Top Chef 5/8/25--"Cooking on the Edge" summary

 

Previously on “Top Chef”: it was Restaurant Wars. Teams were completely selected with random draw. The Nonna restaurant side was very behind on prep, so all their food suffered and Paula, who was executive chef, did a ton of extra work. On the other side, Phora discovered Tristen's dad had passed away, and they rallied around him. Tristen won, while Paula was sent home. (click for more)

In Last Chance Kitchen, Paula and Katianna had to be nostalgic but modern and also have a sauce. Paula was defeated again, due to undercooked lobster and a dish that was too busy.

Tristen tells his car that he's doing this now in memory of his father. He was doing it for representation, and I don't know how this would be different, but sure. He says if he wasn't happy to cook today, he'd have quit.

Tom and Gail are in the kitchen with Kristen, so everyone freaks out. It's time for the judges to declare that your Quickfire matters and will be considered if you're up for elimination. In practice what this means is that the Quickfire will give immunity, like in all the past seasons, because if you do well the judges stop considering you for elimination. Today's quickfire is about mussels, and a bad “mussels/muscles” pun.

There's a huge table of mussels and a guest judge from Prince Edward Island. You get 20 minutes to make something. Tom does not want white wine-steamed mussels, that's too boring. Don't overcook them. Winner gets $10,000.

Massimo brags that he only cooks mussels in season and only from PEI. He says “zucchini blossom sandwich”. Lana talks about Italian subs. Bailey says you can't steam the mussels with white wine, so she gets tequila instead. The time limit is screwing everyone. Tristen says he's making something stupid, and Lana very much doubts this. In confessional he says he's going to work with zucchini blossoms, which is very funny. Massimo's head will explode. Vinny is making larb, which is a salad that usually has ground meat. Cesar interviews that you don't have time to think, you just have to do it. Shuai has a wok station and andouille sausage. Vinny has buried his mussels in herbs. It's a cast iron skillet with a pile of wilted greens on top of it. This is to avoid steaming in alcohol, I guess. Tristen spies Massimo so at least he knows they're doing the same thing. Cesar has beet juice that boils over but he says it's good. Bailey doesn't think she has a complete dish but it tastes fine.

Shuai: scallion ginger mussels with andouille, soy, and cilantro. Cesar: mussels steamed in beet juice and coconut fat, with grilled toast. Vinny: larb-style mussel lettuce cup with cilantro, basil, and jalapenos. It's an endive leaf with chopped up mussels, sitting on top of what looks like slightly singed seaweed. Bailey: mussels in onion and mezcal with black garlic aioli and chilled apple broth. Tristen: PEI mussel in zucchini flower with mussel emulsion and zucchini salad. Lana: mussel Italian toast with garlic mussel juice aioli, coppa, mustard, olives, and capers. Massimo: smoked mussel sandwich with tomato emulsion and zucchini blossoms. He does not explain how this is a sandwich and not a stuffed zucchini blossom.

Tom makes another pun and it's terrible. Lana had an intense brininess, and she delivered on an Italian sub, which is what she wanted. Vinny's was easy to eat and it was different. Tristen had a perfectly juicy mussel, and he also used some of the juices for a vinaigrette. Shuai had a ton of flavor. Oof for Massimo. The winner is Lana. It's her first Quickfire win.

Cesar, Massimo, and Bailey are in the bottom. They're not going home right now, but if they do poorly later, it's going to be rough. Cesar had some good sweetness with the beet juice, but overall the dish fell flat. Massimo just failed because Tristen's was better. The guest judge also thinks maybe it wasn't seasoned. Bailey's dish felt incomplete, although she cooked the mussels well.

