"rocco dispirito" news and stories

Set the table: Rocco Dispirito is planning a dinner party. The acclaimed chef is developing a new culinary competition series for Bravo called Rocco's Dinner Party, where contestants showcase their talents in cooking for -- yes, you guessed it -- a private dinner party.

The show will take a similar format to the Food Network's Chopped, where each episode starts off with four contestants and over the course of an hour, is whittled down to a final two.

And it's not just professional chefs who will be vying for the cash prize: restaurateurs, caterers and self-taught foodies will be added to the contestant pool.

The 2010 Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival kicked off with a carnivorous bang at the Amstel Light Burger Bash, which was presented by Allen Brothers and hosted by Rachael Ray. The fourth annual Burger Bash, which was held in a tent behind the Ritz-Carlton South Beach, was a smashing success with 27 entries spanning celebrity chefs like Bobby Flay, Rocco DiSpirito and David Burke. Nearly 3,000 revelers chowed down on gourmet burgers and spuds, drank truckloads of beer and gawked at Rachael Ray.

The biggest line could be found at Morimoto's station, where the Iron Chef was serving a pork "Kakuni" burger with glazed pork belly. Over at Shake Shack's booth, the New York stalwart tried to ingratiate themselves to the Miami scene (they are opening a local outpost here in the spring) with free t-shirts, shakes and their famous burgers.

Women were swooning over Rocco DiSpirito, who spent more time posing for photos than dishing up his Pork and Chow Chow Slider, which was a mini pork patty, wrapped in bacon and served with chow chow and pickled beets. While Guy Fieri turned heads with his blond, spiky coif, fans weren't able to get too close to him as he was flanked by bodyguards all night. We were able to chat up the festival's founder and director, Lee Brian Schrager, whose top pick of the evening was Morimoto's porcine-themed burger.

by Catherine Donaldson-Evans

From the adorable, boy-next-door "Naked Chef" to the ruggedly handsome Bobby Flay and charming Aussie Curtis Stone, Slashfood rounds up the 10 most sizzling men in the food business. Warning: It's going to get hot in here.

Next Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT, the Food Network will premier Chopped, its new chef-competition series with host Ted Allen. On the Food Network's site, you can check out the contestants of the show, many of them coming from the NYC restaurant scene. On Allen's blog, he defends the need for another "cook-off show" by explaining that, unlike existing shows, on Chopped, there are four new chefs that compete on each episode. The one that wins that episode receives $10,000; the one with the worst food is "chopped." Since each episode features new contestants, there is none of the drama and sleep deprivation present on shows like, 'Project Runway'.

Alright, so Chopped is not entirely based on shows like Top Chef. Nevertheless, after watching its video promo I couldn't help but to view it more like an Saturday Night Live satire of Top Chef and Project Runway, than as a serious TV show. Clips of contestants panicking and asking "what am I going to do?" and saying "my worst nightmare" seems slightly ridiculous if host Allen is going to state that the show is so different than previous chef-competition series. "This January, a new kind of competition." Really? At the end of the clip, Allen, in Heidi Klum style, states "you have been chopped." While the show seems to borrow several elements from other reality based competition shows, we'll have to wait until next Tuesday night to judge whether this a fresh concept or more of the same.

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• Rocco DiSpirito was once one of most talented and fastest rising chefs out there. Now he's something of a food world joke. What happened?
• American chef Daniel Rose has become a hit with his Parisian restaurant Spring.
• Frank Bruni reviews Sucession and finds it confusing and sadly wanting.
• Looking for a gift for a wine lover on your list? How about one of the new crop of wine books?
• Holiday baking inevitably leads to leftover egg whites. Take that surfeit and make meringue cookies!
• For a succulent pot roast, try using flanken.
• Celebrate Christmas with the iconic Elizabeth David whispering in your ear via her posthumously released book.
• Italian chef G. Franco Romangnoli has died. He and his wife were hosts of one of the very first cooking shows devoted to Italian cookery.