In the Top Chef universe, food isn't the only thing capable of spoiling. 

It turns out that an in-the-know source that prematurely named New Yorker Ilan Hall as the winner of the second season of Bravo's unscripted culinary competition was correct and did, in fact, take the pizza out of the oven before it was done. 

(That's let the cat out of the bag, in foodie speak.) 

Hall, 24, was named Top Chef during Wednesday night's pre-taped finale, two days after series sponsor Food & Wine magazine published a story online identifying the New York line cook as the last chef standing, a gaffe noticed by the inquiring palates at the restaurant/nightlife blog Eater LA. 

F&W only spilled the beans for about 15 minutes Monday afternoon before taking down the article, entitled "Bravo's New Top Chef Tells All," according to Eater LA.  

The site also reported that Hall's MySpace page had been featuring the Scrappy tune "Money in the Bank" for the past few weeks. Meanwhile, New York-based restaurant blog Snack said that Hall had left Casa Mono, the Mario Batali-owned establishment he had been employed at, on Jan. 23, the day before part one of the two-part Top Chef finale was televised. 

On Tuesday, interviews with both finalists, Hall and 26-year-old Marcel Vigneron, were posted on foodandwine.com. 

"Yesterday, an intrepid reality TV fan found a Top Chef story on Food & Wine's server," read a statement on the magazine's Website. "Food & Wine prepared profiles of both Top Chef finalists in advance of the last episode so that we had a story on the winner ready to publish immediately after the season finale." 

So, according to the epicurean glossy, catching an early glimpse of Hall's profile didn't mean anything.

"Watch Top Chef on Wednesday, January 31 at 10PM EST to find out the real winner," the site teased. 

Well, now that we know the truth… 

The bespectacled Hall, an upstate New York native who has only been cooking professionally for three years, beat out 14 other aspiring Wolfgangs, Emerils and Julias to claim the title of Top Chef, along with $100,000 in cash, a spread in F&W and a trip to the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. 

Four chefs made it to the two-part season finale in Hawaii, where each was asked to prepare two Polynesian dishes for a luau, attended (and scrutinized) by judges Tom Collichio and Gail Simmons and host Padma Lakshmi.  

Elia Aboumrad, 23, and Sam Talbot, 28, were told to "pack your knives and go" after round one, leaving Vigneron, he of the sideburns, and Hall to go toque to toque for the title. 

They were asked to prepare "their best meals ever" using local Aloha State ingredients, found at a rather scrumptious-looking farmers market.

For starters, Vigneron prepared a sea urchin-based appetizer that had "a lot going on in one mouthful," Lakshmi, who mentally handed round one to Marcel, said. The Las Vegas resident followed with a delicate salad that wilted a bit in the island humidity. Next up was hearts of palm and sea beans, drizzled with kaffir lime and coconut sauce.  

"I wanted to lick the bowl," Lakshmi wrote in her blog featured on the series' Website.

Nothing sounded, or tasted, wrong with North Shore grilled strip loin or chocolate mousse topped with coffee caviar for dessert, either, but such adventurousness wasn't enough to overtake Hall in the judges' eyes. 

Hall came up with a first course of bruschetta topped with eel and green tomato seeds, followed by a pan-seared fillet of moi (a local fish) with macadamia nut gazpacho, squab with shrimp in lobster sauce, beef short ribs and, finally, cherry sorbet served with Hawaiian fruits. 

"They both have the passion and drive to be successful in whatever they now decide to do," Simmons, who's in charge of special projects at Food & Wine and oversees the Aspen festival, said when all dishes had been tasted and belt buckles loosened. 

"But at that meal, Ilan’s food reflected not just a capable hand, but also the ability to direct a team in creating the exact meal he envisioned from the start. It was consistent, considerate and, above all else, really fun to eat. After all, isn’t that what it’s all about?"

Top Chef is brought to you by the competition-minded producers who fashioned Project Runway. Their latest brainchild is the interior decorator throwdown Top Design, which premieres Wednesday at 11 p.m. on Bravo.