Kristen kicks all of the judges out of the kitchen so they can talk about the Elimination challenge. She says something about mission impossible, then leaves. The lights go out and now it's very dramatic. We get a new graphic with the Mission: Impossible theme music and the burning fuse. This is so dumb. Also over by the door Kristen went through, there's some smoke and lasers. Shuai asks if this is poisonous which is hilarious. Like they're going to poison you with gas. Tristen brings up the rave thing again, so I guess it's a running joke that they're going to have a rave. Kristen comes back in with a giant briefcase. Everyone yells at her to watch the lasers, and I kind of wish she had just walked in normally and gone through all the lasers. She steps over everything, and then opens the briefcase to pull out a big screen. OK guys, she only stepped over one laser, you don't need to applaud. There's a video from Greg Tarzan Davis, who is in the new M:I movie. Tom Cruise is of course too busy to talk to you all. Anyway, the challenge is to make a dish that “delivers on that impossible mission intensity”. Also it must feature a stunt. They are all going to get the chance to perform “a real-life, heart-pounding stunt”. You get the chance to do the stunt if you want to make the best dish possible. So do they have to do something to get ingredients? Shopping money? Time? Greg says they do their own stunts in this franchise, and I can believe it. Tom Cruise is like that. Then he says this message will self destruct, but they just fill the screen with some fire footage. It doesn't even smoke. Lana and Bailey fake react like it blew up.

So Kristen says they want their stunts on a plate. She defines “stunt” as “an unusual or difficult feat requiring great skill or daring”. There will be two advantages available, and they both involved the EdgeWalk at the CN Tower. As you might expect, the EdgeWalk is where you get harnessed up and walk around on the roof of the CN Tower. Tristen says he is not afraid of heights, he's afraid of falling, which is a very important distinction. I'm also afraid of falling, not heights, because looking out the window of an airplane doesn't bother me. Standing on a step stool to change a light bulb does. Massimo insists he's not scared of anything, but maybe he's uncomfortable. If you walk all the way around the perimeter, you can get an advantage. If you perform the “lean forward” and “lean back” stunt, you get a second advantage. I guess that means leaning out over the edge of the roof. Of course everyone wants to do it. After this you get $200 at Whole Foods, and two hours tomorrow to cook. The guest judges will be Greg Davis, Buddha, and some other names. $10,000 if you win. Plus you impress Buddha, which I feel like is also important.

Honestly Kristen should do this too. She would, don't you think? Everyone gets into jumpsuits and harnesses. Massimo is very quiet and Tristen appreciates it. So when you get up there, there's a metal grate walkway which is very wide, and you are hooked into safety ropes that are attached above your head. It looks like they built a rigging where you can slide the ropes along a pole, without having to hook and unhook yourself to get around supports or anything. But there is no railing. Massimo is freaking out. The “lean out” is nowhere near as impressive as they made it sound. Basically Bailey goes first, and she keeps her feet like a foot back from the edge, and she just bends over at the waist. It doesn't look like any part of her is actually over the edge of the walkway. But she lets go of the safety rope, I guess, so they all cheer. The guide is literally leaning back like she's about to rappel down the side of this building. At least the “lean back” involves hanging over the edge like the guide. It looks like Lana doesn't do the “lean back”, and possibly Massimo. Massimo half-assed the already half-assed “lean out” and says that's all he's gonna do. Lana was also too scared for the first part so it makes sense those two aren't doing “lean back”. Cesar finds a little sign that says “30 minutes extra cook time” attached to the overhead framework.

Back inside, Massimo says he would have liked extra time, but he's totally going to do an even more amazing stunt. So Lana and Massimo do not get extra time, but since all seven of them walked around the whole roof, they will each get $75 at “a specialty shop” which I am sure is just St. Lawrence Market again.

