Stephanie Izard
Encyclopedia
Stephanie Izard is an American chef
residing in Chicago
, Illinois
, and was the winner of the fourth season
of Top Chef
, Bravo's cooking competition show. To date, she is the only woman in eight seasons to have won Top Chef.
,” which she ultimately won, becoming the only woman in the history of the show to take the title. Izard was the first Top Chef to both win four elimination challenges and to be at the top of elimination challenges a total of 10 times.
: Episode 1's Quickfire Challenge resulted in the 16 contestants being split into two groups of 8: the Winners and the Losers. No elimination immunity was given to the Winners group. This was done for the purpose of the head-to-head cook-off in the Elimination Challenge.
: Although Antonia and Zoi landed in the bottom for this challenge, they were declared safe prior to Manuel's elimination (following a more concise explanation of their dish).
: The judges depicted Team Earth as the worst team; however, Team Water was one of the judges' least favorites because the fish was not scaled properly.
: Richard was originally awarded the win by the judges. Even though he gave the win to Stephanie and she shared the prize, he is considered the sole winner of this challenge according to the Bravo website.
: Despite being on the losing team, Lisa's wedding cake for the groom pleased the judges and she was spared from being indicated as a potential elimination.
: Meanwhile, despite being on the winning team, Andrew's dish received criticisms and was not in the running for the win.
: Spike did well serving everybody and wasn't in the running for elimination.
: Stephanie was declared the winner of Top Chef. The judges did not state a first or second runner-up, although they did respond more to Lisa's meal.
On the season 4 Top Chef Reunion Special that aired on June 18, 2008, Izard won the viewer-elected Fan Favorite title, receiving a $10,000 prize in addition to her Top Chef title and prizes.
Chef
A chef is a person who cooks professionally for other people. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who cooks for a living, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation.-Etymology:The word "chef" is borrowed ...
residing in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, and was the winner of the fourth season
Top Chef (season 4)
Top Chef: Chicago is the fourth season of American reality television series Top Chef and was filmed first in Chicago, Illinois, and concluded in San Juan, Puerto Rico...
of Top Chef
Top Chef
Top Chef is an American reality competition show that airs on the cable television network Bravo, in which chefs compete against each other in culinary challenges. They are judged by a panel of professional chefs and other notables from the food and wine industry with one or more contestants...
, Bravo's cooking competition show. To date, she is the only woman in eight seasons to have won Top Chef.
Early life and education
Stephanie Izard was born in the Chicago suburb of Evanston but grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, where her parents got her hooked on food with their themed dinner parties, weekly menus posted on the fridge and a life-changing trip to Epcot where Steph couldn’t wait to get home and recreate the crepes she ate in “France.” As much as she loved cooking (and eating), she went the traditional route first and got a sociology degree from University of Michigan. Pretty quickly after that, she discovered that all she really wanted to do was cook. She attended the Le Cordon Bleu program at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute.Career prior to Top Chef
After graduating from the Le Cordon Bleu program at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute, she worked at the Camelback Inn Resort & Spa, as well as a couple other restaurants, but then made the very spur-of-the-moment decision to pack up and move to Chicago in 2001. She’s been in love with the city ever since. After landing in Chicago, Stephanie got a gig as garde manger at Jean-George Vongerichten’s Chicago outpost of Vong. (This was where she met fellow “Top Chef” contestant Dale Talde, as well as her cookbook co-author Heather Shouse.) After leaving Vong, Steph worked as a roundsman at Spring under Shawn McClain and then sous chef at La Tache with Dale Levitsky. In 2006, she branched out on her own with the Bucktown restaurant Scylla, which was quickly named one of the 10 best restaurants in the country by Bon Appetit. Being both owner and chef of her own place was a huge learning experience, but she opted to close in 2008.Top Chef
Around the time of Scylla's closing, Izard was picked to compete on Bravo’s Emmy Award-winning series “Top Chef: Season FourTop Chef (season 4)
Top Chef: Chicago is the fourth season of American reality television series Top Chef and was filmed first in Chicago, Illinois, and concluded in San Juan, Puerto Rico...
