Alessandro Stratta

Alessandro Stratta (born October 29, 1964 in Marquette, Wisconsin) is a celebrity chef and restaurateur of mixed Italian and French heritage. Stratta played the role of Iron Chef Italian on the television show Iron Chef USA. He was the recipient of the James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef Southwest in 1998 and was executive chef and owner of his famous namesake restaurant, Alex, in Las Vegas until its closure on January 15, 2011. He was later diagnosed with colon cancer and became a cancer survivor. He was the executive chef and owner of "Tapas by Alex Stratta" in the affluent Las Vegas suburb of Summerlin, until it closed in 2015. In 2016, Stratta became executive chef de cuisine at Prado restaurant at the Omni Hotel in Paradise Valley, Arizona.

Stratta is a fourth-generation hotelier born to parents from locales well known for their culinary traditions; his Italian father is from the Piedmont region, and his French mother from Nice along the Côte d'Azur. As his father was president of Princess Hotels & Resorts, he spent much of his early life living in luxurious resorts in countries all over the world, including Singapore, Malaysia, Italy, France, Mexico, and Pakistan; this upbringing helped him become fluent in French, Italian, Spanish, and English. Stratta attended the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, California and graduated with honors in 1983.