Stephanie Izard
Stephanie Izard is an American chef and television personality best known as the first female chef to win Bravo's Top Chef, taking the title during its fourth season. She is the co-owner and executive chef of three award-winning Chicago restaurants, Girl and the Goat, Little Goat, and Duck Duck Goat, and opened her first restaurant, Scylla (now closed) as chef-owner at the age of 27. Izard received a James Beard Foundation Award for "Best Chef: Great Lakes" in 2013 for her work at Girl and the Goat. She has made a number of appearances on Top Chef since her win, both as a guest judge on subsequent seasons and as a participant in Top Chef Duels. In 2017, Izard competed in the Food Network series Iron Chef Gauntlet, where she overall defeated chefs Bobby Flay, Michael Symon, and Masaharu Morimoto to obtain the title of Iron Chef. Early life and education Stephanie Izard was born in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois and grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, where she developed an interest in food from her parents. She earned a degree in sociology from the University of Michigan in 1998 before attending the Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Scottsdale, graduating in 1999. Career After graduating with a culinary arts degree, Izard worked in the Phoenix, Arizona area at the Camelback Inn Resort & Spa and Christopher Gross's Fermier Brasserie. Izard returned to the Chicago area in 2001, with a job as garde manger at Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Vong. While working at Vong, Izard met future Top Chef contestant Dale Talde and Heather Shouse, with whom she would later co-author the cookbook Girl in the Kitchen: How a Top Chef Cooks, Thinks, Shops, Eats, and Drinks. After leaving Vong, Izard worked as tournant at Shawn McClain's Spring, and then as sous chef at Dale Levitski's La Tache. Restaurants In 2004, at 27, Izard opened her first restaurant, Scylla, in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago. The 50-seat restaurant, named for the Greek mythological creature Scylla, offered a menu emphasizing seafood and a sweet-savory interplay with dishes like lobster-stuffed profiteroles and grouper with sweet corn risotto and lobster sauce Reviews and awards included three stars from the Chicago Tribune, "Best New Restaurants 2005" from Chicago Magazine, and "Ten Best Small U.S. Restaurants" from Bon Appétit. Izard closed Scylla in August 2007. In the wake of her Top Chef win, Izard met future business partners Kevin Boehm and Rob Katz of the BOKA Restaurant Group, and the trio eventually opened Girl and the Goat in Chicago's West Loop in the summer of 2010. The 130-seat restaurant features an eclectic menu showcasing Mediterranean influences and "nose-to-tail" cooking, emphasizing the use of offal alongside traditional cuts of meat. Saveur magazine dubbed Girl and the Goat “America’s Best New Restaurant" in their first-ever restaurant review." Girl and the Goat was nominated for the James Beard Award (Best New Restaurant) in 2011, the same year that Food & Wine magazine named Izard, a "Best New Chef."