Top Chef 5/4/23--"Restaurant Wars" summary

 

Previously on “Top Chef”: we had two challenges that in my opinion should have been flipped. The Quickfire was making iconic street food from different countries, which I think would have been a great Elimination challenge. But the Elimination challenge was a product-placement mise en place race and then you had to make something with the mise en place ingredients. Dumb. Anyway, Buddha wins because of course he does, and then his team gets more proteins in the race but they lose to the team without any proteins at all. Tom won for roasted red peppers. The losing team didn't seem to really understand how the dishes were supposed to work (you had three ingredients and you should do one dish featuring each ingredient, not three dishes, each with all three). Charbel just did lamb which was boring, so he was sent home. (click for more)

In Last Chance Kitchen, Charbel and Dale had to make tomatoes three ways, and Charbel beat Dale which makes me glad. I like Dale but I think Charbel went out too soon. Also Sylwia is a great peanut gallery addition.

Sara and Amar tell stories about Charbel, and Ali talks about how young Charbel was (and how young Ali is). Someone says “no one is safe” and Nicole says she's never been in the bottom. So I guess it's her turn.

In the car the next day, Nicole says she was FOH when she was on Restaurant Wars. When everyone gets to the kitchen, Padma is there with Clare Smyth, who has a Michelin star and who also used to work with Buddha. They were both working for Gordon Ramsey at the same time. Half of the chefs are gone now, and it's time for Restaurant Wars. 24 hours to open your restaurant, but they aren't making anyone “build” a restaurant. They're using Clare's restaurant, and while it is very nice no one has to pretend to design anything and get called off the line to set up tables, the biggest part of that is that they are going to use the FOH staff and restaurant director that are already in place. No cater waiters? Everyone can be in the kitchen? They should have been doing this all along. I do love a good FOH disaster, but it is a little unfair to send someone home for not directing brand new servers properly. It turns out Tom and Victoire are the only ones who didn't have Restaurant Wars on their version of the show.

Knife draw for who gets to pick. Victoire picks Tom, and then Buddha gets the next choice and takes Ali. Victoire says Tom is great at cooking vegetables, and Ali does a tasting menu in his restaurant. I guess Victoire and Buddha get to pick everyone, instead of like, Tom and Ali doing next picks. Victoire takes Nicole and Gabri, then Buddha takes Amar (he says Ali and Amar come as a bundle) and he gets Sara. Sara is a little salty to be picked last because she's worked in Michelin-starred kitchens, but whatever. You must make a tasting menu of at least four courses for 50 diners plus the judges. 30 minutes here to plan, and then shopping at both specialty stores and Whole Foods. Prep time today is 5 hours, and Victoire will open her restaurant first. I'm not sure if Buddha's team will go later that same day, or the next day. The winning team will get $40,000.

Buddha's idea (I don't think he and Victoire are in charge, necessarily, but you know Buddha is going to take charge regardless) is for each of them to take a British dish and put their own spin on it. Sara immediately says she doesn't know about British food. They all kind of stare at each other. Tom is pointing out that they have four continents represented, because I guess he has forgotten Canada and Mexico are on the same continent. Maybe each go with their roots? Roots theme? Nicole doesn't necessarily want to use her “roots” of being Chinese, because what she perceives as the root of her cooking is Italian. Victoire loves “Roots” as the theme/name. OK. Concept will be huge this season, because there is no FOH/decor to judge on. It is about the food. Buddha's team has named themselves United Kitchen, which isn't bad. I think Buddha is doing English breakfast, and he's telling Sara about a hot soup with fish she can do. Nicole wants to do pasta, which is very risky, but Tom thinks if anyone can pull it off, she can. It sounds like Root has a menu of vegetable starter, pasta, soup, dessert? Nicole says her pasta is a “primi”. So no main? Buddha tells Ali he should do a Cornish pasty but with his own flavors. No one in United Kitchen wants to do a dessert, so Buddha says he totally can take that on too, it's whatever. Not in a sulky martyr way, but in a “I can make two dishes, what, like it's hard?” way. New this season, because they have established FOH staff, is that they get to pick how the seating works. Do you seat everyone at once? Do two seatings? Root is leaning towards several tables every 15 minutes, with fewer tables in the first round so they can figure out what they are doing. 8 covers to start (Nicole convinces Tom they can handle more than one 2-top and one 4-top). I think United Kitchen is doing two seatings.

