Marc Forgione

Marc Forgione is one of the Iron Chefs competing on Food Network's Iron Chef America and owner of restaurant Marc Forgione in New York City. He was born on December 16, 1978, and raised in Bellerose, New York. Chef Forgione competed on and won season three of The Next Iron Chef in 2010.

Marc began his career at the age of 16, joining his father, Larry Forgione, in the kitchen at An American Place. Marc fully embraced his father's livelihood and has built on his unique culinary foundation to carve out an identity of his own. Marc is related to Francesco Forgione, a Catholic saint, who is a great, great uncle of his father Larry.

Marc opted for a traditional four-year education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he graduated from the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management. He spent his summers working the line at restaurants in New York, with chef Kazuto Matsusaka. These stints would lay the groundwork for Marc's post-collegiate toils, again alongside his father at An American Place and later under Patricia Yeo at AZ. When Yeo and celebrated chef Pino Maffeo opened Pazo, they took Marc along to serve as sous chef at the short-lived eatery. When Laurent Tourondel set out to develop his flagship, BLT Steak, he recruited Marc as his sous chef.

In an effort to diversify his experience, Marc left for France, where he secured a series of humble posts under Michel Guerard in Eugenie les Bains. He worked at three of the region's restaurants, Le Pres D'Eugenie, Ferme aux Grives and Le Cuisine Minceur.

When he returned to New York, Marc reunited with Tourondel, who invited him to serve as chef de cuisine at BLT Prime. The restaurant would go on to earn sterling accolades from relevant publications nationwide, culminating in a 27 in the Zagat Guide, making it the highest-ranking steakhouse in the history of New York City. Following his role as chef de cuisine, Marc was named corporate chef for the BLT Restaurant Group, a position that enabled him to develop recipes and maintain the quality of the BLT brand as it went on to include more restaurants across the country. Marc has played a key role in the openings of BLT Fish and BLT Market, as well as the Washington, D.C., San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Dallas locations of BLT Steak.