Alligator alfredo, anyone?

It wasn't the Iron Chef challenge, but the Titanium Chef had true celebrity.

By LAURA REILEY
Published May 18, 2007

Celebrity chef Robert Irvine, the chef on Food Network's "Dinner Impossible" show, creates dishes during his Titanium Chef Challenge at the first Tampa Bay Wine and Food Festival.
	[Times photo: Scott Keeler]

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Scott Keeler] Tim Gannon (left), co-founder of Outback Steakhouse Restaurant, and Damian Carrabba, co-founder of Carrabba's Italian Grill, prepare various dishes Thursday night at the Don Cesar Beach Resort during the Robert Irvine Titanium Chef Challenge.

He let loose with a wild, "What's new Pussycat, whoa, whoa, whoooaa." Certainly Burt Bacharach never suspected those lyrics would be a call to culinary action - or a taunt to fellow chefs.

Robert Irvine stood Thursday in a ballroom at the Don CeSar Beach Resort, stirring his onions, which were sweating beautifully. Textbook onions, really, and he was sweating hardly at all.

It was Titanium Chef, and Irvine embodied the true celebrity part of the Iron Chef-like challenge, the dynamic overture in the first-ever Tampa Bay Wine and Food festival. Star of the Food Network's Dinner Impossible, Irvine was pitted against Outback co-founder Tim Gannon and Carrabba's co-founder Damian Mandola. This duo had minions to spare - all of them eager in crisp black pants, chef whites and slick red caps.

Irvine, on the other hand, dressed in his signature black T-shirt and a surfeit of muscles, had only a couple able-bodied culinarians to carry out his bidding.

The challenge: gator.

What better way to show off the Gulf Coast's bounty as these three chefs got into it, cutting meat into strips, dredging, setting pots on to boil, some with pears in red wine, others containing browning bacon or black-eyed peas?

None of it escaped the eagle eye of original Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, who paced, heckled and whipped up the crowd. Local set designer Shannon Dworsky reconfigured the ballroom into a sleek, contemporary cooking showcase - all this, as she says, "without ever having watched Iron Chef."

Hundreds of gastronomic junkies crowded in, at $250 a pop, to support local charity Abilities Foundation. Orchestrated by distributor Southern Wine and Spirits, it looked like the real thing with Morimoto and two other judges weighing in.

Irvine made plantain and alligator stew in red wine, white and dark chocolate gator mousse, gator alfredo and three other dishes.

Still, at night's end, it was a tie.

Irvine, who is opening two restaurants in downtown St. Petersburg, said "I'm a big believer in giving back to the community. ... The renaissance of downtown St. Petersburg is very exciting, and I wanted to be at the forefront of that."

If you go:

Tampa Bay Wine and Food Festival

- The festival will continue through Saturday at the Don CeSar with seminars, tastings and a five-course black-tie gala.

- Tickets and a complete schedule of events: www. tampabaywineandfood festival.com or call (727) 538-7370, ext. 345.

[Last modified May 18, 2007, 00:27:17]