Top Chef 5/1/25--"Restaurant Wars" summary

 

Previously on “Top Chef”: instead of the dumb Quickfire where you had “one pot meals” but you could wash the pot between ingredients, we had a different way to advertise the dish detergent sponsor. Everyone got a dirty dish and had to make that dish. It was dumb but less obnoxious than stretching the definition of “one pot meal”. Henry won by making oatmeal dumplings with glutinous rice. Then everyone had to make pizza because of reasons. The contestants were supposed to be “controversial” but I don't think they cared that much about it. Tristen won by making anchovy ranch, and Tom pretended he did not understand the concept of ranch dressing. The bottom three all made bad pizzas in the sense that they were soggy or the crust was not good. Henry was trying to save money and only bought one bag of flour, so he had to use rice for his crust and the judges said it wasn't pizza. So Henry was eliminated. (click for more)

In Last Chance Kitchen, Henry and Katianna had to make a dish with any kind of dough. Henry ended up adding broth to his dish and it was too weak, so Katianna survived again.

In the morning everyone sits around and drinks coffee. Kristen slides a note under the door that says to meet her at “the Warehouse Venue”. Bailey asks if they think they're doing a rave because she's stupid. It has to be because if it's a joke it's not funny. Tristen asks if it isn't a large enough venue to house two pop up restaurants in 24 hours, because Tristen can count. They all encourage Bailey by saying, nah, it must be the rave. Don't do that.

OK I was thinking “the Warehouse Venue” was someone's screw-up, like it was a warehouse and production didn't bother to name it. No, it's really an event venue called the Warehouse. I mean we all know it's Restaurant Wars. Nina from Top Chef: New Orleans is here, and Janet Zuccarini, who is a judge on Top Chef: Canada. They catch a shot of Bailey saying “Yeah!” with a smirk and a little head tilt, like “I knew it wasn't a rave, obviously, it was a funny joke, tee hee!” Shut up Bailey.

Anyway, you will open in 24 hours with a three course menu. Two options per course. Instead of having captains they just assign both teams with the “random” knife block. I've seen both last week's winner getting to pick, and only two having numbers so those people get to pick. But Henry won the Quickfire last week and he's gone, so you can't do Quickfire winner and Elimination winner as the captains. Anyway one team is Massimo, Vinny, Tristen, and Lana. The other team is Bailey, Paula, Cesar, and Shuai. Vinny interviews that he doesn't want to be on a team with Tristen, simply because Tristen has immunity. Fair. Tristen thinks his team has some strong personalities, and could butt heads easily.

Kristen then makes both teams pick their roles right now: one executive chef, one Front of House, and two line cooks. Massimo says he can do FOH. He's a jerk about Lana, as she said she wouldn't mind taking it, and he's laughing as if he can't imagine anyone being better than him. You're not Fabio. They rock-paper-scissors for it and Massimo wins. Lana is like, whatever. Shuai says he works in an open kitchen, so he can talk to people. Paula volunteers for executive chef if he'll do FOH, and Cesar and Bailey don't say anything. Tristen has immunity, so he says he'll go along with whatever the rest of the team wants. And they (I think especially Vinny) want Tristen to be executive chef. See, executive chef usually goes home when the team loses, so they want to make Tristen do it since he can't go home. But that just means that if he runs the restaurant into the ground you're all in trouble.

Nina says this is the hardest challenge, and make sure your concept is “clean and concise”. True. You will have one hour today to get your concept together and start menu planning. Then we have to go somewhere to do décor which is always the worst part of this episode. No one cares about décor. $4500 at Whole Foods and $2300 at “a variety of specialty markets”. Then you can prep until 8pm. So instead of having a set time to prep, you can choose to spend more or less time on shopping, and this will affect your prep time. Interesting. Tomorrow they will have 4 hours to set things up and finish prep. 100 diners. Winners will get $40,000 to split.

Massimo immediately has an idea, which could just be him planning ahead like Buddha has done, and not him being bossy. Lana has her hand to her forehead like she's already sick of his shit. Anyway Mossimo's idea is “the six stages of Canada”: French, English, etc. No one responds, and then Lana asks if Tristen has any ideas. Tristen suggests vegetable forward, which Vinny likes because they can each still do their own style. Massimo isn't sure about vegetable forward for a competition, which is fair, but Tristen insists they can have proteins in the sauces and accompaniments. Also, Massimo knows damn well that “no meat” and “no protein” are not the same thing, come on. Tristen is now opinionated, because they made him executive chef. Everyone agrees to vegetable forward. Even Massimo. They try to think of names to make it clear it's vegetable forward, and settle on Phlora + Phauna. Why spelled that way? They do not explain.