As they drive to the store, Massimo says he's doing fish en croute, which is fish cooked in pastry. He says it's impossible to do in two hours, which is why it will be a stunt when he pulls it off. Lana tells her car her mom is afraid of heights and she's turning into her mom. She says “fish mosaic”. The “specialty store” appears to be a seafood shop? Also some people are at a cheese shop, which is called “Cheese Boutique” and has a logo of Speedy Gonzalez and a wheel of cheese. What is this store? This is the fakest looking store. Inside Shuai says he's looking for duck to make a turducken. OK but then why does the shop say “Cheese Boutique” if it has cured meats and why do you think you'll find a whole duck in there and not at Whole Foods? Why does it feel like these are pop-up stores you paid to exist just for this challenge? I mean inside the stores it doesn't look temporary but both signs did. Anyway, Shuai says there's nothing trashier than turducken on Thanksgiving. Bailey bothers the cheesemonger by being her usual aggressively quirky self. This poor man gets sucked into asking her why she wants this cheese, so she can describe her lasagna that will look like tiramisu. He looks so bored.

At Whole Foods, Tristen buys chicken wings and asks for all flats. He wants to make a stuffed chicken wing but he's not 100% sure on what he's doing. A good challenge, he'd just like more time to figure out what to do.

Everyone but Massimo and Lana get started on cooking. Bailey explains herself more by telling the kitchen in general that she's making savory crepes, but it's going to look like tiramisu. Lana and Massimo appear to be in a separate part of the kitchen by themselves. I'm not sure if this is 30 minutes later. Are they going to make them stop early? That doesn't make any sense. Lana is making a fish torchon, which will taste like her mom's fried fish. She has to assemble these and get them into the sous vide, so hopefully she will have time. Massimo is also on a time crunch, because he can't rest his dough properly. He claims one misstep will ruin everything. Vinny tells someone he's doing good, and then he opens a bag of flour (or possibly sugar) and the whole side tears away. He's still at a stage where he can laugh about it. He's not a stranger to theatrics. Cesar is making turmeric custard, and fish, and a miniature CN Tower. Well if he can pull off pickle tarts maybe this will be impressive enough. Somehow the tall glass will be a fish tuile? You break into the “tower” and rescue the fish? Sure.

Shuai's stunt is turducken, but not real turducken. He says usually turducken is all overcooked, which is true. So he's got the meat, basically, that he's gluing back together. But it doesn't look like whole birds, so maybe they'll be small enough to cook properly. Tristen has finally come up with a gimmick, which is that in one of these movies someone injected their arm with a virus to transport it. Sure. Chicken wings stuffed with chicken mousse, and you have to eat the sauce before it gets cold for a challenge. Lana is trying to make cornbread, or at least some component with some texture. But it's not crisping up because her recipe is off. It looks like BBQ sauce. She and Tristen discuss if she put too much butter or not. She needs something crispy or it won't read fried fish. She's holding one corner of her parchment paper and tilting the sheet pan over the trash so she can drain the extra butter. She's adding tapioca malodextrin? I don't know but sure.

Vinny is making breadstick lasers, dyed green, and gold keys made of golden beets. You reach through the breadsticks to get the key? Vinny says in confessional that he doesn't know where the fuck this idea came from. Heh. Bailey's crepes look “cute”. Massimo says usually a fish en croute this size would take a half hour to cook, and he's putting it in the oven with 32 minutes left.

The judges arrive and have the usual weird conversation. Tom asks Buddha what he'd make for this challenge, since it seems right up his alley. He says floating islands, but with helium in the meringue so they really float. I wish he would pull that off. Lana has heart-shaped pipettes filled with cocktail sauce. Bailey puts bechamel between her crepe layers, and she pronounces it “besh-a-MEL-ah” which no one ever does. I have never heard anyone pronounce it with an “a” on the end. Calm down. Now she's saying she doesn't know if this will look like tiramisu, “but whatever”. Cesar makes dill and cilantro salsa. Shuai talks about tubes of meat and laughs at himself. Lana gets her torchons sliced and they look how she wants so she's thrilled. Massimo pulls his en croute out with three minutes left, and he says it's perfect.

