Stephanie Izard

Stephanie Izard (born October 30, 1978) is an American chef residing in Chicago, Illinois, best known as the first female chef to win Bravo's Top Chef, taking the title on the fourth season. She is the co-owner and executive chef of three award-winning Chicago restaurants, Girl and the Goat, and Little Goat, duck duck goat, and opened her first restaurant, Scylla (now closed) as chef-owner at the age of 27. Izard won a coveted James Beard Foundation Award (Best Chef: Great Lakes) in 2013 for her work at Girl and the Goat. Izard has made a number of appearances on Top Chef since her win, both as a guest judge and participant (on Top Chef Duels).

Stephanie Izard was born in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois and grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, where she developed an interest in food from her parents. She earned a degree in sociology from the University of Michigan in 1998 before attending the Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Scottsdale, graduating in 1999.

After graduating with a culinary arts degree, Izard worked in the Phoenix area at the Camelback Inn Resort & Spa, and Christopher Gross's Fermier Brasserie. Izard returned to the Chicago area in 2001, with a job as garde manger at Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Vong. While working at Vong, Izard met future "Top Chef" contestant Dale Talde, and Heather Shouse, with whom she would later co-author the cookbook "Girl in the Kitchen: How a Top Chef Cooks, Thinks, Shops, Eats, and Drinks". After leaving Vong, Izard worked as tournant at Shawn McClain's Spring, and then as sous chef at Dale Levitski's La Tache.