Over on the other side, somehow we have decided “Latin-Italian”, and that means family style. Literally someone says “obviously Italian is all family style”. Shuai says he does everything family style, and then Cesar says “grandma chic” so they brainstorm “grandma names”. Family style is very hard to do. Shuai says his grandma's name is “Grandma” which is hilarious. Eventually they settle on “Nonna Pipón”, which is based on Paula's grandfather's name. OK you can't say “grandma style” and then your name is Paula's grandfather's nickname.

Time for shopping lists. Vinny does not want to be coming up with prep lists in the store. No one is really arguing about courses over on Paula's team, they all love each other's ideas. Paula is making cake with walnuts and no flour. Massimo suggests a pithivier, which a small pie. Tristen volunteers a dessert with parsnips, and Vinny makes a face. Tristen promises he's done this before.

Décor is boring. No one is interested in what glasses and napkins you have. Lana is impatient, because they're trying to get out of here and start prepping. Bailey says cute so many times they put a counter on the screen. Ah, it's for everyone. Still. Plus they don't appear to have a budget so this is meaningless. Tristen wants things that emphasize the concept of “vegetables”, so if it looks like a jungle later that's why. Paula's team looks for “grandma plates” whatever that means.

Food shopping time. It looks like both teams are sending some people to Whole Foods and some to St. Lawrence Market. Oh, I was wrong, Team Nonna is all at St. Lawrence Market. “Because we're a team”. Sure. They do seem to be buying proteins and some produce. Team Phlora (...sigh) has sent Massimo to Whole Foods by himself to save time. He is of course thrilled to be alone without any “heathen” chefs tearing around yelling times. Even though he's the one doing it all the time. He's making blueberry and corn dessert, which I feel like I saw on Townsends or The Victorian Kitchen or one of the other historical cooking channels I follow on YouTube. Shuai buys a ton of seafood to make frutti di mare with aguachile. Lana wants to make potlikker consomme. She says that her background is in journalism, and she investigates food.

Massimo appears to only spend $800 and change at Whole Foods? It is now 5:10 PM, which means just under 3 hours left in the day. That's not very much prep time at all. Bailey and Paula finally head to Whole Foods, but the boys are going to prep. All of Phlora are back in the kitchen by 5:30 to get started. Luckily since this is an event venue they have a real kitchen. Massimo is trying to get all his prep done today since he won't have time tomorrow. Shuai and Cesar show up at about 6pm, and Shuai says that's plenty of time. But for some reason, Bailey and Paula took all the seafood with them when they left, and it's currently in their car as they go to Whole Foods. Well that was a bad idea. So Shuai can't do what Massimo is doing and get stuff done today so he can focus on the dining room tomorrow. Bailey and Paula are finally at Whole Foods, and Bailey thinks they should have split up from the start.

It is time for partial menus. Tristen is making mushroom escovitch, which is usually fried fish topped with vinegar and vegetables. Like escabeche but the Jamaican version. Lana has her potlikker consomme, but also with smoked trout and I'm not sure that's going to be considered “vegetable forward”. Second course is Vinny's squash confit, and Lana's vegetable pithivier with lamb jus. Massimo has corn ice cream, and Tristen has parsnips and chocolate.

Paula and Bailey show up at 6:55pm, so call it an hour of prep, since they have to unload the car. They are really in the weeds, and they're also passing things to Cesar so I wonder if they had more than just Shuai's seafood. First course is Bailey's chorizo arancini, and Shuai's frutti di mare. Shuai has to clean all the seafood and then try to poach it, in an hour. To be fair Paula is trying to help him clean, but since he's FOH this is his only dish and it can't fail. Cesar is making short ribs, and now I'm sure they had the short ribs too, because there's no way he'd think an hour of cooking time is enough. If Cesar had the short ribs with him, he would have started cooking them an hour ago. The other second course is Bailey's baked pasta, for which she is making the pasta from scratch. Desserts are churros from Cesar and walnut cake from Paula. Well at least no one has to make both dishes in the same course. Paula says she'll do her dessert tomorrow since they need to prep today.