So it looks like Massimo and Lana are out first, so maybe they just made them go first while everyone else takes that extra half hour. Massimo: Pacific trout en croute with sauce matelote, fondue de tomates Louis XV, saffron emulsion. Matelote is a fish stew. As he talks and says things like Louis XV is his favorite of the Louis's, Buddha is laughing and saying “I love this guy”. Heh. His stunt is that fish en croute is a gamble, because you can't see if the inside is cooked before you cut into it and then you can't put it back. Lana: “fried fish basket” torchon of fish with cornmeal crumble, cocktail and hot sauce with tartar hollandaise. So it's a round of what looks like five or so pieces of fish stuck together. Like she laid the strips out and made a log and sliced it. The hollandaise is on the plate, but the hot sauce and cocktail sauce are in heart-shaped pipettes. Buddha jokes with her about having to follow Massimo, and Kristen says they're all used to it. The stunt is “illusion”. If you put everything together it tastes like fried fish. Massimo's en croute is very impressive. It's not a stunt, necessarily, but it was a big risk. Tom compares it to a movie shot where you only get one take. Yeah that's fair. Lana had heart but the crumble felt raw. It was deconstructed and the fried part didn't work.

Cesar is still talking about his CN tower idea. Bailey has big triangles of crepes and whatever. They do not look like tiramisu at all, even though she's still saying “tiramisu”. What they do look like is baklava. They're also huge portions, which would be fine in real life but maybe not here? But she thinks they look “super cute”. Cesar is burning some of his fish tuiles, so he's trying to do them individually, each in its own pan, but he is out of time. He had to just make rounds and they look sloppy.

Bailey: “tiramisu fugazi” crespelle alla norcina. OK. “Fugazi” means “fake”, a crespelle is just a crepe but Italian, norcina means sausage and truffles. There's porcini crespelle and sausage bolognese. And she says olive oil powder to look like powdered sugar, but I have never in my life seen tiramisu with powdered sugar. It has cocoa powder. I still maintain this does not look anything like tiramisu. She's put bechamel over the top of it, or some other sauce, so it doesn't look like baklava anymore. Cesar: Arctic char tartare, turmeric custard, fish tuile, and romaine lettuce jam. So you break through the “tower” tuile to get to the fish and your secret weapon is “sauce”, which is the jam, served in pipettes. Instead of putting pipettes on the dish like Lana did, Cesar put them all in a wooden hexagonal box in the middle of the table. Bailey's dish is satisfying, and everyone is acting like this looks like dessert. I guess so. Cesar's tuile is kind of burnt, and the custard is maybe too sweet. Buddha thinks maybe it needs acid. Greg thought the stunts would be shit like, sparklers in the food.

Shuai and Tristen joke about how they both have sliced meats and Tristen's wings are very small. Vinny is baking green laser beam breadsticks and he seems to have a good sense of how ridiculous that is. Tristen has dry ice for being theatrical. But he says timing can be tricky. When they go out, Tristen arrives with a big cast iron pot that's smoking and clearly has frost on the outside. Vinny also has dry ice, and a big bowl with a smaller bowl inside it. He has everyone pour water to make “smoke” and describes to them the “lasers” and “key”. There are only like three breadsticks on there, but this idea was dumb anyway. At least I think Vinny knows it's dumb.

Vinny: beef tartare with variations of beets, whipped foie gras, and harissa. It's squares of different beets, golden and regular and one that looks white and pink like a watermelon radish. The breadsticks are like spaghetti, and the “key” is a literal key shape carved out of a beet. Shuai: turducken with potatoes and leek, buttered peas and carrots, gravy. He says he is sticking with his “trashy fantasy” theme. The turkey is in mousse form. Tristen: “Chicken Impossible” king crab and sausage stuffed chicken wing with crab boil Americaine. So he takes the lid off the pot, and he says they have to pour the “antidote” on it, and they have 3o seconds or the sauce will get too cold. Everyone laughs and reaches in to get one of those little sauce pitchers, but they appear to be frozen to the bottom of the big pots. So there's no way the sauce is still hot.

