![]() |
Geoffrey Zakarian | |
---|---|
![]() Zakarian at the 2012 New York Comic Con | |
Born | |
Education | Worcester State University |
Spouse | Margaret Anne Williams (m. 2005) |
Children | 3 |
Culinary career | |
Television show(s)
| |
Website | www |
Geoffrey Zakarian (born July 25, 1959) is an American chef, restaurateur, television personality and author. He is the executive chef of several restaurants in New York City, Atlantic City and Miami. [1] He is featured on several television programs on the Food Network, including Chopped and The Next Iron Chef on which, in 2011, he won the right to join Iron Chef America . [1]
Zakarian was born July 25, 1959, in Worcester, Massachusetts, to an Armenian-American father, musician George Zakarian, and a Polish-American mother, Viola (née Hekowicz). [1] [2] [3] He has a sister, Virginia, and brother, George. [4] He graduated from Burncoat High School in 1977. [5] He earned a degree in economics from Worcester State University, and then went to France, where he decided to be a chef. [1]
He began his culinary career with an associate degree from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. [6] [7] As an apprentice chef, he began his work under chef Daniel Boulud at Le Cirque, where he was named "Chef de Cuisine" from 1982 to 1987. [8]
In 1990, he became the executive chef at 44, a restaurant described by The New York Times as "trendy" and "chic", located at the Royalton Hotel in midtown Manhattan. William Grimes, also of The New York Times, described Zakarian as "the reason that 44 in the Royalton Hotel was always a lot better than it needed to be" in 2001. [9] Previously, in 1992, 44 had received only two stars from The New York Times columnist Bryan Miller. [7]
In 1996, he was hired to oversee Old Navy's ill-fated coffee bar and coffee cart division with David Brody of Z100 WHTZ. He then went on to work for the Blue Door of the Delano Hotel in South Beach, Miami. [10] In 1998, he became the executive chef at Patroon in Manhattan, which was awarded three stars (excellent) by New York Times critic Ruth Reichl. In the spring of 2000, Zakarian worked with Alain Passard, a renowned French chef at the three-Michelin star restaurant Arpège in Paris. [7]
His style is described as "modern" with roots in French cuisine, or as he describes it, "dynamic American". Zakarian owned two restaurants, Town and Country, both of which are in Manhattan. They have been rated with three stars by The New York Times. [7] His restaurant Town was located on the East Side of Midtown Manhattan in the Chambers Hotel and opened in Spring 2001 but closed in 2009. [11] Country is located in the Carlton Hotel near Madison Square Park and opened in 2005. The restaurant has earned a Michelin Star. Zakarian is now a consultant at the Water Club in Atlantic City and executive chef at the Lamb's Club in New York City. [11] The Lambs Club restaurant is not connected in any way to the historical theatre club The Lambs (known as The Lambs Club since 1874).
In the spring of 2006, Zakarian released his first book, Geoffrey Zakarian's Town / Country. It was quoted as being "one of the best of 2006" by The New York Times columnist Amanda Hesser. [12] The book features 150 recipes for family, friends and "Life Around the Table". [13]
He is Chairman of the City Harvest Food Council, a food rescue organization dedicated to fighting hunger in New York City.
In spring 2011, Zakarian filed for personal bankruptcy in response to a class action lawsuit against him by his former employees. The employees alleged he violated labor laws and sued for back pay. Two of Zakarian's partners in the related restaurant supported the workers' claims, but Zakarian's publicist denied the claims. [14] The matter was settled out of court.
In July 2015, Zakarian withdrew from a planned American-style concept restaurant called The National in the Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C. in the wake of controversial comments made by Donald Trump about undocumented immigrants. Trump's statements "do not in any way align with my personal core values", Zakarian said. "We are a nation built from immigrants, my family included." [15] Zakarian was expected to lose a $500,000 lease deposit. [16] Trump sued Zakarian in August 2015 for a sum "in excess of $10 million" for lost rent and other damages. [17] The matter was settled out of court in April 2017.