With fifteen minutes left in the day, a producer comes up to Tristen and says she got a call from his mom. There is a family emergency and she doesn't have details. Massimo gets instructions on what to do, as Tristen goes outside to take the call. When he comes back into the kitchen, he is on the verge of tears. He tells us in voiceover that his father (technically stepfather but he raised Tristen and is basically his father) has had a stroke and is in a coma. Oh no. His team checks on him, and he is clearly not fine, but he says “let's finish this shit” and they agree. There's so little time left in today I think he's trying to just get through the next like 10 minutes and then freak out. His mom then told him “don't you dare leave” because his dad would want him to stay for his dream. Lana knows something's up but he wants them to push so that's what they're gonna do. When they have a moment (or maybe this shot is after time is officially up) Tristen tells Vinny what happened. The closed captioning says “sh--” but Vinny is clearly saying fuck.

In the morning, Tristen interviews that his father passed away last night. This is so sad. Russell was always one of the most supportive people in Tristen's life, and he doesn't want to give up and let him down. Mom said to stay and he listens to his parents. His whole team is somber but they seem determined to step it up and support him. Like they are all going to win for him. The other team has like, five pages of prep lists and Paula is saying they can do it in four hours. I'm not sure if they know what is happening. I can't believe they'd all go back to the apartments and no one would have filled them in. Right? Maybe they know he had a stroke but not that he passed. Shuai thinks they can get all the prep done because they're serving family style, so plating will be easy. He interviews that he didn't have electricity or running water when he grew up, but his mom and grandma made sure he never felt that. He frames this as “let me tell you about communism” which is funny somehow.

Both spaces have paint, Phlora is green obviously, and Nonna is pink with some artwork (that no one has put up yet). The furniture seems to all be there too. Paula is asking people to tell her when they have certain steps done, like when the pasta is done or whatever. Bailey is making sauce, and Paula kicks her and says to go build cannellonis now instead. To her credit, Bailey is not offended but is glad Paula took a task off her plate. Tristen tells Lana to overseason her consomme, because as she clarifies it some of the seasoning will also be stripped. Shuai and Massimo both go out to meet the waiters and set up the rooms. Shuai is more casual about it, as you might expect. Massimo is frantically sweeping.

90 minutes left. Paula says her cake is the last thing she's getting into. I guess the cake doesn't have to be ready right when service starts, but does it need to cool? Isn't it tres leches and you have to factor in soaking time? I think she's busy doing other stuff. She admits in confessional she's made this walnut cake before, and tres leches before, but she's never combined them before. Shuai kind of awkwardly tells the waiters they're serving family style and they need to tell tables to “order evenly” so they can all share. “You come in as strangers, you leave as friends.” Is this going to be one of those restaurants where you sit at big tables with other random parties and you have to talk to strangers? Sigh. To be fair to Shuai if I manged to secure a reservation at Restaurant Wars there is no way we're not ordering one of everything. Massimo is now mopping, and you can hear him yelling about mops in the other restaurant. Like, Shuai is talking to the waiters and the mics are picking Massimo up. Shuai jokes in confessional that even now, he can hear Massimo. Then Massimo laughs off camera. Heh.

Cesar is very rushed, and it looks like he's going to make churros to order. I mean you can't leave churros to sit around either? Bailey says something about “piping the churros to order hard” but I'm not sure what that means. Shuai talks to one of the waiters and we get official confirmation that the show hires cater waiters for this challenge, which is dumb and easily avoided. It's not that people that work for caterers are stupid or that they are bad at service, but if you think about it, a cater waiter never takes orders. They don't write tickets, at most they have to remember if someone at a table is getting a special meal and usually they put a card or some kind of sign. That's why every Restaurant Wars the tickets get fucked up somehow, or dishes go to the wrong table. Even if you're catering a plated dinner with multiple courses, you would never have different tables on different courses. Shuai declares one of them his lead server, I guess a guy who has worked in a restaurant before. Tristen comes out of the kitchen to explain to the servers how to take orders. They're going to write on the menus, which kind of sucks unless they have extra menus. I would want my menu for a souvenir. But he's asking them to put table numbers and seat numbers, which I'm not sure a cater waiter would have experience with. He also says he will not accept tickets unless they are in this format.

Time to open. We have not discussed reservations this season, so I'm not sure how they have planned not to be slammed all at once. Or maybe they want them to be slammed, who knows. Tristen says he owes it to his team to be focused so he's in expo mode. Shuai tells some table “Nonna Pipón” is “grandma” in two languages which is complete bullshit. Some random girl says she can't wrap her head around this concept, and I'm not sure if she means “Italian-Hispanic” or “family style”. A server brings a plate with four arancini to a table of six, and they wonder if they are getting more. A different server has to clarify with Paula about how much to order, since it's not clear. A four top had two orders of one dish and two of the other, but only got two physical plates. They thought they should have four, but apparently each plate serves two people and they are sharing. Yeah I could see if you tell people it's family style you should still tell them “each dish serves two” or something. Or every table is going to ask their waiter where the rest of their food is.