Shopping time. Nicole and Gabri are buying proteins, and Tom and Victoire are at a fancy vegetable shop (and then to Whole Foods). Nicole freaks out a little because she wants lobster, and this shop only has frozen lobster, so she needs to get to another market and find fresh. It sounds like the other team has the same specialty shops: Buddha and Sara buying produce and Amar and Ali buying proteins. They do run into each other, because as Sara and Buddha check out, Tom and Victoire are leaving, and then Sara sees a whole basket of things on the floor which aren't theirs. Must belong to Tom and Victoire. Oh, so that's why they put in that clip of Tom talking about how important it is to be organized. That's going to cause some drama. Nicole finds the live lobster she needs.

Everyone is doing their five hours of prep now. I guess they could still be doing service on different days, it just means whoever does service on the second day will have their food sit for another day. I'm not sure if that's an issue? Anyway, United Kitchen (they just started calling it “UK” which is obviously the point) has a menu of full English breakfast, scallop vadouvan, cullen skink, lamb pasty, and strawberries and cream. That sounds great. Cullen skink is a Scottish soup with smoked haddock, potatoes, and onions. Root's menu is leek and chestnut, shellfish tortellini, sea bream huatape, and tiramisu. Plus a sorbet palate cleanser. Huatape is a soup with tomato and chili? Look, all the Google results were in Spanish except one, which might be the only recipe blog ever to NOT have three pages of backstory before the recipe itself. Amar laughs that Nicole is amazing because he'd never do tortellini on Top Chef. Sara's going to wrap leeks around the fish and sous vide them. The fish has to be cooked today so she can slice them day of service. Amar is using a curry, that's his tie to Britain. Victoire's tiramisu is going to have lemongrass, ginger, and what looks like plantains?

Root is realizing they don't have all their stuff. Tom says he totally bought five whole heads of cauliflower for Gabri, but no one can find it. Sara tells him she saw their basket on the floor as they checked out. I wonder if they weren't allowed to pick it up? Right? This is definitely a group of chefs who wouldn't want to win because the other team forgot a basket of produce. I wonder if it wasn't paid for so they couldn't just take it. It was still in the shopping basket, after all, it wasn't like they saw a bunch of grocery bags. Gabri is pissed because he needed that cauliflower. Buddha says “I feel like I am the team leader for this one”, as if he doesn't always do that in a group. You know that unless someone explicitly says someone else is in charge, Buddha takes over. And I bet he's done that when they DO explicitly say someone else in charge. He at least says he's trying to balance everyone's strong personalities. Ali is helping with the dessert.

In the morning, Nicole fills in the rest of Root on UK's concept. You're serving British food to a British chef, which is always risky. The restaurant is gorgeous, small, but in the way you'd call it “intimate”. The space near the bar has plush seats and built-in bookshelves so it looks like a home. The kitchen is lovely and also open to the dining room.

One hour 45 minutes to prep before service. The restaurant director, Rob Rose, comes to introduce himself. Tom tells him the order of courses, which includes sorbet between main course and dessert. Weird. Shouldn't it be between pasta and main? Anyway, Rob asks if the sorbet and the dessert should go on separate tickets, and there is a long shot of Tom thinking before saying “yeah, why not” so I'm sure that will come up later. Gabri is making roasted onion puree now instead of cauliflower, and hoping it will be OK. Nicole unwraps the sheet trays of tortellini to discover the moisture in the filling seeped through and some of them are sticking together or are otherwise messed up. She's kicking herself for not making big fat ravioli and just serving one per guest. The plan is to remake as many tortellini as she can. Victoire has a bunch of work to do, but it sounds cool.

