Previously on “Top Chef”: there was a very weird Quickfire involving water conservation? I guess? Which Buddha won because of course he did. And then everyone got into pairs to make wellingtons, three different kinds. It makes sense. Buddha won again, but it was nice in that Gabri was his partner and Gabri has been in the bottom a lot. Sara and Amar had the best collection of flavors, but their lamb was straight-up raw so they were eliminated. (click for more)
In Last Chance Kitchen, Sara, Amar, and Charbel had to make meat pies, but also hand grind the meat for whatever reason. Amar's pastry was too thin, so he was eliminated sadly. BTW Sara made a gumbo pot pie which someone here needs to get on immediately. Then Sara and Charbel battled with three dishes each but of course we don't know who won.
Ali works out so we can all get some eye candy. Tom comes into Gabri's room, asks “Did you just make your bed?” then immediately jumps on it and throws all the pillows on the floor. They talk about who is coming back from Last Chance Kitchen but like, Tom thinks Dale might be back. In the car Buddha talks about his dad being a chef and he's been cooking since he was twelve. It's the last week in London.
In the kitchen there is a lovely display of jellies. Jell-o molds. In many colors. I wonder if any of them are savory? Sara won LCK! I really like Charbel but I also like Sara. Maybe we will see more from Charbel somewhere. Sara is very glad to be back.
The Quickfire involves Sam Bompas, who comes out in a blue blazer and pink chef pants with like, blue squiggly lines? I don't know. The key is to have “a little quiver” in your jelly. No hockey pucks and no soupy mess. It must be a dessert (cowards) and it must use a mold. But Padma says while they have to use a mold, “you don't necessarily have to use the mold for the jelly”. So the way they'll do this is they have 30 minutes to work, then they set for an hour, then 15 minutes to de-mold and plate. Buddha interviews that there's no way to set a jelly in an hour in a mold, so time for strategery. Winner gets an advantage in the Elimination challenge.
So there are some small molds, which I think can set in an hour. Sara says in confessional that Tom and Buddha are probably dying right now because they love this shit. Buddha does love molds but not in an hour. He says he's going to mold ice cream in the mold but put jelly in a cup. That's what Padma meant. Much panna cotta happening. Buddha has orange blossom, and Gabri has dulce de leche, and Tom has goat cheese panna cotta. You will not be surprised to hear Tom likes goat cheese panna cotta because it looks like vanilla and so it pranks people. He then says that he wanted to either be a chef or a clown, and he went to clown school and it wasn't what he thought? Maybe German clowns are different? Sara tells everyone about the time she served a Jell-o shot to Padma in a challenge and it was bad. Gabri is making sponge cake in the microwave? I think everyone gets their stuff in the blast chiller. Sara has decided to use the hour to tell the boys about LCK which makes me smile for some reason.
After the hour, everyone tears back into the kitchen to hope their stuff set. Gabri's didn't though, but what to do? Tom adds popcorn to his plate. Buddha asks him what he's doing (I am sure producer-prompted) and Tom immediately says “None of your fucking business” as if Buddha is going to copy him in the next five minutes. Gabri has just put the non-set panna cotta on the plate with torn up cake on top. He knows it's bad.
Gabri: dulce de leche panna cotta, strawberry raspberry coulis, and mint. Ali: dark chocolate cremeux, black currant sauce, and pistachio crumble. Tom: goat cheese panna cotta, cherry jelly, beetroot discs, curry popcorn, cider gel. Buddha: “orange blossom” saffron ice cream with orange blossom jelly and panna cotta. Sara: layered buttermilk and strawberry jelly with fresh berries, ginger, and pecans.
Obviously Gabri failed at the mold part, although he had good flavors. Tom had ambition but the flavors didn't go together. Ali had a wonderful flavor and his dish never got boring. Sara managed to get layers in her molded jelly. Buddha was smart about how to use the mold, and he had a classic flavor combination. The winner is Buddha. Again. Listen I'm sure he deserves it but it's also boring?