So if you didn't eat Vinny's immediately while they were talking, because he had the inner dish sitting in dry ice, the whole thing is frozen. Like someone picks up the inner dish and it's frozen to the outer dish so the whole thing comes up off the table. Tom did eat it before it froze, and it was fine. Buddha thinks his story was fantastic and if only he could have avoided the dry ice problem, it could be interesting. Shuai served a big slice of turducken, and not enough vegetables. They also don't know what the stunt is. Tristen's dish was delicious and they love the sauce. He couldn't pull off the stunt, but Tom thinks it tasted the best. Overall there was some good food, but not much that fit the challenge. Kristen says the Quickfires will come into play.

Judges' Table. Tristen, Bailey, and Massimo are the top three. Massimo did a Wellington, and Buddha knows how hard that is because he's done it. He's super impressed that Massimo made his own dough. Kristen asks Bailey if her dish turned out how she wanted it, and she says she was happy with it, which is not the same thing. It was rich and heavy in the right ways. They are still harping on how this looked like tiramisu which it does not in any way. It's a crepe cake. Fine. Tristen talks about this Mission: Impossible plot with the virus and whatever. Also he wanted to put them on the clock like they put him on the clock all the time. Heh. The flavors were delicious and they loved the sauce. The winner is Massimo. He interviews that you have to lose before you can win. He wins money and also two tickets to the premiere of this dumb movie.

Lana, Vinny, and Cesar are the bottoms. I thought they might talk to all four of them, but I guess not. Lana talks about her crumble and admits she put malodextrin in it. The cornmeal never got hydrated so it was like sand, and then the crunchy “fried fish” part didn't work. Vinny knows his dish froze before they could eat it, and when Buddha asks him how long it was on the dry ice he says 90 seconds. There's no way he put the dishes on the big bowls with dry ice, got them to the table, and then had everyone pour water and get the key, in 90 seconds. It doesn't matter, anyway, because Kristen says it would have frozen in 10 seconds. The smoke was fun but it felt like it was all smoke and mirrors with nothing behind it. Cesar thinks his storytelling was his downfall. Tom tells him the dish was too sweet and the tuile was burnt. It needed editing.

Lana said something about illusion, and everyone seems mad that there wasn't an illusion. Vinny's tartar was also a disaster, and the judges joke that maybe he could have given them chisels and that could be the stunt. They couldn't eat it. Cesar's dish was confused and burnt. It was too sweet for tartare. Lana won the Quickfire, so they declare her safe. See? “We're taking the Quickfire into consideration for elimination decisions” just translates into “Winning the Quickfire gives you immunity”. Vinny was on the top for the Quickfire and Cesar was on the bottom. Well that seems pretty cut and dried. Tom tries to argue that Vinny's stunt was great. We all know you're going to keep him because he did well in the Quickfire. Not because his stunt was good. Arguably Tom has always insisted inedible dishes are eliminated, over dishes that don't meet the challenge or have maybe one edible component, so on that criteria Vinny should go home.

In the end Cesar is eliminated, because we could all see that coming. He always tries to go outside the box, but it didn't work this time. He did have some amazing combos.

Next week: a “depanneur”, which seems to be a convenience store where all the labels are in French, no knife blocks so people are using plastic knives, seasonal cooking.

Last Chance Kitchen: there are two episodes just because. Sigh. Well at least Tom says it's the finale so after tonight no more LCK, right? Cesar wants to do a good job for his family. Katianna was impressed by Cesar so she knows it'll be a challenge. Tom admits this Elimination challenge was difficult. Today's challenge involves a plot twist. Pick one of the peanut gallery to be your “stand in”. Huh? Based on these reactions no one warned the peanut gallery. Katianna and Cesar will be the “directors” and whoever the pick will do all the cooking. I don't know if I like this so near the “end”. You shouldn't have to depend entirely on someone else when that means you are eliminated for good right before you could have gotten back in. Also for no reason, the peanut gallery person can only say “Yes, Chef” or “No, Chef”. Nothing else. Katianna is annoyed she can't touch her dish, which is what I'm saying. She takes Kat, because they vibe and are neighbors. Cesar picks Corwin, because he was on a roll before he was eliminated. Both Katianna and Cesar say they made picks based on liking how someone seasoned everything, and Tom says they can taste their dishes. Make whatever you want.