Gabri tries to use a stand mixer, but Nicole says she's using it for the next half hour. He says he needs to make the sorbet, and then Nicole says “Hey are you yelling at me?” Calm down, he didn't even sound that mad. He got louder because he was walking away from you. And he has a point. Nicole tells him to use liquid nitrogen. There is a tray of what looks like ravioli on the counter, so did Nicole remake ALL of her pasta? I thought she was just going to redo the stuff that was messed up? Tom seems to have been chosen as the contact person for all the FOH stuff. He's explaining service to the waiters and the expediter Lynn (oo, no one has to expedite). Nicole says she remade half her “raviolis” and I wish she'd use consistent words. Ravioli and tortellini are different things, and it's not clear if she redid half her pasta, or all her pasta, or some people are getting one big raviolo and some people get several tortellini, or what.

The restaurant opens and people are looking for the thread or theme of the menu. It seems like Tom is working the pass. He says he sent a table of 2 and a table of 4 so “all in all, we need 8”. How does that math work? Whatever. The judges arrive, and Gail is wearing a white tuxedo jacket with black lapels, but as a dress, with black hose, and it's very early 90's supermodel but she looks hot. They get the Chef's Table which is a long table where you all sit on the same side of the table, facing the open kitchen. Padma reveals there's a food critic in the dining room. That makes a lot of sense, since the Chef's Table is not actually in the dining room, so they won't be able to watch service. Gail knows the judges don't get the same service as everyone else.

When Tom says he's going to the judges with his course, Nicole gets annoyed because he doesn't say he's going with the app, just that he's going. You can hear Tom say “OMG” or something. Tom: “The Leek and The Chestnut”--confit leek with leek veloute, and black garlic chestnut puree. Tom acts like they don't have an executive chef. Well, really Gail asks if they picked one, and he says something like “we're all working together”, which means “no”. It is delicious and well cooked.

Out of nowhere Lynn is saying they have 18 pasta on deck, which seems way too high. Are people eating the appetizer too quickly or is Nicole that far behind already? Nicole's opinion is that this is all Tom's fault, because somehow he didn't push out dishes in the beginning to clear out the first guests. Maybe but that doesn't explain why they're all hung up on your course and no one else seems to be behind. Tom reveals that Nicole didn't want to make more than 6 pasta dishes at a time, so there's your problem. Nicole: shellfish tortellini—lobster, king prawn, and vermouth beurre blanc. So I guess it's all tortellini. The flavor was good but the pasta itself isn't perfect. It's more like a dumpling.

Gabri's course comes out very quickly, apparently. At least Tom is offering to help plate. Gabri: poached sea bream with black huatape and trout caviar. He wanted the cauliflower so the dish could be black and white, but the onion is slightly brown. Everyone seems to love it, although Gail says it's a lot of sauces. Tom thinks it's too similar to the pasta course and doesn't work.

So the sorbet comes out, and it sounds like it's not on the menu, because someone says “this isn't tiramisu”. Tom tells the judges it's “a gift from the kitchen”: grapefruit and citrus sorbet. It has a little slice of bruleed grapefruit on top. I was wrong about the placement of the palate cleanser, I guess, because no one says it's weird to have sorbet now.

Victoire: “tiramisu my way”—rice flour cake with mascarpone and plantain cream. There's also a cassava tuile. It is liqueur forward, but they seem to like the flavors. Clare thinks it's missing a punch.

I can't tell if UK is serving the next day or not. It seems to be, based on the fact that it's still daytime, and I feel like there isn't enough time to set up all the cameras, do a whole service, clear down and clean, and then get the second team in the kitchen while it's still plenty bright outside. They get the same time to prep. Amar is running the pass. Ali was smarter than Nicole, because he made his filling yesterday (and it's sat for at least a day and the flavors have developed) but he's not assembling anything until today. So the dough didn't sit for a day. Sara's fish turned out well and she's very pleased. Amar thinks his dish will either be a winner or a total failure. While Ali has wisely not stuffed his filo dough early, it's too hot and he's having trouble now. He takes over part of Buddha's area, because it's far away from the stoves and ovens and it's cooler. Sara is designated to meet with Rob and give him the notes about the courses, while Buddha meets with Lynn to show her things like, each jug of...something...should serve two people. I think it's tomato tea. Because this team had written notes, Rob is telling the servers they're all going to learn that information, so they can tell the diners. Buddha is behind, and so is Ali. Everyone else steps up to help, but Ali is still going to have to roll his pastys one by one during service.

