Shereen Arazm Koules (born 1972) is a Canadian restaurateur, nightclub owner, and

television personality Celebrity is a condition of fame and broad public recognition of a person or group as a result of the attention given to them by mass media. An individual may attain a celebrity status from having great wealth, their participation in sports ...

who lives in

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. She was also the "resident" judge on the highly rated television series, ''

Top Chef Canada ''Top Chef Canada'' is a Canadian reality competition television series and is considered one of the most prestigious culinary competitions in Canada. The show premiered on April 11, 2011, on Food Network Canada. The first season consisted of 13 ...

'' for four seasons and the brand ambassador for Nespresso Canada in 2013 and 2014. ''LA Times Magazine'' named Arazm one of the top 4 entertainment hosts in Los Angeles in 2007.

Early life and education

Arazm was born in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

in 1972 to a Scottish mother and Iranian father. Her father left Iran at the age of 14 to study in

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. The family eventually settled in Toronto. Arazm waited tables in Toronto at the age of 18 at Terroni restaurant. She then moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

where she attended art school for a week and half before dropping out. She tended bar and managed restaurants in New York. In 2000, Arazm lost out on an opportunity to purchase a bar on the

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Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. After that incident, she moved to Los Angeles where she quickly found work as a bartender at a club called, Las Palmas.

Career

Arazm's entrepreneurial career began in 2003 when she partnered with her Las Palmas boss, Loyal Pennings, to create Concorde, a nightclub in Los Angeles. The first major event held at the club was a birthday party for

Ben Affleck Benjamin Géza Affleck (born August 15, 1972) is an American actor and filmmaker. His accolades include two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and a Volpi Cup. Affleck began his career as a child when he starred in the PBS education ...

thrown by then girlfriend Jennifer Lopez. In 2004, she partnered with the Dolce Group to open Geisha House, a sushi restaurant also located in Los Angeles. Also in 2004, she bought out Loyal Pennings' shares in Concorde to own it outright. She would later rebrand the club to the more feminine "Shag" in 2005. She opened several clubs from 2007 to 2008 including Parc and Central. In 2009, she opened another club called Wonderland in Hollywood's Cahuenga Corridor. In 2007, she partnered with Cosimo Mammoliti to bring Terroni (the restaurant she worked at as an 18-year-old in Toronto) to Los Angeles. The two opened a second Terroni location in downtown Los Angeles in 2013 along with additional partner, Max Stefanelli. In 2010,

Food Network Canada Food Network, formerly called Food Network Canada, is a Canadian English language specialty channel based on the U.S. cable network of the same name. It airs programming related to food, cooking, cuisine, and the food industry. The Canadian versi ...

announced that Arazm would be a "resident" judge for ''Top Chef Canada'' television series. Arazm served as a judge on the program until 2014, when it was cancelled. She did not return to the program when it was revived in 2017. Arazm had previously been featured in an episode of the Canadian Slice Channel program, ''Women on Top'' in 2007. In 2019, Shereen Arazm and Ruth Tal collaborated to open a plant-based restaurant for celebrities filming in Canada.

Personal life

Arazm married film producer and former

Tampa Bay Lightning The Tampa Bay Lightning (colloquially known as the Bolts) are a professional ice hockey team based in Tampa, Florida. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. They play th ...

co-owner,

Oren Koules Oren Koules (born January 31, 1961) is an American entrepreneur and film producer. He is the co-founder of Evolution Entertainment and produced the ''Saw'' film series as well as the CBS television series ''Two and a Half Men''. Koules is also ...

, in 2008. The two had met by happenstance three years prior on a flight from Toronto to Los Angeles. The couple has had two daughters, Sam (born 2008) and Neve (born 2011). She also has a stepson, Miles (born 1994), from her husband's previous marriage. Miles is a professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

player.

References

External links

Dolce Group
official website.
''Top Chef Canada''
official website.
Shereen Arazm
at the Chef and Restaurant Database. {{DEFAULTSORT:Arazm, Shereen Living people 1972 births Canadian people of Scottish descent Canadian people of Iranian descent Canadian women television personalities Businesspeople from Toronto Canadian restaurateurs Women restaurateurs Participants in Canadian reality television series Canadian women in business