Stephanie Izard proved she was the only one who could stand the heat in the kitchen when she won the title of Top Chef on Thursday night's season four finale of Bravo's Top Chef. Stephanie beat out Richard Blais, and Lisa Fernandes and was the first woman to ever win the competition. She will take home $100,000, and be featured in Food & Wine magazine, along with an assortment of other prizes.For the final leg of the competition, the contestants were asked to cook a four-course tasting menu, with the last course being the ever-challenging dessert. The chefs were presented with three tables of different food and three different acclaimed chefs standing behind each table. The contestants drew knives to see who would get to work with which celebrity chef, and the food that went along with them. Stephanie picked Eric Ripert, Lisa picked April Bloomfield and Richard chose Dan Barber.
Stephanie chose to stick with her traditional clean flavors with lots of fruit. Lisa kept to her strong suit, Asian cuisine, while Richard tried to woo the judges with his gastronomic expertise. Richard added liquid nitrogen to an assortment of his dishes, and he even taught his celebrity judge a thing or two about cooking gastronomically.