It sounds like either Shuai didn't explain the concept properly, or the waiters don't get it because they're not used to taking orders, or something, but people are ordering like it's a regular restaurant and this is not the plan. Paula says something about how it's supposed to be “either/or”, like she thought the table would agree to all order the same dish for each course? Instead of telling the waiters to explain each plate serves two, they're coming back with tickets like “table three wants three orders of arancini”. Paula gets Shuai in the kitchen to tell him this is what's happening, and his response is “they want three orders? Make it happen”. That's a lot of food.

The judges arrive and Kristen immediately goes to lean on the host stand and act like she has to give their names. Also she is wearing what looks like shiny black pants (possibly leather), a white tuxedo shirt that's half unbuttoned, and a black bow tie that is not tied but just hanging around her neck like it's the end of the evening. It's hot. As they are seated you can see Shuai bussing a different table. A waiter asks Shuai if they should let the judges talk first, or if he should go say hello and take orders. I kind of liked this exchange because I feel like the producers love for us to think the waiters never have an original thought and only do what they're told. See, they have questions. They know to ask the person in charge. Although I'm not sure why Shuai didn't take over the table himself. The waiter is very professional, and Tom knows he's been trained. But they expected Shuai, and he is busy overthinking when to interrupt them and greet the table.

Shuai does finally go over as the first course is being served. Bailey: chipotle chorizo arancini with tonnato aioli. Tonnato is tuna. Shuai: frutti di mare with aguachile and chicharron. He admits that Paula helped him with the aguachile but they did not taste his dish all together. When he leaves, there is brief confusion over where Janet's fork is, and she says if you're going to serve family style you need serving utensils. True. The arancini is good and unique. The seafood is kind of bland and Kristen said the aguachile “fell off” the “smoothness” of the squid. Some rando says the arancini is spicier than the aguachile. Tom says it's not seasoned, and I know Tom likes his salt but it sounds like everyone does agree.

Tristen is annoyed because apparently there is one server who is doing tickets wrong. It sounds like maybe instead of writing on one menu for the whole table, they're having each diner fill out a menu and then bringing them all back to the kitchen. He tells them they are doing it wrong and to fix it, and then asks someone to get Massimo. Tristen can't work from “tickets” that are just menus with checkmarks. Yeah, they do need to be grouped by tables, or the whole table doesn't get served at the same time. Massimo declares that if he has to, he'll take the server off the section, although I'm not sure how that will work because why would they have extra servers? Lana says to be nice, but if it really is only one waiter, then it's the waiter and not a problem with how Massimo trained them. This appears to be fixed.

The judges get the second course at Nonna, with serving utensils this time, but Gail has to call Shuai over to explain who made what. Come on Shuai. That's Restaurant Wars 101. Cesar: ancho braised short rib with polenta, ricotta salata, and roasted apples. Bailey: cannelloni al forno with toasted pepitas and almond romesco. “al forno” just means baked. The short rib is flavorful but the polenta has a weird texture. Nina says it's off-putting. Tom says the pasta is “smart”, I guess because you can make a lot of servings easily and quickly. But Gail says she's getting like, whole almonds in the sauce. Not even chopped unevenly. Kristen likes wet nuts for ice cream but not warm wet nuts. I swear that's what she said. Tom just says that grandma had a blender. It is a rustic and homey menu.

Shuai does serve dessert himself, so that's something. Paula: torta di noci with tres leches. Cesar: churros with pistachio crème anglaise. They're not rods, they're like little rounds. I don't know. The cake did not work. The usual cake for tres leches is light and spongy, and this cake is dense so it fell apart and Tom compares it to soggy cereal. The churros are dry. Gail says the shape makes it more dense. Despite that Nina says she's satisfied with the meal, because at grandma's house it's heavy and you just hang out. But the desserts are not great. Tom thinks their concept came through, which it did, but the execution is not perfect. Janet is still mad about Shuai saying he was tired and I'm guessing about the serving utensils for the first course. I did notice the desserts were individually plated. You could have rolled up with a big basket of churros.

Massimo immediately greets the judges with wine and introductions and schmoozing. But Tom has his number because the group before them did not get schmoozing. I have paused it on Tom's extremely satisfied smug look about this fact. Massimo comes back to flirt with Janet and Nina, but this backfires because he does that thing where you squat down and lean on the table, and Janet wants him to be more professional.

