Top Chef Winner:

A plan was hatched. The moment his name was announced, they'd jump-tackle him onstage, ruffle his Mohawk on live television. That's how sure the other contestants were that Dale Levitski would win "Top Chef." Levitski would accept the $100,000 -- money that would help launch his downtown Chicago restaurant, his dream restaurant, an upscale diner called Town & Country.

It was written in stone. Levitski sailed through auditions for the Bravo cooking competition on charm, and through 14 episodes on ability. His pedigree was golden: Deleece, Blackbird, and head chef at La Tache and the acclaimed Trio Atelier.

Then the host announced the winner, and it was someone else. Second place wins nothing, and Levitski came home with $50, all he had. The months dragged, and Town & Country drifted from his grasp. With no income, he was evicted from his apartment. Then came word about his mother: Doctors found a lump in her breast. The depression came, the weight packed on, he alienated his closest friends. How did it go wrong for a chef on the verge of becoming the next Rick Bayless or Charlie Trotter?

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Henry Adaniya found his man in a sandwich.

The owner of Evanston's Trio was looking to replace Grant Achatz, who was leaving to open Alinea, the Lincoln Park restaurant that would be named best in America. Adaniya was rebranding Trio as Trio Atelier, a more casual, bistro version of its avant-garde former self.

It was 2004, and Adaniya found him at La Tache, the Andersonville bistro where Levitski was chef.

In his croque monsieur, Adaniya saw a revelation.

"Dale saw something in food that most people don't -- this emotional factor that food can have," Adaniya said. "That croque monsieur hit me right (on) the breastbone."

In Levitski's hands, the classic French sandwich became a playful interpretation -- rosemary ham, with aged Cheddar inside and outside the bread, cooked in a way that one can't tell when the crisp halo of cheese stopped and the sandwich started.

"That was why I hired him," Adaniya said.

For 18 months at Trio Atelier, Levitski cooked the best food of his life. Tribune restaurant critic Phil Vettel awarded him three stars, writing "Levitski has risen to the challenge."

But in January 2006, Adaniya gathered his staff and announced the restaurant would close after 12 years.

"I cried," Levitski said. "The day the doors to Trio shut, something in me shut down."

Levitski moved on with an ambitious concept in mind: a 200-seat, breakfast-to-dinner diner downtown called Town & Country.

Around that time, Levitski found himself yelling at the TV whenever "Top Chef" aired. He was also coming out of a painful breakup with his boyfriend. Motivated to move past the relationship, he told himself: "I could out-cook anyone on this show."

He almost did. He was cast in the show's third season, in 2007, then strode past the field into the show's final three. After cooking four courses in the finale (including a poached Colorado lamb with eggplant puree that stunned judges), Levitski thought he'd won.

The host announced the winner's name, and it was ... someone else.

Levitski didn't care as much about the "Top Chef" title. He needed the money to stay afloat. This is one of the falsehoods of the culinary world, that chefs rake in the money. Even in the whitest of white tablecloth restaurants, the size of the kitchen staff means chefs are paid menial wages -- a $25,000-a-year salary for a cook would be generous.

So his savings evaporated, and the kind landlord who let Levitski go six months without paying rent couldn't afford to let him stay anymore. After months of couch-crashing, he moved in with Sara Nguyen, a fellow "Top Chef" contestant who became Levitski's closest friend. She moved to Chicago to work for him.

The economy then began to tank, and Levitski couldn't raise the $4 million necessary for Town & Country. Six-months-until-opening turned into 18 months. This demoralized Levitski. But he felt most guilty for dragging Nguyen into his morass.

For all the good the reality show had done, it transformed his identity from chef into TV persona. Levitski heard it from fans: "You should've won," not, "You're a great cook." This reinforced the pity party he threw for himself.

He served tables for a while at Sola, working for chef Carol Wallack, his mentor from Deleece. Curious onlookers snapped pictures as Levitski served Diet Cokes.

One lady told Levitski: "I thought this show would help your career."

His sense of embarrassment fed his atrophy. Levitski -- the chef who used to dance to Madonna songs with his cooks -- disappeared from the world.

"It was months," sister Karin Levitski said. "There was no way of getting a hold of him, and you just sort of give up."

There were days, Nguyen said, when Levitski stayed in bed and refused to leave his room. He fed himself a Tombstone frozen pizza a day and gained 20 pounds. He drank. He kept his phone off. He could recite plotlines from "All My Children" and "One Life to Live."

In June came his lowest point: His mother's breast cancer, diagnosed soon after "Top Chef" ended, became terminal. Joan Levitski, who worked at a Dominick's bakery in Des Plaines, had been the source of his cooking talent and dry humor.

"That's when I was really alone," Levitski said. "The restaurant's not working out, my mom's dying, I moved one of my best friends from New York -- there was nothing positive in my life."

His mother's burial took place on a rain-soaked Friday in October; her memorial service the next day was gloriously sunny. The pain of watching his mother's last months, when cancer ravaged her brain, lifted.

"I was very proud and happy the day of my mom's funeral. I had no regrets with her," he said. "Now it was my turn to move on."

Levitski began calling everyone important in his life.

He called Adaniya, his old boss at Trio.

"That day," Adaniya said, "he went from a boy to a man."

He called Wallack, his old boss at Deleece and Sola.

"The day he called me," she said, "Dale was back."

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In Lincoln Park, restaurateur Mike Causevic was scrambling to open his organic restaurant, Sprout. His first chef wanted to serve a $120 veal filet mignon. Two successors didn't work out either.

Then the general manager he had hired, Tofer Kristofer, remembered Levitski.

Within 45 minutes of walking into the Sprout space, and five days after his mother's funeral, Levitski agreed to become its new head chef. He called Nguyen, who screamed on the phone and ran in circles around their apartment.

"The one thing my mom wanted to see before she died was me open a restaurant," said the 36-year-old Levitski. "I think she gave this to me."

Just its name, Sprout -- the symbolism is not lost on those closest to him.

"He did a 180 once the restaurant fell into his lap," Nguyen said. "He's the guy I met on the show."

Two days after Levitski signed the contract, he and Nguyen were splayed on their living room couch, their noses buried in every cookbook they owned. They settled into a food-film marathon, from "Ratatouille" to "Mostly Martha." The Sprout menu came together in a few hours -- three years of creativity gushed out.

It was a Dale's Greatest Hits of dishes: a braised beef short rib with dumplings made from truffle flour. Lamb poached in duck fat, with tomatoes, capers, white anchovies, and bread cubes that soaked up the pan sauce and exploded in the mouth.

A new take on his croque monsieur was back.

Sprout, version 4.0, opened a few weeks later -- Friday the 13th of November -- under executive chef Dale Levitski and sous chef Sara Nguyen. On opening night, the two were served court papers for owing back rent.

"We were in such a good mood, we started laughing," Levitski said. (They've since paid it off.)

One afternoon, Levitski sat at the bar, inspected a head of Romanesco broccoli, signed delivery orders and surveyed the room around him. He wore a Town & Country T-shirt he'd had made years ago.

This 35-seat restaurant wasn't Town & Country, nor Trio. It didn't have the glaring lights of the "Top Chef" kitchen. But it's enough of a start.

So why would he still wear that shirt?

"It's a reminder that dreams are always a work in progress."