Cat Cora

American professional chef, television personality, restaurateur, businesswoman, and cookbook author. She is best known for her featured role as an "Iron Chef" on TV show Iron Chef America and as co-host of reality TV series Around the World in 80 Plates. She is Executive Chef for Bon Appétit magazine.

Cora was born "Melanie" to Joanne, an unwed teenage mother from Greenwood, Mississippi, and Knox, from Belzoni, Mississippi. Adopted at the age of one week, she grew up as the daughter of Virginia Lee (née Brothers) and Spiro "Pete" Cora in Jackson, Mississippi. Her adoptive father was of Greek descent (his parents being from Skopelos, Greece; himself born in Greenville, Mississippi only two months after they had arrived in America). Her grandfather and father were both restaurateurs.

Cora married her longtime partner Jennifer in June 2013, and the couple have four sons together conceived via in vitro fertilization. In 2015, they filed for divorce which was finalized in 2016. In 2017, Cora began dating record producer executive Nicole Ehrlich. They married on 21 April 2018 in Islamorada, Florida. On 26 April 2021, Nicole Ehrlich filed for divorce from Cora.