The judges are still wearing the same clothes? I wish they'd tell us logistically how this worked. Buddha: full English, coddled egg, black pudding, truffle toast, and tomato tea. The egg is in its own dish, and the black pudding is on top of the toast I think. The eggs are great, although the black pudding is maybe too crispy. Tom loves the tomato tea, which is a punch that the dish needs.

Clare comments that you can tell Amar is comfortable in the kitchen. Amar: scallop tartare with vadouvan and pickled vegetables. It's served in a scallop shell and the vegetables have some color. It's weird to put a warm sauce on cold tartare but everyone loves it.

Sara: cullen skink—leek wrapped cod, potato, and smoked onion. The fish is indeed cooked perfectly. Tom says the only way to improve the dish is to shave a whole bunch of truffle on top of it. Oo that would be great. There is a cute shot of Sara asking Amar if the judges seem to like her dish, and because Amar knows the judges, he's like “yeah, look at Tom” because Tom is smiling.

Ali has managed to get everything rolled, but at the expense of his sauce, which has reduced too much. Ali: lamb loin with freekeh and apricots, and braised lamb wrapped in filo dough for the Cornish pasty. It's a little dry, so they need the sauce. Tom is still watching the kitchen, and then Tom is like I'm watching him put sauce on a plate. Yeah, a little tiny bit of sauce like you got. This is apparently so offensive Tom gets up from the table to go into the kitchen and inspect the plates. He doesn't say anything, so I guess he realized it was the same tiny amount they also got. The dish needs sauce. Also Ali and Amar know something is wrong because why else would Tom go into the kitchen.

Buddha: strawberries and cream--basil ice cream, strawberry jam, milk gel, and inverted meringue. I don't know what inverted meringue is, because all the Google hits are for lemon meringue pie with the meringue as the crust. It looks like Dippin Dots. They do like it, and it turns out that the contestants are following the waiters out to put the meringue on plates. This service went really well.

Back in the Stew Room they act like Root has been sitting there waiting on UK to show up. Meanwhile the food critic is at Judges' Table filling them in. He says Root had some pacing issues, and their theme was not obvious. UK was clearly defined.

Everyone comes to Judges' Table, where they can see who the food critic was, not that it matters because they weren't in the dining room. But they didn't know there would be a food critic at all. United Kitchen is the winners. Of course. Look, for all Buddha's cockiness, he knows what to avoid so you don't fuck up Restaurant Wars. Sara does tell the judges that Buddha had the idea for the theme, but Amar ran the pass and Ali helped everyone and she did FOH stuff. Buddha's dish was playful and they all rave over the tomato tea. Amar took cold scallops and poured hot butter on them and everyone loved it. Sara's fish was lovely. Tom mentions how he went into the kitchen, and Ali is like “yeah WTF”, so they discuss the lack of jus. By the time the dishes got to the judges, the little bit of sauce got absorbed so the judges thought there was no sauce at all. The flavors were good though. They liked the dessert, too. The winner is Buddha, because of course it is. To be fair he did make two dishes. He gets a little emotional about how Clare inspires him to do better, and how amazing it is to have the chance to serve her here.

Tom came up with the concept for Root, and he sort of explains it, but they didn't get that in the dining room. The judges bring up the pacing, and Nicole says that she got buried, and Tom set up the reservation book. Tom throws Nicole right back under the bus by saying the first pastas took too long. Also if you will recall, Tom wanted to only seat 6 diners at first and Nicole told him they could do 8. But no one repeats what Tom said during service about Nicole refusing to make more than 6 plates at a time. Tom's dish was delicious, but Nicole's pasta wasn't perfect. The flavors were good, but the whole dish was out of place. Clare says the rest of the menu was more modern. Gabri had too much sauce and the two sauces ran together. It was lacking texture, and Clare wanted another vegetable. Gabri is like “I AGREE” but does not throw Tom under the bus for forgetting a whole basket of vegetables at the store. Victoire's dish turned out well, but I guess they are upset she wasn't clear enough about the African ingredients. Or they wish there were more African ingredients?