It's the last challenge before they head to Paris. Padma starts talking about fashionable people, and then mentions tromp l'oeil ceramics. So in art I've usually seen “tromp l'oeil” used to describe making something look 3D on a 2D surface, like putting print on your dress to look like a belt, but it's just painted on. So the ceramics specifically appear to be making dishes that looks like stuff. A bunch of asparagus or a chicken or whatever. Padma says the phrase means to fool the eye. The challenge is to make a tromp l'oeil dish. Sara has no idea what to do, even though Buddha is explaining it to her. Padma says they can either make a dish that looks like one thing but tastes like something else, or they can do an “Is It Cake?” situation where the food looks like a non-food item. Buddha and Tom look like their dreams came true. Three hours to cook, and Padma has lots of molds for them to use. Guest judge is Jeremy Chan, who creates stunning dishes, but I really think they should have gotten Heston. Heston Blumenthal has made a name for himself doing exactly this kind of crazy shit. A tangerine that is really pate. Savory popsicles. This is the guy who has a seafood dish that is served with a conch shell, and there are earbuds sticking out, so you can listen to ocean sounds while you eat the seafood. It's 1000% stupid and yet I need it. Anyway, that's who should be here. Buddha will get 30 extra minutes to cook.
Ali doesn't do tricks but he always “manipulates the eye”. This kind of thing takes forever to come up with and he has to do it on the car ride to Whole Foods. Gabri is going to make a sponge. He says he's making “a Scotch-Brite” but doesn't remember the word “sponge” and Buddha and Sara are like “...no I have no idea”. He says on his season they had this challenge, only as a Quickfire. He did an ocean scene? That tasted like orange? Sure. His first kitchen job was as a dishwasher and he remembers where he came from. Aww. You will not be shocked Buddha has a plan to make a charcuterie board. He says going home would be a nightmare but he's not planning on that.
Shopping involves Gabri calling Tom a bitch and saying something is parsley and not cilantro. Sara has decided to make a tamale that tastes like matzo ball soup. She's out of her depth. Ali is kind of wandering around and hoping something inspires him. Tom is doing a caviar thing where you make spheres out of whatever. Ali eventually says something about something that tastes like falafel but looks like...something...I can't figure out what he said but I suppose we'll find out.
The contestants go out to dinner and chit chat about their favorite challenges. You can tell they get along and it's nice they let them hang out, even if they filmed it for content.
They go to a very fancy palace to cook. It's one of those British things where it's clearly a palace but it's called “Hatfield House” like it's just a house. Everyone shows up to cook and I thought Buddha had extra time? Is he getting that time at the end? Gabri describes his dish and a random butterfly gets in the shot. I don't know what's going on any more.
Ali says the phrase “Middle Eastern parfait” which is going to look like a garden. Tom is making caviar out of seaweed, which is a common thing now? He says this will look like caviar and taste like caviar. But then they'll all just think it's caviar? Buddha steals Heston's idea and makes pork rillette that will look like a cherry. He's got several dishes because he's extra. Sara asks Gabri what they should do in Paris since neither of them has been there before. Gabri says “French kiss with some random guys”. You can practically hear Sara's eye roll. Hee. Sara has some molds but she kind of doesn't like them? But everyone else is doing it? She's also rolling her “tamales” in banana leaves. The molds are dumb, she thinks, but she has to elevate the dish somehow. Ali molds falafel into turtle shapes. He says he hates turtles but if he makes the finale, he's going to buy a turtle and name it Amar. Hee. Gabri has made a whole loaf of bread, which he's cut into blocks, hollowed out with stuff inside, and then greens on top for the green scrubby part of a kitchen sponge.
The judges arrive and discuss how hard it is to make these types of dishes. Usually lots of trial and error. Sara is up first. Her plates are some cubed vegetables, a roll of something in a banana leaf, and then some other thing, and the broth. The judges straight up talk about it in front of her, speculating on how it's clearly going to be matzo ball soup, but what is it supposed to be? Sushi? Bone marrow? Someone does say tamal eventually. She asks them to unwrap the banana leaf and pour the broth over the jelly, which are molded leaves and stuff. Sara: duck fat matzo ball soup, poached chicken, apple and bone marrow salsa with herbs. Tom looks pissed. One of the other judges calls him out on exchanging a look with Gail where they have had a whole conversation. It's good, but the jelly things are just there and don't have anything to do with anything. They do like the flavors, I think they just aren't impressed with gels and whatever.
