HOPCROFT LATEST LAS VEGAN TO COMPETE FOR ‘TOP CHEF’

Stephen Hopcraft, executive chef at Michael Mina’s Seablue at the MGM Grand, is among the 17 contestants vying in Season 7 of Bravo’s “Top Chef.”

The first episode from Washington, D.C., airs Wednesday, June 16 at 9 p.m.

Making guest appearances will be former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Nancy Pelosi, White House chef Sam Kass, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.), Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), CIA Director Leon Panetta and NBC White House correspondent Savannah Guthrie. Celebrity chef Eric Ripert, who operates the Westend Bistro in the Ritz-Carlton in D.C. will serve as a regular guest judge. There are reports the venues will include a kitchen inside CIA headquarters.

Las Vegas has been well-represented in the previous six seasons of “Top Chefs.” In Season 1, Tiffani Faison was the runner-up. Other top finishers: Season 2, Marcel Vigneron, runner-up; Season 3, Hung Huynh, winner; Season 5, Stefan Richter, co-runner-up and Season 6 was filmed in Las Vegas at the M Resort.

Hopcroft, who has twin daughters, has worked for Mina since the mid-1990s after they met in the San Francisco area.

-- NORM CLARKE, Vegas Confidential