Hosea Rosenberg wins 'Top Chef'

February 26, 1:31 AMTop Chef ExaminerMatt Wolf

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Boulder, Colorado! Represent!

"I think it's a coin flip, I really do. I do not see Hosea posing any kind of a threat." - The idiot Matt Wolf, February 24, 2009

"During his tenure at Jax, he has won numberous awards including Best Chef at the Denver International Wine Festival (2006, 2007) and is the seven-time, undefeated winner of the Flatiron Chef Competition." - Bravo's "Top Chef" bio of Hosea Rosenberg

I remember reading that bio before the season started, and I remember thinking, "that dude Hosea is probably a wily competitor, it seems like all he does is win cooking competitions." And you know what, now I kind of feel bad about rooting for Carla... I went to school in Boulder, for crying out loud. I still love going back there every once in awhile, and the last time I was there, back in January, I actually went to Hosea's restaurant, Jax Fish House. It's an excellent restaurant, I sampled a lot of different things, the scallops were a standout. Hosea wasn't there that night, he was off filming the finale. So I've known since January that he at least made it to New Orleans, but I never thought that he had a chance to win. 

Carla's obviously going to get beat up across the food blogs; you're not going to read any of that here. She knows what she did wrong. It was painful watching her allow Casey Thompson take control of her menu with a sous-vide steak and bleu-cheese souffle. Carla brought the flava in the last month of the show, and had she cooked more of her own food, like her Seared Red Snapper dish, she may have had a chance. We'll never know.

Aside from providing the greatest line of the season, and quite possibly the greatest line ever on "Top Chef," (more on that later), Stefan adjusted brilliantly to the finale's curveball, a series of events that concluded with his arch-nemesis Hosea saddling him with the task of cooking alligator. His appetizer course of Alligator Soup with Celeriac wowed the judges, but his follow-up, a minor disaster involving carpaccio cut from previously frozen halibut, impressed only Toby Young. Stefan's main course, a Pan Squab with Braised Red Cabbage, was universally regarded as the best dish of the night. His dessert, a plate straight out of 1982 filled with chocolate and raspberry, was a bizarre choice. Had Stefan cooked a different dessert, he probably would have won.

That leaves Hosea, who was probably not Season 5's best chef, but he was undoubtedly its best competitor. Hosea's cool under fire was evident all season long, perhaps never more so than in the Christmas episode when his roasted pork spoiled overnight and he just laughed about it and went on to win the episode. Hosea's menu began with the night's best appetizer, a Blackened Redfish with Corn Cake, and moved on to the two dishes that put him over the top - Seared Scallops with Foie Gras and a Venison Loin with Celery Root Puree. In the end, only Toby Young argued Stefan's case, and other than that, the choice was unanimous: Hosea was Top Chef.

Now for that line: It was already hilarious enough that Stefan and Marcel, (arguably the two greatest villains in the show's history), were paired together in the kitchen, but when Stefan said, "He's a great chef... a bit of a twat, but who's not?" I almost started rooting for him. "Twat." That is just phenomenal.

Underdog - Sly & The Family Stone