Lana comes out to serve the first course. Lana: cured and smoked trout with potlikker consomme. She leaves as they eat, and then Tristen comes out with the other dish from the first course. I'm not sure why they didn't both come out together. Tristen: grilled mushroom escovitch with Canadian bay scallop, ajo blanco, and dawadawa. Dawadawa is a spice. Nina liked the potlikker, but there were raw collards as a garnish and they were hard to eat. But everyone does agree the potlikker is wonderful. Tristen's dish had a lot of contrasts, and it has finesse. Kristen likes that everyone is coming out to explain dishes, and Gail says only Shuai talked to them at Nonna, “which is fine”. Yeah usually it's only FOH that talks to the judges, but I guess now they've realized they like this better.

Second course dishes do both come out together. Lana: potato, celery root, and truffle pithivier with lamb jus. Vinny: butternut squash confit with grilled pork and XO sauce. The pithivier is tasty but Tom says the dough is slightly raw. Vinny did a great job, and Janet says the pork is the low point but it's still great. Tom is complaining there is too much pork on the plate, or at least I think that's what he's saying, and Massimo is hovering and doing a terrible job of being subtle. Gail tries to signal Tom about it, but do you think Tom cares? Tom does not care if Massimo tells Vinny “they are talking shit about your dish” and it throws Vinny into a spiral. Tom is all “I know” because like I said, he doesn't care. Gail says they can't just have a conversation, because they've been over-touched. Anyway, I was right about Tom's complaint, which is that they've said “veg-forward” eight million times, and then Vinny had as much pork on the plate as there was squash.

Several shots of people waiting to be seated, and then a table that says they have not seen a menu yet. Looks like there is a big wait at Phlora. Massimo says being backed up is normal, which I would argue that it is but it's not good. He says it's his job to make sure no one feels it, which he is currently not doing because there is more than one person complaining about how their hungry. Also your hostess asked that first table if they'd tried one of the courses yet, which means either she's just blindly saying shit, or that table had been there long enough that she thought they'd been served. Neither one is good. There is a lot of apologizing.

Over at Nonna they are running out of food, because they had not planned on people ordering so much food. No one understood the concept and Shuai's solution was let people order however many orders they feel like. Paula went along with it and now they're running low on cake so they have to give people extra churros.

Dessert time for Phlora. Massimo: corn cremeux with corn ice cream, grilled blueberry condiment, and blueberry crisp. In all the other shots, the crisp is a flat round like a cracker, but in this glamour shot it's wilted and looks sad. Massimo says some shit about eating in harmony and Kristen laughs at him. But I would order that dessert in a heartbeat. Tristen: milk chocolate custard with “dirt” chocolate and caramelized parsnip. It looks like dirt pudding, where you have pudding and then crushed up Oreos for dirt. Then on top are some brown blobs and some microgreens, so it looks like plants. Massimo's dessert is stunning but subtle. Tristen's dessert is rich and the parsnips are great and balanced. Very cohesive meal and Tom likes the dessert.

Everyone celebrates being done, and Vinny says they didn't want to let Tristen down. He says most chefs would cope by cooking. The judges discuss how Phlora delivered on their brand, very sophisticated, but the service was too casual.

Judges' Table. Both teams followed through on their brand and supported their concepts. Fair, that doesn't happen every season. Paula says their first day was rocky, but they were ready for opening. Shuai trained the servers like he trained his own servers, and he did everything they did, clear tables, run food, etc. Janet tells him never admit you're tired, you should sell the concept. Tristen knows they executed his plan. Massimo says at all moments service was somewhere between perfection and a car crash. That doesn't mean anything. Supposedly it was a line in the middle. The concept was refined but Massimo was not.

Phlora stays in front of the judges because they won. They're so relieved and immediately everyone goes to hug Tristen. Lana's consomme should be on her menu, and Nina says it's a Southern dish you don't see at this elegant level. Tristen's usual dishes are bold flavors but the mushrooms were as subtle as possible. Kristen also loved the sherry vinegar in the chocolate dessert. They did want more squash from Vinny because it was delicious. Massimo's dessert was one of the best dishes they had all day. The winner “contributed the most to the success of this team” and that's Tristen. Oh of course. Listen, it's probably true, but of course. He tells the judges about his father and everyone tears up. He says he was just trying to be “on” and that was hard. Nina says “he's proud of you right now” and then Kristen says “And you never have to feel like you ever have to be “on”. Like, this is also real life, too”. Tom says “Your parents should be commended. They've done a fantastic job with you.” OK I get what Tom's saying but compare Nina's “He's proud of you” and Tom's “your parents should be commended”. Come on Tom. I can't tell if the other team knew, but I can't imagine they didn't. But it's clear no one told the judges.