Gabri has some foam stuff in one of those canisters, and when he goes to put it on the plates, it splatters everywhere. He just decides it works with his sponge concept and does that to all the plates. Gabri: lemon brioche with lamb tartare, macadamia and Parmesan foam. It takes them a minute to be like “OOHHHH a dirty plate and a sponge” but it's clever and it tastes pretty good. Tom wishes it was a little more perfect but I think overall it's gone well. It really did look like those yellow sponges with the green plastic scrubbing side.
Ali's dish is a salad with little turtles like croutons. I know it's supposed to be a garden but he hasn't made tiny plants or anything, so it just reads as salad to me. It's pretty though. Ali: falafel, sumac mousse, chickpeas, quinoa mousse, herbs, and breadcrumbs soil. There are layers of things. It's very busy, and the bottom layer is breadcrumbs and herbs without any kind of sauce so it's dry. Tom is bored. He wanted to pull leaves out of the bowl and have the vegetables come up too, not just the bottom of the cut leaves. It's “inspired by” a garden but it doesn't particularly fool anyone.
Tom is making “sand” out of something. The dishes look like sand, with a tin of caviar in it. It's just the seaweed caviar in a ring mold, but it does look like a can. There are shells and other things, and Tom says it's caviar on the beach. Padma asks if he often eats caviar on the beach, and Tom is all “totally we do it all the time”. Sure. Tom: seaweed and fish stock caviar, almond cream, and seaweed salad. The “sand” is of course dry, but Gail loves that it's very fancy but made from seaweed. Sadly it takes so many chemicals to make the pearls they don't taste very good and they're gummy. Tom doesn't like the almond cream. Padma brings up what I did, which is that real caviar is salty and briny, and Tom made “caviar” that was...salty and briny.
So Buddha is extremely extra as you know. He serves a whole plate with two cherries, a jar of something topped with a whole truffle, some bread in a dish(?) on top of crumpled paper, another bowl of something, and the bread is on top of a wood round, and then a glass of red wine. Nothing is whatever it is supposed to be and everyone knows it. Buddha: “What's for Dinner?”: beef and onion “red wine”, bread “porcini”, polpette “cherries”, and potato croquette “black truffle”. The other little bowl has an olive that is goat cheese and squid ink. The bread is supposed to look like a mushroom and “polpette” is basically meatballs. It looks like a still life and nothing tastes like what it looks like. And it tastes good. In terms of the whole dinner, it's a good dinner but some dishes are maybe over complicated.
Judges' Table. Gabri and Buddha are the best and are moving on. Buddha says his theme was “medieval times” which doesn't makes sense? But sure. It looked like a painting and they all loved the “red wine”. Gabri talks about starting as a dishwasher and they liked that it did look like something else. The messy plates worked out in this instance. The winner is Buddha. I mean...fine but also comparing all the dishes he did the best.
Tom admits he has had this dish in his head for a while but he's never made it before. It looked the way he wanted it to, but it didn't taste different enough from what it looked like. Colicchio hated the almond cream. Sara admits this was hard because this isn't her thing. It tasted great, but creatively it was too boring and the jellies were pointless. Ali talks about a garden and how the breadcrumbs were supposed to be eaten with everything. But they weren't seasoned, and then Tom is mad about the cut up vegetables and how quinoa doesn't look like soil.
Gail says that Sara's dish was boring but was the best tasting out of the bottom three. Ali's dish had flavor (other than the breadcrumbs), but he didn't manipulate anything. Tom got the illusion part down but then it tasted like actual caviar. Tom overshot the trickery and Ali undershot.
Everyone overthought and didn't follow through. Or at least these three. Tom is sent home. He's happy he was on this season but he's sad to go at this point. He loves cooking and it's the best job in the world. Honestly I will always respect the time he didn't like the Quickfire so he just said “fuck this” and made whatever.
The final four toast with champagne and celebrate. Everyone does interviews about how great they are while holding their champagne. Sara for some reason runs down a pathway
Next week: that challenge where they get loved ones to get shouted instructions to make something, and then everyone pretends not to recognize their spouses' voices (if this is the case, Buddha probably wins again because isn't his wife a chef?), some other nonsense I am sure.
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