Gregory Gourdet, an Iron Chef of Haitian heritage, was a finalist in Top Chef All-Stars LA Season 17 and the runner-up in Top Chef Season 12 in Boston. The chef will appear as one of the Challenger Chefs in Netflix’s food competition Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend. Gregory Gourdet will compete in Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend with Mason Hereford, Mei Lin, Claudette Zepeda, Curtis Duffy, Esther Choi, and Yia Vang for the title of ‘Iron Legend.’
Gregory Gourdet from the Iron Chef
Gregory Gourdet, a native of Queens, New York, is a well-known chef, best-selling book, and television personality. He is the owner of the well-known pop-up restaurant Kann PDX, as well as the former executive chef and culinary director of Departure at The Nines in Portland, Oregon. Gourdet was born in New York City to Haitian immigrant parents and attended St. Andrew’s High School (Delaware). After a year of pre-med at NYU, he went on to study animal biology at the University of Montana (UM) before graduating with a degree in French.
Gourdet found his interest in food while attending UM. He subsequently enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America, where he was the first student to work as an intern for famous chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Gourdet polished his culinary abilities under the Masterchef for over seven years while working at three of Jean-Georges’ establishments. He began as an intern and ascended through the ranks to become one of his chef de cuisines before relocating to Portland in 2008.
He owned Departure Restaurant + Lounge for ten years before departing in 2019 to concentrate on establishing Kann, a wood-fired concept where he intended to introduce Haitian and Caribbean diaspora food to American diners. His ambitions to create a restaurant were put on hold due to the epidemic, but he did host a Portland Kann pop-up in Portland.
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Gourdet, a three-time James Beard Award nominee, has also been crowned Eater Portland’s and the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s “Chef of the Year.” Everyone’s Table: Global Recipes for Modern Health, his first cookbook containing gluten-free and Paleo-friendly recipes, was a national hit when it was published in 2021. For the same book, he just got the James Beard Award for Best General Cookbook. Gourdet, who recently surprised everyone with his weight reduction makeover, enjoys trail jogging and yoga to keep physically and emotionally healthy.
The televised voyage of Iron Chef Gregory Gourdet
Gourdet rose to prominence after finishing as runner-up on Bravo’s Top Chef Season 12 in 2015. He also served as a guest judge on many Top Chef spin-offs, including Top Chef: All-Stars L.A., where he finished as a finalist, and Top Chef (Season 18), Top Chef Amateurs, and Top Chef Family Style. He has also participated in a few other culinary challenges, including Extreme Chef and Iron Chef Showdown.
The weight reduction journey of Iron Chef Gregory Gourdet
Gregory Gourdet stunned everyone with his weight reduction makeover ahead of the launch of Luda Can’t Cook, which will appear on Discovery+ on February 15, 2022. Gourdet was featured as a guest on Chris “Ludacris” Bridges’ program.
The chef gained weight throughout the epidemic, and when he realized he was at his heaviest, he determined to reduce weight via yoga and intermittent fasting. However, his tactics “simply weren’t working,” so he integrated a few additional routines such as power walking, keto, and fasting, as a result of which he lost 40 pounds, finally dropping from 212 pounds to 172 pounds. Stream Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend on Netflix on Wednesday to see Gourdet work in the kitchen.
