Jodie Kidd and Rachel Riley.
In January 2021 Elijah renamed his YouTube channel to The CNSR, which currently has over 100 million video views and 872,000 subscribers. An incredible achievement for a young man from Tottenham inspired by “the bald guy off MasterChef” (Greg Wallace) who he saw and thought nobody was doing this for the kind of audience who visits chicken shops. Incidentally, big name food critics Jay Rayner and Giles Coren have praised his work which is watched mostly by the ever sought-after 16-36 age demographic.
Away from being a self titled ‘Fried Chicken journalist for the mandem’ Elijah is a huge Arsenal fan and a collector of trainers – he has over 175 boxes at home.