He has appeared numerous times on Food Network's Chopped series as a judge with fellow restaurateurs Scott Conant, Chris Santos, Aarón Sánchez, Amanda Freitag, Marcus Samuelsson, Marc Murphy, Maneet Chauhan and Alex Guarnaschelli since the show began, and has also appeared in the Food Network's series 24 Hour Restaurant Battle, also as a judge. He has also been on Top Chef as a judge and has appeared in Hell's Kitchen. [8] Zakarian competed as well as a challenger on Iron Chef America in May 2010 where he faced Masaharu Morimoto and lost with a score of 57 to 43. [18] Zakarian was named the winner of The Next Iron Chef in December 2011, defeating Elizabeth Falkner in the season finale. In January 2014, Zakarian became a co-host on the Food Network's series The Kitchen along with Jeff Mauro, Katie Lee, Marcela Valladolid and Sunny Anderson. [19] Zakarian has also appeared on Cutthroat Kitchen as a judge ("Well, Hot Clam!") and contestant ("Judging Judges"). In 2016, he began hosting the Food Network series Cooks vs. Cons , where judges try to determine if a winning dish was done by a professional chef or a home cook. [20]
Zakarian married Margaret Anne Williams, a marketing executive, in 2005. [6] They have three children. He was previously married to Heather Karaman for approximately ten years. [6]
Iron Chef is a Japanese television cooking show produced by Fuji Television. The series, which premiered on October 10, 1993, was a stylized cook-off featuring guest chefs challenging one of the show's resident "Iron Chefs" in a timed cooking battle built around a specific theme ingredient. The series ended on September 24, 1999, although four occasional specials were produced from January 5, 2000 to January 2, 2002. The series aired 309 episodes. Repeats are regularly aired on the Food Network in Canada, the Cooking Channel in the United States, and on Special Broadcasting Service in Australia. Iron Chef can be viewed on Peacock TV in the United States. There are 5 spinoffs, with the latest being Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend.
Masaharu Morimoto is a Japanese chef, best known as an Iron Chef on the Japanese TV cooking show Iron Chef and its spinoff Iron Chef America. He is also known for his unique style of presenting food.
Iron Chef America is an American cooking show based on Fuji Television's Iron Chef, and is the second American adaptation of the series, following the failed Iron Chef USA that aired in 2001. The show is produced by Food Network, which also carried a dubbed version of the original Iron Chef. Like the original Japanese program, the program is a culinary game show. In each episode, a new challenger chef competes against one of the resident "Iron Chefs" in a one-hour cooking competition based on a secret ingredient or ingredients, and sometimes theme.
Marcus Samuelsson is an Ethiopian-born Swedish-American celebrity chef, restaurateur and television personality. He is the head chef of Red Rooster in Harlem, New York.
Robert William Flay is an American celebrity chef, restaurateur, food writer, and reality television personality. Flay is the owner and executive chef of several restaurants and franchises, including Bobby's Burger Palace, Bobby's Burgers, and Amalfi. He has worked with Food Network since 1995, which won him four Daytime Emmy Awards and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten is a French chef. Vongerichten owns restaurants in Miami Beach, Las Vegas, London, Paris, Shanghai, and Tokyo, as well as New York's Jean-Georges restaurant and Tangará Jean Georges in São Paulo's Palácio Tangará, by Oetker Collection. He is head chef of Eden Rock, St Barths. Vongerichten is the author of five cookbooks, two with Mark Bittman.
Kerry Glen Simon was an American celebrity chef and restaurateur based in Las Vegas. Simon was also known by the moniker "Rock n' Roll Chef", given to him by Rolling Stone. He was the executive chef and proprietor at his namesake restaurant "Simon" at Palms Place in Las Vegas. His other restaurants included Simon LA, in Los Angeles, Simon Prime in Atlantic City, New Jersey, along with KGB and Carson Kitchen in Las Vegas.
