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The Iron Chef of Haitian descent, Gregory Gourdet, has been a finalist in Top Chef All-Stars LA Season 17 and the runner-up of Top Chef season 12 in Boston. The chef will once again be seen on Netflix’s cooking competition, Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend as one of the Challenger Chefs.
In Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend, Gregory Gourdet will compete alongside Mason Hereford, Mei Lin, Claudette Zepeda, Curtis Duffy, Esther Choi, and Yia Vang to win the title of 'Iron Legend.'
All about Iron Chef Gregory Gourdet
A native of Queens, NY, Gregory Gourdet is a celebrated chef, best-selling author, and television personality. He owns the famous pop-up restaurant Kann PDX and is also the former executive chef and culinary director of Departure at The Nines in Portland, Oregon.
Born in New York City to Haitian immigrant parents, Gourdet graduated from high school at St. Andrew's (Delaware). He studied pre-med for a year at NYU and then studied wildlife biology at the University of Montana (UM), before graduating with a degree in French.
It was during his time at UM that Gourdet discovered his passion for cooking. He then enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America and became the first student to intern with celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten.
Under the Masterchef, Gourdet honed his culinary skills for nearly seven years while working at three of Jean-Georges’ restaurants. He started as an intern and rose to become one of his chef de cuisines, before moving to Portland in 2008.
There, he ran Departure Restaurant + Lounge for 10 years, before leaving in 2019 to focus on opening his restaurant Kann, a wood-fired concept where he aimed to bring the cuisine of his Haitian heritage and the Caribbean diaspora to the American tables. Due to the pandemic, his plans to open a restaurant took a back seat, but he launched a Portland Kann pop-up in Portland.
A three-time James Beard Award semifinalist, Gourdet has also been named “Chef of the Year” by both Eater Portland and the Oregon Department of Agriculture.
His first cookbook with gluten-free and Paleo-friendly recipes, Everyone’s Table: Global Recipes for Modern Health, which he released in 2021, is a national bestseller. He also recently received the James Beard Award for Best General Cookbook for the same book.
Gourdet, who recently shocked everyone with his weight loss transformation, loves trail running and performing yoga to stay in shape as well as being physically and mentally fit.
Iron Chef Gregory Gourdet’s television journey
Gourdet hogged the spotlight after competing in Bravo's Top Chef Season 12 in which he finished as runner-up in 2015. He later appeared in several Top Chef spin-offs, including Top Chef: All-Stars L.A., where he again finished as a finalist, and on Top Chef (Season 18), Top Chef Amateurs along with Top Chef Family Style, as a guest judge.
He has even competed in a few other cooking competitions like Extreme Chef and Iron Chef Showdown, among others.
Iron Chef Gregory Gourdet’s weight loss journey
Gregory Gourdet surprised everyone with his weight loss transformation ahead of Luda Can't Cook' premiere, which aired on February 15, 2022, on Discovery+. Gourdet appeared as a guest on the show hosted by Chris “Ludacris” Bridges.
The chef gained weight during the pandemic and after realizing that he was at his heaviest, he decided to lose weight with the help of yoga and internment fasting. But his methods were “just wasn’t working" so, he incorporated a few other routines like power walking, keto, and fasting due to which he succeeded in losing 40 pounds, eventually going from 212 pounds to 172 pounds.
Stream Netflix on Wednesday to watch Gourdet in action in the kitchen of Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend.
