Photo | HughE Dillon, phillychitchat.com

For those of you who were fixated on Desperate Housewives and/or that chintzy Eagles W last night and missed the news, we’re about to ruin it for you: Philly’s Jose Garces is now an Iron Chef, joining the “veritable pantheon” of Bobby Flay, Masaharu Morimoto, Mario Batali, Cat Cora and Michael Symon atop those uber-dramatic raised platforms in Kitchen Stadium. Meal Ticket was in the place at Garces’ Distrito last night for a viewing party that swept up the entire two-story restaurant in a tequila-fueled whirlwind of culinary revelry. Though we’d be lying if we said that the scale of the bash didn’t serve as a giant tell of Garces’ victory, there was still a hint of anticipation floating in the air as our dude’s “ribs and racks”-centric battle against NYC pastry supervillain Jehangir Mehta began.

The chef and his family, joined by third-place contestant Seamus Mullen, watched the action unfold in Distrito’s hidden karaoke room. As soon as the Iron Chef chairman dropped Garces’ name, the place erupted, and it wasn’t long before the champ materialized and began working his way through the crowd, high-fiving and hugging folks like he’d just won the World Cup on PKs. He eventually made his way upstairs, only to be pinned between the luchador wrestling mask wall and the bathrooms by a throng of photo snappers, hand shakers and shrieking well-wishers. Good on ya, Jose.

Food Network tells us that Garces’ first battle on Iron Chef America will air on Jan. 17 — it’ll be Philly versus Seattle this time, as our dude will take on chef Rachel Yang of that city’s Joule.

There’s a spirited opinion thread popping off on our Nov. 16 post on the show. Now that Garces has sealed the deal, what do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Thanks to HughE Dillon of Philly Chit Chat for the nice shot of Garces above (see HughE’s recap here). After the jump, a few non-pro shots of Garces getting mobbed, and the crowd in general. (You can check out live updates from last night by peeping our Twitter or searching the “#ironchefgarces” hash tag.)

Photos | Drew Lazor

Jose Garces is The Next Iron Chef

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 11:16 am and is filed under Food TV, Next Iron Chef. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.