Stephanie Izard was born on 1976, she is an American chef and television personality residing in Chicago, Illinois, 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. 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. After graduating with a culinary arts degree, Izard worked in the Phoenix 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. In 2004, at the age of 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 Magazine. Izard closed Scylla in August 2007.

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