Another Bravo cooking-competition show in the works: ‘Rocco’s Dinner Party’

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Guess who’s coming to dinner ... again. Chef Rocco DiSpirito is putting a new but familiar wrinkle in his oft-maligned career as chef-lebrity. The Bertolli spokesman/cookbook author/’Dancing With the Stars’ contestant is developing his own Bravo television series: ‘Rocco’s Dinner Party.’

DiSpirito, once-acclaimed chef of Union Pacific in New York, also starred in A&E’s ‘Rocco Gets Real,’ in which he helped ‘real people in their own homes get over their fear of cooking.’ He infamously appeared on NBC’s ‘The Restaurant,’ which resulted in a legal fight between him and restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow. And then there’s the odd Bertolli-sponsored Web series ‘Into the Heart of Italy’: He, Marisa Tomei and Dan Cortese (whom you may or may not remember as the host of ‘MTV Sports’ in the mid-’90s) tour Italy in pursuit of the delicious. DiSpirito’s latest book, ‘Now Eat This: 150 of America’s Fave Comfort Food All Under 350 Calories,’ hit the No. 1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list.

‘Rocco’s Dinner Party’ pits four contestants against one another to ultimately come up with a dinner-party menu approved by DiSpirito and his guests. The winner gets cash. DiSpirito gets a producer title.

-- Betty Hallock