Elena Hernandez, Jose Garces and Phyllis Powers

Jose Garces is an

Ecuadorian American Ecuadorian Americans ( es, ecuatorio-americanos, or ) are Americans of full or partial Ecuadorian ancestry. Ecuadorian Americans are the 9th largest Latin American group in the United States. Ecuadorian Americans are usually of European (mainly ...

chef, restaurant owner, and

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 bui ...

. He was born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

to Ecuadorian parents. He won in the second season of ''

The Next Iron Chef ''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 ...

''. Garces studied Culinary Arts at Kendall College in Chicago, graduating in 1996. Garces sold his restaurants to IdEATion Hospitality in 2018 as part of a restructuring. IdEATion along with Chef Garces now run seven restaurants in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

: Amada, Tinto, Village Whiskey, Garces Trading Company,JG Domestic, Volver and Buena Onda. IdEATion and Chef Garces also manage 4 restaurants in Atlantic City, NJ at the Ocean Casino & Resort and Tropicana Casino & Resort: Amada - Ocean, Distrito Cantina - Ocean, Olon - Tropicana, and Okatshe - Tropicana . Distrito Cantina includes a reproduction of the Guapos Taco truck inside the Ocean Casino & Resort. For his work at these restaurants, he was named best chef, Mid-Atlantic region by the

James Beard Foundation The James Beard Foundation is a New York City-based national non-profit culinary arts organization named in honor of James Beard, a prolific food writer, teacher, and cookbook author, who was also known as the "Dean of American Cookery." The prog ...

. Garces has been a challenger on '' Iron Chef America'', defeating

Bobby Flay Robert William Flay (born December 10, 1964), is an American celebrity chef, restaurateur, and reality television personality. Flay is the owner and executive chef of several restaurants and franchises, including Bobby's Burger Palace, Bobby's ...

on a 2008 episode featuring

melon A melon is any of various plants of the family Cucurbitaceae with sweet, edible, and fleshy fruit. The word "melon" can refer to either the plant or specifically to the fruit. Botanically, a melon is a kind of berry, specifically a " pepo". Th ...

. He also competed in the second season of ''

'' and he was selected the sixth Iron Chef after defeating opponent chef Jehangir Mehta on November 22, 2009. Garces debuted as an Iron Chef on January 17, 2010, when he defeated Seattle chef Rachel Yang in Battle Hawaiian Moi.

References

External links

Garces GroupAmada - Atlantic City
American chefs American male chefs Living people People from Chicago Kendall College alumni American people of Ecuadorian descent Food Network chefs Iron Chef contestants James Beard Foundation Award winners Year of birth missing (living people) Reality cooking competition winners {{chef-stub