Andy DehnartThe winner of Top Chef 2 was revealed earlier today, when an interview with the person was posted on Food & Wine’s web site, apparently accidentally. It has since been removed, but the text remains online. (Stop reading now if you don’t want to know its contents, as the rest of this post includes details and quotes from that article, including the identity of the winner.)
Eater LA has posted the full text of the interview, in which Adam Sachs talks to Ilan Hall, the show’s winner. Bravo likely gave Food & Wine, one of the show’s sponsors, an exclusive interview, which then led them to (presumably accidentally) spoil the show’s outcome. Incredibly, however, the full article–copied and pasted after it appeared on Food & Wine’s site–is still on Bravo’s web site (as of 10 p.m. ET), as part of a message on the message boards.
Perhaps more amazing is that the article reveals that Ilan still has a bitter attitude toward Marcel, even though he beat him in the competition. Of his competitor, Ilan says, “I knew he had skills, and you want to win the money, but that’s not the reason I wanted him out. It was his attitude. … On the first day of taping, when we were waiting to go on camera, Marcel said to me in his little ridiculous voice, ‘Lights, camera, action, yeah?’ I wanted to elbow him.”
And who has the attitude problem? A surface analysis of Ilan’s attitude in recent interviews suggested that he lost because his comments sound bitter and angry. He won, so it’s pretty pathetic that he’s continuing to play bully and insist, basically, that Marcel asked for everything he received. How long ago was it that Ilan barely escaped being eliminated from the competition for hazing his competition?
Now that he’s won, Ilan says he “plans to travel to the Far East and to Spain–Seville, Costa Brava, San Sebastián–and spend his time eating and cooking.” He also “plans is to open a small restaurant serving Spanish tapas-style dishes with Asian influences.”
Also in spoiler news, Eater LA posted an alleged spoiler earlier, but since it simply named the winner (Ilan), it had little more value than a coin flip. But the news that Ilan quit his job–which he confirms in the piece–seemed like damning evidence, and now it seems to be evidence that he was unconcerned about revealing the show’s results ahead of time.