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Kirschner at the Angeleno Magazine Food Event (Lindsay William-Ross/LAist)
Of the ten chefs from around the nation competing in the hot hot heat of Kitchen Stadium for the coveted position as The Next Iron Chef, just one hails from Los Angeles. Andrew Kirschner is Executive Chef at Wilshire Restaurant in Santa Monica, and starting October 3rd, viewers can watch him and his competitors stirring up the excitement on the third season of the show.
Hoping to move up into the orbit of Chefs Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, Cat Cora, Masaharu Morimoto, Michael Symon, and Jose Garces, the show puts high-profile chefs through grueling paces in order to award one a spot atop the well-known podium to battle out challengers for glory.
This season, the show was filmed in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and the Network's home base, New York City.
Kirschner is a native to SoCal, who studied in San Francisco and honed his craft in Aspen, Colorado. He has worked in L.A. with chefs Joe Miller, Ben Ford, Govind Armstrong and Suzanne Goin, and "has been the executive chef at Wilshire Restaurant since 2007."
In the competition, Kirschner faces nine other chefs who are putting their reputation on the line in the hopes of winning the title.
The other contestants are: Marco Canora (Chef & Owner of Hearth, Terrior, and Terroir TriBeca, in New York), Bryan Caswell (Chef & Owner, Reef, Stella Sola, and Little Bigs, in Houston, Texas), Maneet Chauhan (Chef at Vermillion, in Chicago and New York), Mary Dumont (Executive Chef at Harvest, in Cambridge, Mass.), Duskie Estes (Chef & Owner of Zazu Restaurant + Farm, Bovolo, and Black Pig Meat Co., in Sonoma County, Calif.), Marc Forgione (Chef & Owner of Marc Forgione, in New York), Mario Pagán (Chef & Owner of Chayote and Lemongrass, in Puerto Rico), Celina Tio (Chef & Owner of Julian, in Kansas City, Mo.), and Ming Tsai (Chef & Owner of Blue Ginger, in Wellesley, Mass.).
“These chefs are some of the fiercest and most decorated yet, which promises the most exciting culinary rivalries to date, ” says Bob Tuschman, General Manager and Senior Vice President, Programming & Production at The Food Network.