In the Stew Room, Nicole tells Victoire “Don't sit next to me, you're gonna make me cry”. Victoire is pretty upset, and it does set Nicole off. Gabri sits on the other couch and wraps himself in a blanket like a burrito. Tom had the most successful dish. Victoire is saying she has no regrets, she'd make that dish again. The food critic liked the tiramisu the best, but Gail says it had no “delivery”. Nicole wanted to keep it simple, but it wasn't playful enough maybe. It wasn't as creative as the other dishes. Padma wants to complain about Gabri's dish. It was basically a plate of sauce.

Tom says their concept fell short, which is too bad, but the worst dish belonged to Nicole, so she's eliminated. Both she and Victoire are crying, and I think I hear Padma getting emotional too. When she gets back to the Stew Room and everyone is giving her hugs, Ali says “Remember what I told you, you're going to be a great mother.” Oof my heart. Nicole still wants to cook, and she's learned a lot.

Next week: Indian food, everyone has to make a thali which is a platter of several dishes, Amar says 42 dishes in three hours so I guess there is a set number of dishes in the thali, someone burns something.

Last Chance Kitchen: Nicole put too much work into this to lose. Charbel was on teams with Nicole, and he says it's his pleasure to compete against her. How is that so sweet? Tom is now saying Nicole's pasta had a bad ratio of flour to egg and her sauce was broken. Why does Tom always bring up some big issue that we never heard about? No one said one word about broken sauce. He thinks she floured the board too much when she rolled out the pasta. Also Tom is like “if your name is Root why not all use root vegetables?” in that tone he has that is like “duh, obviously you should have done this, this is why I'm in charge and you're here in Losertown”. So the challenge is to make pasta and also root vegetables. Charbel says he's never seen pasta with root vegetables. Nicole does not agree.

45 minutes this time. Sylwia seems particularly excited. Charbel is making ravioli with parsnips. He usually uses butternut squash? He seems confident. Nicole is making Parisian gnocchi and sunchokes. I think Parisian gnocchi uses a choux dough like eclairs. Charbel wastes almost 10 minutes mixing his dough by hand before he remembers he can use a mixer. He's only using parsnips, but with different textures. Charbel tries to make parsnip puree, but for some reason it's not blending. He jams a wooden spoon into the blender, which seems like a terrible idea. Nicole thinks she needs to calm down.

Tom Time! We don't see him ask Nicole what root vegetables she's using, but we do see Charbel say he's only using parsnips so they can play the “oh shit, bad idea” music sting. The stuffing isn't cooling down fast enough, which is a problem. Nicole claims leeks grow underground and are roots. Sure. She pours some salt into a sauce, and they play the “big mistake” music sting and have a shot in confessional of her shaking her head. You are supposed to put the salt in your hand, and then you have more control. Is it sauce or the water for the gnocchi? Dale and Sylwia give Tom shit about how much time Charbel and Nicole have for their dishes. Tom then schools Charbel on the proper name for his pasta, right before pointing out that he's dropped his pasta in the water with 10 minutes left, when it only needs a couple of minutes at most. Oops. Nicole has burnt some sunchoke chips, but she seems pleased with the rest of what she has. I think Nicole oversalted the leeks, and she thinks about not serving them but she wants them on the plate. So she's not seasoning anything else to compensate.

Charbel: ravioli stuffed parsnip with brown butter sage and toasted pumpkin seeds. Come on, Bravo. First of all “ravioli stuffed WITH parsnip”, and secondly, why include the clip of Tom telling Charbel the name of his pasta and then ignore that for your chyron? Nicole: Parisian gnocchi with Jerusalem artichoke, bacon, and leek fondue. Tom asks where her lemon is, and then gives her a little side-eye about how leeks aren't root vegetables. Charbel's pasta is OK, but the parsnips are good. Nicole's gnocchi is good, and Tom doesn't say anything about the seasoning, but Charbel wins. The leeks are too salty. Tom tells Charbel it's not a great dish, but he got lucky because Nicole's dish was worse. Charbel says he loves Canada, but he just beat two chefs from Canada.