ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Thursday night, local foodies were treated to the sight of David Benstock, owner and executive chef of favorite upscale St. Pete Italian eatery Il Ritorno, besting veteran celebrity chef Bobby Flay on a Food Network cooking competition program that bears Flay’s name.

Benstock appeared on the popular cable network show “Beat Bobby Flay,” and did just that after his first-round victory over chef and author (and fellow apprentice to culinary legend Scott Conant) Nicole Karr. 

“One day all of a sudden I got a bunch of messages in my email and social media feeds asking if I wanted to be part of the show,” says Benstock during a phone call from home, where he’s nursing a broken fibula sustained while skateboarding with his kids. “At first I kind of ignored it because I went through the process for another show and it turned into a dead end, but a couple of days later they messaged me again, so I woke up one morning and decided to give it a shot.”

Benstock went through the casting and interview process, and was chosen to be a contestant; his episode was filmed way back in October 2019, but production and scheduling woes due to the COVID pandemic saw the show pushed back more than a year and a half. In fact, he was as surprised as many in-the-know Bay area fans to learn last week’s air date.

“It was supposed to air like eight or nine months ago,” he says. “I didn’t even know it was going to air until three or four weeks before.”

The food theme of Benstock’s episode was Italian, naturally, and the dish that brought him the win was a take on short rib mezzaluna—a dish familiar to and revered by many Il Ritorno regulars, though the version he prepared for “Beat Bobby Flay” wasn’t exactly the same as the local menu favorite.

“We did it a little bit different,” says Benstock. “We did it with a charred shishito [pepper] fonduta. I wanted to throw in a little of Bobby’s flair in there, the southwestern thing.”

(The winning twist on the dish is currently on the menu at Il Ritorno for a limited time.)

The St. Pete chef is proud that he was able to bring his own unique take on Italian to the prep table, and score a victory without culinary compromise.

“I stayed true to myself, making sure that everything was balanced, texturally balanced with pops of flavor, pops of brightness,” he says. “At one point [competition judge] Anne Burrell said I should be putting ricotta in my filling, but I just completely ignored her on that. It made me kind of nervous, but that’s just not the way I do it.

“If I’d done it that way and lost, I definitely wouldn’t have been happy.”