Nilou Motamed, the former Editor-in-Chief of Food & Wine magazine and a regular judge on Season 16 of Top Chef, will now judge Netflix’s Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend, which premieres on June 15. The program will feature culinary talents battling for a spot in an epic finale and the title of Iron Legend. Dominique Crenn, Marcus Samuelsson, Gabriela Cámara, Curtis Stone, and Ming Tsai are the Iron Chefs that will participate in the competition.
Everything you need to know about the Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend judge Nilou Motamed
Nilou Motamed, a worldwide famous cuisine, travel, and lifestyle guru who was born in Iran and reared in Paris and New York, attended Binghamton University in New York and the Sorbonne in Paris, getting dual degrees in Political Science and Philosophy. She is trilingual (Spanish, English, French, and Persian).
Motamed has worked with a variety of companies over the last 20 years, providing vital feedback and helping them become some of the most well-known in the world. She also consults for a number of high-end businesses. AdWeek named the Emmy-nominated TV personality one of the 30 Most Influential People in Food.
Her knowledge, however, is not restricted to periodicals. Motamed, a frequent panelist for the James Beard Foundation Restaurant and Chef Awards, has featured as a judge and guest judge on many TV series, including Bravo’s Emmy Award-winning Top Chef, Food Network’s Chopped, NBC’s Today, CBS’ This Morning, and CNN. She has served as a host on the Travel Channel’s Travel Spies and the restaurant review program Reservations Required.
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Motamed and her husband, writer Peter Jon Lindberg, reside in Brooklyn. They met while working at Travel + Leisure magazine in 2000. The talented chef shares drool-worthy culinary photos on her Instagram, niloumotamed, which has 32.3K followers.
Nilou Motamed Career highlights
She began her career as a Features Director and Senior Correspondent for Travel + Leisure in 2000. She investigated the magazine’s coverage of shopping, culture, restaurants, hotels, and luxury travel trends. Under her direction, T+L was nominated for eight James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards.
She later moved on to Condé Nast’s Epicurious magazine (2013-2014). During her term as Editor-in-Chief, the food brand reached new heights. She subsequently became the first Director of Inspiration at Conrad Hotels & Resorts in 2015. She redesigned the guest experience and concierge services for 24 premium locations across the world during her one-year stay.
After joining the organization in 2016, the former Editor-in-Chief of Food & Wine magazine, one of the world’s top culinary media brands with over 13 million readers, worked with it for more than a year. Motamed then co-founded Story Collective in 2017, which she describes as an “editorial consultant specialized in brand voice, strategy, and storytelling in all media for the world’s best luxury hotels, restaurants, and destinations.”
Motamed is returned as a series judge on Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend, with Andrew Zimmern. Iron Chef is a culinary competition presented by Keller Productions in collaboration with 3 Ball Productions. The series’ executive producers are Daniel Calin, Eytan Keller, and Ross Weintraub. The program will be available on Netflix on June 15th. Catch the heated struggle of the cooks on Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend and discover out who wins the title of Iron Legend.
