The season four premiere of Food Network's The Next Iron Chef is October 30 at 9 p.m. Alton Brown hosts the weekly chef-on-chef competition.
This year's contestants read like a culinary who's who, with ten celebrity chefs battling for the title, including Anne Burrell, Michael Chiarello, Elizabeth Falkner, Alex Guarnaschelli, Chuck Hughes, Robert Irvine, Beau MacMillan, Spike Mendelsohn, Marcus Samuelsson, and Geoffrey Zakarian.
Zakarian is no stranger to Food Network shows, having been both contestant and judge on Chopped!, but The Next Iron Chef is proving to be a much larger challenge than even he expected.
When asked about filming, Zakarian wouldn't tell us if he won, but he did confide that he was against some stiff competition. "Well, it certainly was the hardest thing I have ever attempted", he said. "It's way harder than Chopped, and I didn't know that was possible. The first episode sort of tells it all!"
Tudor House is hosting a weekly watch party at the restaurant so Miamians can cheer Zakarian on to victory. Zakarian is chef/owner at the restaurant, located on the ground floor of the Dream South Beach Hotel.
Executive chef Jamie deRosa has planned a menu of free passed goodies, perfect for watching the show. Chicken live pate, house-marinated olives with nuts, and petit fours are some of the items up for grabs. Chef DeRosa will also be previewing baked goods from the Tudor House's new brunch menu, including homemade pop tarts.
Two televisions will be set up to watch the game. And yes, we'll call it a game, because while others have football, we have The Next Iron Chef.
The watch party begins at 8 p.m., giving you plenty of time to grab a complimentary
Moscow Mule and some munchies before
the show's 9 p.m. start. No telling what will happen if chef Zakarian
advances (and we've got money on it) -- but we're sure they'll be a
celebration.
We do know that if when Zakarian advances, his winning dish will be featured as a dinner special at Tudor House the following week. With Iron Chef's penchant for having contestants create plates using mystery ingredients, we're looking forward to some interesting mealsfrom the Tudor House kitchen in the coming weeks.
Here's a video introducing the ten contestants:
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