Open Instagram. Scroll for a few seconds. There is a good chance you will come across it – a plate loaded with food, a hand picking up one bite after another, the crunch of something crispy, the softness of a dosa, the steam rising from mandi or biryani, and those ASMR sounds that make you hungry even when you just finished eating. You start craving it.
You may not know his face or his name, but if you have spent time on Hyderabad’s food side of Instagram, you have seen his reels.
Meet Syed Riyaz, better known as FoodieOnWheelz, the Hyderabad-based faceless food creator whose simple-yet-addictive ASMR videos have built an audience of over 6 lakh followers on Instagram, with his content also drawing a strong audience from the Middle East.
His videos are not built around dramatic reactions or loud reviews. There is usually just food, a car, a plate, carefully captured sounds, and one bite after another. And that is enough to keep millions watching.
From failed videos to a 6 lakh-plus community
Riyaz’s journey started in November 2023, after several attempts at making food videos that did not look or sound right. “Before that, I had already tried making three or four videos, but I was struggling with the camera angles, colour grading and overall quality,” he recalled speaking to Siasat.com.
The idea came from his younger brother, who introduced him to creators filming themselves eating inside their cars. They believed the format could work in India too.
But they did not rush to Instagram. They spent time experimenting with the camera, lighting, sound and presentation. The page stayed private while they worked on getting the format right.
Then came the first proper video of Chicken Mandi. And suddenly, people started watching. The video went viral within a couple of days and crossed around 3 million views, giving the team its first real taste of what FoodieOnWheelz could become.
The next video was even crazier. An idli video uploaded around 10 days later crossed 3 million views within just 5 or 6 hours and eventually reached around 39 million views, according to Riyaz.
For someone who had spent months trying to figure out the basics, it was the kind of response that could easily make you believe you had cracked Instagram.
But the algorithm had other plans.
When the viral views disappeared
After those initial hits, the numbers came down. The page started getting around 40,000 to 60,000 views per video. Instead of giving up, Riyaz and his brother went back to the drawing board. They began thinking less about simply making food videos and more about what makes people stop scrolling.
“We started thinking about what people could actually relate to. We moved towards more unique and mouth-watering food content, and slowly the page started getting a boost again,” he says.
That became one of the biggest lessons of his journey, a viral video can get attention, but consistency and understanding your audience build a page.
FoodieOnWheelz makes you hungry without saying a word
There is no loud introduction or long explanation about the restaurant, just the sound of a crispy bite, the pull of meat, the breaking of a dosa, and the movement of a spoon through a bowl of dessert.
“In ASMR content, there was never really a need for a face reveal. The main focus is the food, the sound and the way we present it,” he explains. “The whole concept is to make the other person watching the video crave that food.”
Hours of work for a few minutes of content
The effortless look of a FoodieOnWheelz reel can be deceptive. Getting clean ASMR audio is one of his biggest challenges. Sometimes the team has had to drive one or two kilometres away to escape traffic, or sit inside the car at one or two in the morning to shoot when the city is quiet.
A regular car video takes around 1 to 1-and-a-half hours to shoot, while restaurant shoots can stretch to 3 or 4 hours. Riyaz edits his own videos, which takes another hour. That 30-second reel that makes you hungry could have several hours of work behind it.
“There is enough space for everyone to create”
Food content is an extremely crowded space today. Hyderabad alone has no shortage of food bloggers, restaurant reviewers and creators fighting for the same audience. But Riyaz says he does not look at it that way.
“If we focus on ourselves and keep improving, there is no reason to worry about what somebody else is doing,” he says. New creators frequently reach out to him asking about equipment and shooting process, and he shares those details openly. “There is enough space for everyone to create.”
From passion project to business
Riyaz is actively involved in his family business, while FoodieOnWheelz remains his passion project. “I never started it thinking that this was going to become one of my main sources of income,” he says. His advice to new creators is to first focus on building an audience and understanding their content before thinking about monetisation. He also stresses the importance of being present on YouTube alongside Instagram.
Why hide the face?
At a time when most creators build their identity around their face, Riyaz deliberately chose not to show his because the food was supposed to be the star.
“Privacy is one reason, but my main focus was always the food. I didn’t feel that I needed to show my face because the content itself was about the food, the presentation and the sound,” he says. The faceless format also gives him privacy when going out with family in Hyderabad. People recognise the page, but not the person behind it.
A hacking scare and future plans
Ironically, a hacking scare forced his face online when he had around 110K followers. To recover the account, he had to complete face verification and put his face on the profile picture. And his full face reveal came on Eid 2026.
Riyaz says he has experimented with brief glimpses of his face, but wants to plan a proper, themed face reveal in the future rather than doing it suddenly.
What is next for FoodieOnWheelz?
The car is not going anywhere. That format is what built the page, but Riyaz also wants to experiment.
He has explored camping-related content and has more ASMR ideas that could take the format outside the car. He also wants to travel to other countries, explore restaurants there and experience local food while retaining the ASMR element his audience knows him for.
“I like doing things out of the box,” he says.
And perhaps that is the reason FoodieOnWheelz has managed to build such a loyal audience. It is not really about a man eating food inside a car. It is about turning something as ordinary as eating into an experience.
And which video is closest to his heart?
Interestingly, it is not necessarily his biggest viral hit. Riyaz says some of his personal favourites are his Hyderabad biryani and dosa videos. But the Chicken Mandi video will always have a special place in his heart.
“The Mandi video will always be special because it was my first proper video and the one that started everything.”
He also has a soft spot for videos featuring food made by his mother, including a Chicken 65 video that went viral and caught the attention of celebrities and people from the industry.
As he prepares for his next chapter, whether that means international food travel or an eventual face reveal, the core of his page isn’t changing. FoodieOnWheelz was built on pure passion, patience, and a knack for making people stop scrolling. He made the food the hero of the story, and as long as there’s a plate in front of his lens, millions of viewers will gladly stay tuned for the next bite.
