Season 9 of the American competitive reality television series Hell's Kitchen premiered on July 18, 2011, on Fox and concluded on September 19, 2011, with a two-hour season finale. Gordon Ramsay returned as host and head chef, while Scott Leibfried and Andi Van Willigan returned as the Blue Team and Red Team's sous-chefs respectively. James Lukanik returned as maître d'.
The season was won by junior sous-chef Paul Niedermann, with fellow sous-chef William "Will" Lustberg finishing second.
The entire season took about six weeks to film, and was filmed between April and May 2011. It also saw the show return to its original one season per year schedule, having run two seasons each in 2009 and 2010 due to the after-effects of the 2007âÂÂ2008 Writers Guild of America strike.
18 chefs competed in season 9.
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