,” which she ultimately won, becoming the only woman in the history of the show to take the title. Izard was the first Top Chef to both win four elimination challenges and to be at the top of elimination challenges a total of 10 times.
| Episode | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quickfire Winner |
None | Mark | Richard | Dale | Antonia | Jennifer | Richard | Antonia | Andrew Antonia Richard Stephanie |
Spike | Antonia | Spike | Stephanie | None |
| Stephanie | WIN | LOW | WIN | HIGH | HIGH | HIGH | LOW | LOW | HIGH | HIGH | WIN | WIN | HIGH | WINNER |
| Lisa | IN (+) | IN (+) | HIGH | WIN | IN | LOW | LOW | IN (-) | LOW | LOW | LOW | LOW | ||
| Richard | HIGH | IN | IN (+) | WIN | LOW | IN | WIN | IN | WIN | IN | HIGH | HIGH | WIN | |
| Antonia | HIGH | IN (-) | HIGH | LOW | IN | HIGH | LOW | WIN | HIGH | IN | HIGH | HIGH | OUT | |
| Spike | IN (-) | IN (-) | IN (-) | LOW | LOW | IN | HIGH | IN | LOW | LOW | LOW | OUT | ||
| Dale | IN (+) | IN (-) | IN (-) | HIGH | HIGH | WIN | WIN | IN | LOW | WIN | OUT | |||
| Andrew | IN (-) | WIN | IN (-) | HIGH | LOW | IN | HIGH | HIGH | HIGH | OUT | ||||
| Nikki | HIGH | LOW | IN (+) | IN | IN | LOW | IN | HIGH | OUT | |||||
| Mark | LOW | HIGH | IN (+) | IN | LOW | LOW | IN | OUT | ||||||
| Jennifer | IN (-) | IN (+) | IN (-) | IN | IN | IN | OUT | |||||||
| Ryan | LOW | IN | LOW | IN | IN | OUT | ||||||||
| Zoi | IN (+) | HIGH | LOW | LOW | OUT | |||||||||
| Manuel | IN (-) | IN (+) | IN (+) | OUT | ||||||||||
| Erik | LOW | IN | OUT | |||||||||||
| Valerie | IN (+) | OUT | ||||||||||||
| Nimma | OUT | |||||||||||||
: Episode 1's Quickfire Challenge resulted in the 16 contestants being split into two groups of 8: the Winners and the Losers. No elimination immunity was given to the Winners group. This was done for the purpose of the head-to-head cook-off in the Elimination Challenge.
: Although Antonia and Zoi landed in the bottom for this challenge, they were declared safe prior to Manuel's elimination (following a more concise explanation of their dish).
: The judges depicted Team Earth as the worst team; however, Team Water was one of the judges' least favorites because the fish was not scaled properly.
: Richard was originally awarded the win by the judges. Even though he gave the win to Stephanie and she shared the prize, he is considered the sole winner of this challenge according to the Bravo website.
: Despite being on the losing team, Lisa's wedding cake for the groom pleased the judges and she was spared from being indicated as a potential elimination.
: Meanwhile, despite being on the winning team, Andrew's dish received criticisms and was not in the running for the win.
: Spike did well serving everybody and wasn't in the running for elimination.
: Stephanie was declared the winner of Top Chef. The judges did not state a first or second runner-up, although they did respond more to Lisa's meal.
- (WINNER) The chef won the series and was crowned Top Chef.
- (RUNNER-UP) The chef was a runner-up for the season.
- (WIN) The chef won that episode's Elimination Challenge.
- (HIGH) The chef was selected as one of the top entries in the Elimination Challenge, but did not win.
- (LOW) The chef was selected as one of the bottom entries in the Elimination Challenge, but was not eliminated.
- (OUT) The chef lost that week's Elimination Challenge and was out of the competition.
- (IN) The chef neither won nor lost that week's Elimination Challenge. They also were not up to be eliminated.
- [IN (+)] The chef won a pair or team challenge but was not chosen as one of the judges' favorites.
- [IN (-)] The chef lost a pair or team challenge but was not selected as one of the judges' least favorites.
On the season 4 Top Chef Reunion Special that aired on June 18, 2008, Izard won the viewer-elected Fan Favorite title, receiving a $10,000 prize in addition to her Top Chef title and prizes.
Girl & The Goat
With the “Top Chef” win under her belt, Izard assembled a team with Kevin Boehm and Rob Katz of the BOKA Restaurant Group and the trio opened Girl & The Goat in Chicago’s West Loop in summer of 2010. The restaurant has received local and national press, including four out of five stars from Time Out Chicago and three out of four from Chicago Tribune. It was also the subject of Saveur magazine’s first-ever restaurant review, which dubbed Girl & the Goat “America’s Best New Restaurant.” Girl & the Goat was also nominated for the 2011 James Beard Best New Restaurant Award, right around the time Stephanie was named one of Food & Wine magazine’s Best New Chefs.External links
- Official Site
- Biography on Bravo TV Top Chef Site
- Chicago magazine profile (April 2010)
- Top Chef Steph Izard 's Blog
- Interview with Centerstage Chicago (March 2007)
- Paradigm interview with Stephanie Izard
