A few words from the winner ...

On why he signed on for Season 3 of The Next Iron Chef:

"The only show that I would have done on TV was The Next Iron Chef. There are a lot of other chef shows, competitions that are on TV that I won't name by name, but The Next Iron Chef is the only one that truly says, we want to see you as a chef, and we want to see who can actually be an Iron Chef. Not to see who can entertain us with the after-work antics and all this kind of stuff. It's about the food."

"Just last night, I walked back into the kitchen through the dining room and every table was looking around and pointing me out. That used to happen every once in a while, but now, every table, they're like, "Oh! That's him!" I got stopped on the street coming into work yesterday and again this morning...It's wild. I'm really kind of a humble, chill person. I'm having a great time, don't get me wrong, but it's a big change."

"I'll be 100 percent honest: I didn’t think it was going to be as hard as it was. Not to say I went in thinking it was going to be easy, but I kind of went in there thinking, you know, you do what you do, you see what happens. Which is the philosophy that I had the whole time: Just cook your food and relax..."

Read our full exclusive interview with Iron Chef Forgione.