The Top Chef season four finale will air tomorrow night, and picking a winner sure wasn’t easy, Ted Allen told the Buzz at the James Beard Foundation awards. "This year, for the first time when we chose the winner, Tom [Colicchio] suggested as a part of making the decision we do some numerical models. It did help.” Part of the difficulty, he explained, was the quality of the chefs.

"The level of competition is so high, the judges have to split hairs," Allen said, giving the dismissal of Antonia for under-cooked peas in the last episode as an example.

If the judges can’t decide, they can always turn to ZAGAT.com users. When asked in our online poll who should win, 55% of voters chose Stephanie, followed by 40% who chose Richard. Lisa, the dark-horse candidate, received only four percent of the vote.