Stephanie Izard makes it all look easy as she wins again and again on some of America's top cooking competitions with a thick stack of Benjamins to show for it. (These she swept up on Wildcard Kitchen Season 3.)

Though this poker-faced player never lets them see her sweat, her stellar career has been built on hard work and dedication to her craft.

Born in Evanston, Illinois, Stephanie grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, where she became interested in cooking as a child, often helping her mother — who was an enthusiastic home cook in love with global flavors — in the kitchen. Stephanie still uses her mom's recipe for Mandarin pancakes at her Chicago restaurant Duck Duck Goat.

"I was fortunate to have a mom who cooked food from all over the world," Stephanie told CBS Morning's The Dish about how much she was influenced by a childhood spent helping her mom in the kitchen. As she told Chicago magazine of her mom, "She had every Gourmet magazine that ever existed and a hundred cookbooks."

"She is the biggest reason I’m where I am today," Stephanie continued.

Stephanie studied sociology at the University of Michigan and then went on to attend the Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Scottsdale, Arizona. Stephanie has said she was attracted to Scottsdale after the bitter cold of Michigan and liked the fact that the culinary arts program was only one year long at the time.

Ironically enough, Stephanie's very first restaurant job was at … Olive Garden. "It was a good first step," Stephanie told CBS.

After learning the ropes working at a number of high-profile restaurants in Chicago — including Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Vong, Shawn McClain's Spring and Dale Levitski's La Tache — Stephanie finally opened her first restaurant, Scylla, in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood. Bon Appétit named Scylla among the "Ten Best Small U.S. Restaurants," but Stephanie felt the lure of television, and in August 2007, she closed Scylla so she could compete on Top Chef.

Stephanie went on to become a Top Chef Fan Favorite and took home a cool $100,000 on the fourth season. She was also the show's first female winner, something that has inspired other women to go into cooking, Stephanie is proud to say.

"It gives you all these opportunities, and puts you in front of the whole country," said Stephanie of the opportunities that Top Chef offered her.

In 2017, on the first season of Iron Chef Gauntlet, Stephanie defeated Iron Chefs Bobby Flay, Masaharu Morimoto and Michael Symon to earn the title of Iron Chef. Stephanie is the only competitor to have won both Top Chef and Iron Chef Gauntlet honors, putting her in a class all by herself.

In addition to her TV food show wins, Stephanie has been named the James Beard "Best Chef: Great Lakes" in 2013, and in 2011, Food & Wine deemed her "Best New Chef."

Stephanie has shown her chops again and again on multiple battles of the chefs. She even competed against fellow Iron Chefs Michael Symon and Jose Garces on Alex vs. America Season 4.

Stephanie is now a cooking competition pro, having appeared as a competitor and as a judge on shows including Tournament of Champions (shown here in Season 7), Hell's Kitchen, Guy's Grocery Games, Chopped, 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing and more.

In a YouTube interview, Food Network asked her: Who's the one Food Network chef you would like to cook for you? "Maybe Andrew Zimmern, because he's been all over the world and eats so many amazing foods and I love his flavors. And I think he's more often judged me than I've eaten his food."

In 2010, Stephanie opened Girl & the Goat in Chicago's West Loop. Beloved for its daring, globally inspired menu and innovative flavor combinations, Saveur magazine dubbed it "America's Best New Restaurant." Girl & the Goat was also nominated for the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in 2011.

In addition to Girl & the Goat, the prolific and entrepreneurial Stephanie owns Little Goat Diner, the Chinese-inspired Duck Duck Goat and her Peruvian concept restaurant Cabra in Chicago, along with Girl & the Goat and Valley Goat — her first Northern California restaurant — in California, which she now calls home.

As seen on Bobby and Sophie Take the Coast Season 1, hosts Bobby and Sophie Flay sample chef Stephanie’s acclaimed global menu at Girl & the Goat in downtown Los Angeles.

The "goat" in Stephanie's restaurant names comes from her last name, Izard, which is a type of mountain goat that lives in the French Pyrenees. And Stephanie made her name highlighting goat for American diners at Girl & the Goat.

Delectable specialties include complex, globe-trotting flavors and combinations such as naan and dips, duck tartare, shrimp and crispy greens, sauteed green beans, sticky glazed pork shank (pictured) and so much more.

Stephanie's first book, Girl in the Kitchen, was released in 2011, and her second book, Gather & Graze, was released in 2018.

Stephanie has never been shy about the life-changing magic of a good condiment, whether that means mayo slathered on a Japanese katsu chicken sandwich or a dash of fish sauce to boost flavor. Other favorites are A-1 and barbecue sauce, and Stephanie has even created her own condiment line, This Little Goat. Stephanie also never met a shortcut — or an unconventional ingredient — that she didn't like, as seen in her use of Rice Krispies to create a surprisingly buttery, crunchy topping for broccoli.