José Ramón Andrés Puerta is a Spanish and American chef and restaurateur. Born in Spain, he moved to the United States in the early 1990s and since then, he has opened restaurants in several American cities. He has won a number of awards, both for his cooking, and his humanitarian work. He is a professor as well as the founder of the Global Food Institute at George Washington University.
The Royalton Hotel is a hotel at 44 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. The hotel, opened in 1898, was designed by architecture firm Rossiter & Wright and developed by civil engineer Edward G. Bailey. The 13-story building is made of brick, stone, terracotta, and iron. The hotel's lobby, which connects 43rd and 44th Streets, contains a bar and restaurant. The upper stories originally featured 90 apartments, but these were replaced with 205 guestrooms when Philippe Starck and Gruzen Samton Steinglass Architects converted the Royalton to a boutique hotel in the 1980s.
The Next Iron Chef is a limited-run series on the Food Network that aired its fifth season in 2012. Each season is a stand-alone competition to select a chef to be designated an Iron Chef, who will appear on the Food Network program Iron Chef America.
Tom Valenti is the Executive Chef at Jockey Hollow Bar and Kitchen in Morristown NJ. Chef Valenti was formerly the owner and Executive Chef of Oxbow Tavern on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He is the former Executive Chef of Le Cirque Restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, in New York City. Previously, he was Executive Chef and co-owner of Ouest Restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan which shuttered in 2015. The recipient of many awards for his comfortable cooking style, Valenti is best known for his salmon gravlax and slow-cooked meats, particularly braised lamb shanks. Chef Valenti is the author of 3 cookbooks, "Welcome to my Kitchen", "Soups, Stews and One Pot Meals" as well as "You Don't Have to be Diabetic to Love This Cookbook", dedicated to recipes for diabetic diets. Valenti was the driving force behind the creation of the Windows of Hope Family Relief Fund, established to benefit the surviving family members of foodservice-related victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Alexandra Maria Guarnaschelli is an American chef, cookbook author, and television personality. She currently serves as an executive chef at New York City's Butter restaurant and was executive chef at The Darby restaurant before its closing. Guarnaschelli studied cooking extensively in France.
Amanda Freitag is an American celebrity chef and cookbook author. She is known for her frequent appearances on Food Network television programs and her work as a judge on television cooking competitions. She is based in New York City.
24 Hour Restaurant Battle is a Food Network reality based cooking television series hosted by Scott Conant that features two teams competing against each other for a shot at their own restaurant.
Marc Murphy is an American executive chef, restaurateur and television food personality.
Sue Torres is an American chef and television personality.
Michael Psilakis is an American celebrity chef, author, and restaurateur. He is best known for his Greek cuisine and appearances on television shows including Ultimate Recipe Showdown, Iron Chef America, The Best Thing I Ever Ate and No Kitchen Required. He has owned and operated a number of popular restaurants around New York City and has cooked for President Barack Obama at the White House.
Antonia Marie Lofaso is an American celebrity chef and restaurateur. She has appeared on the reality television shows Top Chef, Chopped, Cutthroat Kitchen and Restaurant Startup, among others. Lofaso owns the restaurants Black Market Liquor Bar, Scopa Italian Roots, and DAMA in Los Angeles, California.
Iron Chef Gauntlet is a television series on Food Network that began airing on April 16, 2017. The series is a reboot of the Iron Chef and Iron Chef America series that gained popularity on Food Network and is hosted by Alton Brown, who also takes over as the series' Chairman. Seven chefs from around the country battle each other in an elimination contest, with the last chef remaining then facing a "gauntlet" challenge of defeating three other Iron Chefs in order to earn the title of Iron Chef. In the first season, the Iron Chefs forming the Gauntlet were Bobby Flay, Masaharu Morimoto, and Michael Symon. The second season of Iron Chef Gauntlet began airing April 4, 2018 and was scheduled for six episodes. The Gauntlet Iron Chefs for the second season were Alex Guarnaschelli, Gauntlet season one winner Stephanie Izard, and Michael Symon.