Loser Gong. Shuai's seafood was underseasoned, and they establish Paula picked it up. Bailey's arancini were great, but Gail didn't like the romesco with the pasta, because of the whole almonds. Bailey says they didn't have time to put it in the blender so they had to use the stick blender instead. So it was uneven. Paula's cake had a weird texture and ended up soggy. Paula says she was the executive chef, and every complaint they've had so far was something she could have fixed. Cesar had flavorful short ribs but the polenta was too tight. And the churros were dense. Weirdly Kristen asks if anyone wants to say anything before the judges deliberate. Of course Bailey has to say something, which is that she's “super proud” of everyone but Paula crushed it. No she didn't, she literally just said she didn't. Bailey says she sacrificed her own dishes so everyone else's dishes “could come to life”. Except all of your other dishes had flaws too.

Bailey is safe, sadly, because the arancini was the best dish from this restaurant. Tom asks if anyone can make a case for Cesar to go home over Paula or Shuai, and the consensus is that the textures of his food were off but the flavors were solid. Gail shakes her head that it always comes down to the chef and the manager. In the Stew Room, Lana jokes that Shuai should have worn a nonna scarf, and he laughs that he could have knit or had some caramels in his pocket. Janet says the only detraction from the concept was Shuai, because he didn't talk to them at all. His dish was just OK, but the worst part of it was the aguachile, and Paula made that. It wasn't seasoned. Gail thinks Shuai is getting off easy. I think Kristen argues that he could have checked his dish before it went out. Cesar is telling Paula that they wouldn't have been able to open without Paula, so it's not going to be her. Uh huh. Kristen would rather eat the aguachile than Paula's cake. Tom points out that if Paula had been a line cook, they'd send her home for the cake. But it's more complicated because of how much work she did to support the team. Kristen points out that the things she helped with were also not great: the aguachile, the almonds in the romesco, and the cake. They had a problem with time management.

Tom says for the most part they executed well in delivering the concept. But time management was a problem. Paula is eliminated. I think she knew. She's proud of herself. She also is convinced she can come back and win it.

Next week: some lasers and shit, being on the roof, Buddha is here. That's all I got.

Last Chance Kitchen: Paula wants to push forward. But also have fun. Katianna wishes she was in Restaurant Wars, but here we are. Tom starts talking about “grandma chic” and Katianna is just tuning him out, so he has to be like “yeah I said grandma chic” because he's making a joke. Tom starts talking about Christmas and Feast of the Seven Fishes, and nostalgia. Today's challenge is to make a dish that is filled with nostalgia. Katianna says her cooking is very personal. Oh but with a modern spin. Oh also Paula oversauces everything, so you must make a sauce. That's not that hard. Not too much sauce though. Paula says “redemption” which is always very tricky.

3o minutes. Paula immediately grabs lobster for lobster encocado, which is a stew. Her grandparents lived on the coast. It has a sauce with coconut milk and chilies so she's ready for that. Katianna says her adoptive grandmother encouraged her to learn about Asian food, so she's making scallops and snow peas in sauce. But she's also making potato puree? Paula isn't putting all the fat from her coconut milk in the sauce.

Tom Time! He laughs that Paula has brought her mise en place to the stove. She's also making succotash for a Southern touch. Her lobster is eventually going in the oven. Katianna talks about her grandmother making her try new things, and Tom thinks she was really grandma chic. Paula puts her lobster in the wood oven to make sure it cooks. Katianna is more mentally relaxed I think because she knows these flavors. Paula is whistling and thrilled. She puts the sauce in that canister thing to make foam, but I think also it's on there as a normal sauce.

Katianna says her grandmother introduced her to seafood (in a meat-and-potatoes household) and encouraged her to learn about her Asian heritage. Seared scallops with snap peas and wasabi greens with a potato onion sauce, and yuzu, soy, and ginger sauce. Paula spent a lot of time on the coast growing up. Encocado sauced lobster with Southern succotash. Katianna's dish is complex even though it looks simple. Paula has a lot going on, it has good texture. The winner is Katianna. Paula's lobster is slightly undercooked, and there is a bit too much going on. Paula is proud of what she's done but a little sad. Katianna knows it's too early to celebrate or get comfortable.