Wednesday’s Top Chef kept up with this season’s theme of doing things just a little bit differently. The Quickfire was held at Le Bernardin, and Padma was oddly absent. Anthony Bourdain administered the challenge: to butcher one cod and one fluke in ten minutes, and to match the caliber of Le Bernardin’s master butcher, Justo Thomas. Fabio, Carla, Antonia, and Tiffany ended up in the bottom, which my sister would point out is sexist, as two women got eliminated last week, and all three female chefs left were in the bottom this time.
The top four chefs—Dale, Richard, Mike, and Marcel—then had 45 minutes to make a dish using the leftover parts of the fish (skeletons, heads, organs, etc…) Dale claimed to be an expert at this sort of thing, since his family did “nose-to-tail cooking before it was even cool.” He ended up winning, since Bourdain admired his use of fish liver.
Padma and guest judge Ludo Lefebvre waited in the Top Chef kitchen to administer the Elimination Challenge: Restaurant Wars! This is the earliest RW has come in a season, with ten cheftestants left, a far cry away from the six that participated in seasons one, two, and four. As winner of the Quickfire, Dale was a team captain and got to pick his opposing captain. Naturally, he chose the single person he did not want to work with—Marcel. The teams turned out to be Marcel, Angelo, Mike, Antonia and Tiffany versus Dale, Blais, Tre, Fabio, and Carla. (It’s also important to note that three of the last four cheftestants picked were the women.) Finally, Padma revealed that for the first time the diners would select the winning team, and everyone suddenly got really excited.
Tiffany decided to work the front of the house, mostly because her team forced her, and she lamented that FOH people are usually sent home. Forebodingly, no one on Marcel’s team would listen to him, and they settled on the name “Etch” for their Mediterranean-inspired restaurant.
Dale’s team went with the name “Bodega,” as it refers to a rustic wine shop, but their menu was all plays on American classics—tuna in a can, blueberry pie, and pork shoulder. Fabio took FOH duties, kissing customers as they left and patting his servers on the cheek. And, in the most momentous event this season, Fabio did not mention in this entire episode that he is Italian! (Place historical marker here.)
We heard many more comments from the diners during service, as they got to vote for the winning restaurant, and upon hearing what they had to say, it became evident that Top Chef fans are pretentious foodists who have no real opinions and just throw in buzzwords about food seem smarter. (I would include these recaps and myself in such a category.) Anthony Bourdain is the only one who made any real assertions when he called Marcel’s peach dessert “A perfect storm of [expletive] awfulness.”
Team Etch was called into judging first, just to throw everyone off, since it was obvious that they lost with their bad service, trite concept, and inconsistent food. Blais sat in the stew room thinking his team had lost, and became a nervous wreck over it, but by the time team Bodega went into judging, Blais was praised for his raw Tuna in a can, potato chips, and overall influence on the playful menu, as he was declared the winner (and got $10,000 for it).
Everyone on team Etch had a major infraction; Antonia’s gnudi were too salty; Angelo’s crudo was boring; Marcel’s dessert, monkfish, and leadership were appalling; Mike’s lamb was undercooked and his pork belly under-seasoned; and Tiffany provided bad service and bland asparagus. Ultimately, it came down to Marcel or Tiffany, and one would have to think that the judges (and producers) could not let another female chef go home, so Marcel was sent packing. No one was sad to see him go, since he hasn’t seemed to mature at all in the four years since he first appeared on the show. Side note: With Marcel gone, the average height of the chefs was raised a few inches.
