"ilan hall" news and stories

Top Chef's boy wonder Ilan Hall, who won the second season's competition at the tender age of 24 has announced that he and his girlfriend, Ayame Kawaguchi, are expecting a new mouth to feed.

Hall, who after leaving reality TV behind has thrown his energy into opening The Gorbals in LA, jokingly urged his Twitter followers to come into the restaurant and help "start a college fund for my baby on the way!"

Hall's take-no-prisoners cooking style won him not only top TV accolades but also celebrity status. Fatherhood will be a new gig for the young chef, who told Life & Style magazine, "I hope I don't mistake him for a suckling pig."

Not to worry: Hall's paternal instinct will kick in soon. In the meantime, Hall's girlfriend will be eating for two -- and one can only assume she'll be eating well.

Have we really gotten so far into the current season of "Top Chef" that Bravo feels the need to start dragging out the suspense -- namely, when will Robin be eliminated -- with an arbitrary, 11-chef reunion special? In retrospect, we should have known that that Very Special Natalie Portman episode was preparing us for an agonizing, two-week hibernation. Wake us when it's sweeps week.

In actuality, "Top Chef All Stars" was less a "where are they now" gift to loyal fans than it was a five-season clip compilation for non-fans, reminding them that the current Vegas edition, entertaining as it is, can't hold a candle to the pissy dysfunction -- or bad hairstyles -- of seasons past.

Presided over by Season Five's grade-A diva Fabio, the evening mostly succeeded in being a mellow, low-tension meeting of 11 "fan favorite" cheftestants. And don't think they got a free trip to Los Angeles without having to cook, either, although at least this time they were granted a luxurious $500 budget at Whole Foods. Still, drama and revelations were in short supply, while the most prominent theme of the evening was -- newsflash -- Marcel is still a dick. (Although he and Ilan seem to be legitimately chummy nowadays.)

The Season Two pipsqueak with the loud mouth and Robert Pattinson-on-steroids hair dominated this so-called reunion, both in present tense and in lovingly edited montages. You want a replay of Marcel talking over the judges during his critique? You got it. Care to revisit the unsuccessful attempt by his housemates to pin him down and shave off his downy brown locks? We don't, if only because it didn't produce the desired result: Marcel crying like a bald-headed baby.

Itching for pictures from the Food & Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen? What's Mario wearing? Did Ilan Hall rock the Pee-Wee Herman tux again? We'll be posting red carpet and candid images throughout the festival, so bookmark, refresh and repeat as needed.

Catch up on real time Twitter coverage here and see photos from last night's red carpet event after the jump.