Top Chef

9 tonight BRAVO The competition heats up in this "Cold War" challenge for the remaining chefs to create a cold entrée. Award-winning chef Michelle Bernstein (right) joins the panel as a guest judge. Padma Lakshmi hosts.

On the Bravo kitchen-competition series Top Chef , the cheftestants are charged with creating cutting-edge food on the spur of the moment. Two weeks after his win on Season 7, Kevin Sbraga had us out to his real kitchen - in the childhood Willingboro home he shares with his pastry-chef wife, Jesmary, daughter Jenae, 5, and newborn son Angelo. Mealtime at the Sbragas' place is nothing fancy, and the Top Chef, 31, cooks on an electric stovetop. One of his favorite dishes is a one-pot creation of steamed clams and Italian sausage on top of chickpeas, perfect for Sunday after church.

Willingboro's Kevin Sbraga - who's cooked at some of the hottest restaurants in the region - was named winner of the seventh season of the Bravo series Top Chef . Sbraga, 31, watched the taped final episode Wednesday at the North Philadelphia restaurant Osteria among a private party including his wife, Jesmary, and two children. His prizes are $125,000, a spread in Food & Wine magazine, and a showcase at the magazine's annual event in Aspen, Colo. The season, set in Washington, D.C., moved to Singapore for the last two episodes.

I'M KICKING myself because I messed around and didn't purchase tickets for this year's Epicurean Palette at the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, N.J. It's a dang shame, since this is an orgy of food and wine the likes of which we don't see all that often around here. This would have been the year to go, too, since Kevin Sbraga will be finishing up his last weekend there as executive chef of Rat's Restaurant, which is a participant. Sbraga, who last week won Bravo's "Top Chef," is leaving Rat's Sunday to realize his dream of opening his own restaurant.

GUILLERMO Pernot may be Argentinean by birth, but his heart and palate belong to Cuba. It's not just that Pernot's wife, Lucia, is a native Cuban whose family escaped Fidel Castro's communist regime in 1959 when she was just 9 months old. The Caribbean island-nation is also home to cuisine that, as far as the 55-year-old chef-partner at Old City's Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar is concerned, is second-to-none. "It's a basic style of food," Pernot (pronounced per- NO )

Matt Levin isn't the first creative cook to clash with the administrative demands of being an executive chef at a luxury hotel. But for a guy who'd rather be fiddling with his sous-vide machine and working to build a better duck-fat fry, the notion of sitting in long meetings on whether or not to have a harpist in the lobby or discussing the chafing dishes for banquets was its own special form of five-diamond hotel torture. "I wasn't cooking anymore, and I wanted to be back having fun in the kitchen," Levin says, looking back on his days at Lacroix at the Rittenhouse.

The classy bistro was called 10 Arts by Eric Ripert, so there was little question who the star was on the glittering opening night in the rotunda of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel back in the spring of 2008. It was, of course, Eric Ripert, the legendary chef from New York's four-star seafoodery Le Bernardin, meeting and greeting tout Philadelphia, trailing in his wake an attractive but decidedly un-legendary young chef named Jennifer Carroll. Yes, she'd worked in Ripert's Manhattan kitchen and he'd picked her to run the Ritz property.

* Eating well to fight hunger is also the theme for a six-course dinner "Top Chef" Kevin Sbraga is putting together at his restaurant Sbraga (440 S. Broad St., 215-735-1913, Sbraga.com ) with a stellar lineup of local chefs May 14. Nicholas Elmi, Walter Abrams, Shola Olunloyo, Jonathan Adams and Dave Katz will join him in support of Share Our Strength's No Kid Hungry campaign. Tix are $150 each. * Food-truck operators stake their claim to be the city's best at the Philadelphia Vendy Awards' third-annual competition from 2 to 6 p.m. June 8. A limited number of early discount tix, $45, are available now at eventbrite.com . The event raises funds for the nonprofit Food Trust.

WHAT'S with all the beer and food pairings? It's getting that you can't down a mug without someone shoving a plate of ale-braised Brussels sprouts under your chin. Wednesday night, Nick Macri, the chef at Southwark, at 4th and Bainbridge, laid out a four-course menu pairing imaginative dishes (seafood stew and hot-pepper relish) with suds from Ardmore's Tired Hands Brewery. Friday, the new Victoria Freehouse, on Front Street in Old City, will throw down a variety of British-style bitters and complementary English-themed plates.

THE LAST time you saw Jen Carroll on national TV, she was standing in front of the judges on "Top Chef All-Stars. " Carroll, a Somerton native, faced down Tom Colicchio, Padma Lakshmi, Gail Simmons and Anthony Bourdain. The "cheftestant" stared at them. Hard. She also shared her feelings. Strongly. She was, in a word, displeased. Angry. Frustrated. Pissed off. After winning challenge after challenge on season 6 of "Top Chef" in 2009, and earning a spot in the finals that season, Carroll had come back to Bravo the next year to compete against other top non-winners from previous seasons.

Cooking classes - the one-off, loosely structured gatherings of food fans around a chef's counter - have become a form of entertainment in this region. Yes, we watch Food Network, the Cooking Channel, and Bravo. Iron Chef , Good Eats , and Top Chef are immensely popular. "But if you have a question, you can't ask the TV, of course, and you can't taste the food," said Ed Countey, who runs the culinary school for Kitchen Kapers stores. Thus the popularity of live cooking classes at community centers, supermarkets, cooking schools, and even church kitchens.

WASHINGTON - Philadelphia's capital culinary cred was on display here last week, when seven area chefs were named to the American Chef Corps, a new State Department program engaging the country's top toques to foster diplomacy among nations. Chef Joe Cicala of Le Virtú, who was thrilled to be tapped along with some of his "culinary heroes," believes this is an opportunity for him to serve his country with what he does best. Chef Jean-Marie Lacroix, the old-guard French master at the restaurant that still bears his name after his departure, considers it a chance to show the world how far American cuisine has evolved.

  "HELL'S KITCHEN" Season 10 champ Christina Wilson knows the secret to winning a reality-TV competition. The secret is simple. And it's not in the sauce. Last spring, Wilson, 32, temporarily left her job cooking at popular Center City BYOB Mercato to appear alongside brash chef Gordon Ramsay in "Hell's Kitchen," Fox TV's version of "Top Chef" meets "Survivor. " For weeks, the South Philly resident sautéed, filleted, garnished and groaned among a cast of 18 chef-testants - until, at last, there were two. Then, just one. Her. Monday night, the show's final episode aired.

Camryn Drew Rollins is the newest Phillies fan. The baby girl was born to shortstop Jimmy Rollins and fitness trainer bride Johari Smith Rollins late Sunday night. The little lady weighed in at 5 pounds, 11 ounces. As we mentioned yesterday, Rollins had to leave a charity event Sunday night upon learning that Johari was in labor. He was out of the lineup on paternity leave for Monday's and Tuesday's games against the Washington Nationals. Jimmy and Johari wed in the Grand Cayman Islands in January 2010.

BRAVO CAMERASrolled Monday taping Jennifer Carroll for "Life After Top Chef" as she cooked for family and friends at Meme (22nd & Spruce). Meme chef David Katz let his friend take over his kitchen for a preview tasting of her menu from Concrete Blonde, a restaurant that she is planning to open despite as yet having no location for it. Jon Gosselin, former "Jon & Kate Plus 8" star turned self-described computer geek, and his girlfriend, were...

FILMMAKER M. Night Shyamalan , actor Penn Badgley of "Gossip Girl," actors Seth Green and Terrence Howard , and Boyz II Men singer Nate Morris were among celebrities who turned out Wednesday night at Hotel Palomar for a Virgin America airlines party celebrating its launch in Philadelphia. Virgin's chief, Sir Richard Branson , was also at the party and introduced DJ Jazzy Jeff , who spun as Mayor Nutter and wife Lisa danced it up on the floor.

BRAVO CAMERAS have been following former "Top Chef" contestant and fan favorite Jennifer Carroll around town. Carroll, a Daily News "Sexy Single," was recently captured having a girls'-night dinner at Sbraga (Broad & Pine), which "Top Chef" winner Kevin Sbraga opened last year. We're told the Bravo crew is shooting a new series that follows a handful of "Top Chef" contestants as they try to open restaurants, which Carroll, who spent several years at 10 Arts by Eric Ripert at the Ritz-Carlton, is now working on. She's scouting locations for a spot called Concrete Blonde, which she has described as a play on her hard-edged personality and blond hair and also a tribute to the alternative-rock band by the same name.