30 minutes. Cesar wants pear soup with ginger. He says he and Katianna were the two quietest people in the kitchen. Heh. Katianna wants something simple, to make things easier. Tom goes over to a random camera to explain that Cesar and Katianna don't know this is the first part of the finale of LCK. Katianna tries to explain butter-roasted kimchi, which sounds pretty good. Cesar tries to joke that she's touching stuff. He's explaining to Corwin where all his tools are and stuff. Katianna is kind of frustrated that she can't adjust and do stuff, but she also knows Kat is nervous on her behalf.

Tom time! Cesar admits it's hard to not do anything. Katianna basically says the same thing. Hilariously even though Katianna and Cesar are allowed to taste their dishes, they still can't touch anything so Kat and Corwin have to feed them. Kat fries some Brussels sprout leaves, but they're overdone so she has to make another batch. They seem fine now. Plating seems to be going very well.

Katianna: burrata with roasted bacon, kimchi condiment, and fried Brussels sprouts. Cesar: pear cream with grilled pear, roasted maitake mushrooms, kumquats, and sorrel. Katianna has great contrasts, but Tom wants some more acid. Cesar's soup is smooth and there is good balance, but there are some bitter pieces. The winner is Cesar. Tom says Katianna had the least successful dish today.... Kat knows something is up because I think Kat has been on enough TV shows to know. But wait! Another plot twist! Tonight is the finale, and it's going to be two out of three. OK see then I already know who won because I only saw one other episode. So either you're cramming two challenges into that episode, or you spoiled it.

So the second episode is not any longer than the first one. Maybe a couple of minutes. So either you really shortened the challenge, or edited it down to nothing, or they only needed two episodes for this two out of three. Tom wants one bite, and also blind judging. Huh. There's a big discussion about blind judging, because on “Tournament of Champions” on Food Network, it's all blind judging. And there have been five different winners (one won twice) and all of them are women. And four of them are Top Chef alumna.

Another 30 minutes. I guess you can do whatever again. See also when they had the “preview” for LCK at the end of the regular episode, they showed Cesar cooking. So the minute Tom says you have your stunt double cook for you, I know there's something else coming. So before I knew they were not eliminating the loser, I knew Cesar must have won because otherwise where did that footage come from? You know? Anyway Cesar is making gougeres, basically cream puffs, with blue cheese and white chocolate filling. Hmm. Katianna is making seared tuna. She is freaking out because Cesar is taking a big risk and maybe Tom will appreciate that.

The peanut gallery is trying to yell questions and Cesar sounds confused. Like he's trying to cook and isn't thinking straight. The gougeres seem to turn out OK, so Cesar puts them in the blast chiller with three minutes left. Katianna worries about how much is one bite. Is each piece too big? If you put two pieces does it looks like you didn't understand the challenge? You know what? They're about to plate and it's only halfway through this video, so maybe it wasn't a huge spoiler. I still think this could have been planned better because now I feel spoiled about this one bite blind judging situation. Cesar wonders if Tom will be really confused, eating a cream puff with zero explanation about what's in there. He goes to offer to help Katianna and the peanut gallery yells at him.

Katianna: seared tuna with smoked shoyu, celery root relish, and caper aioli. For sure one bite. Cesar: gougere with a white chocolate and blue cheese filling. It is a pretty big bite. Tom says the tuna could have been seasoned, not just the garnishes, but it's seared well. The cream puff is salty and sweet but he has no idea what he's eating. Katianna wins. As you could guess when it's only halfway through this video. Cesar tells him what the filling was and he just laughs.

So the last challenge is to make a fully composed dish, but only in 20 minutes. Did Tom leave? Maybe. Cesar is staying vegetarian, to make things easier with the time limit. He's really excited for this. Katianna is making potato soup, one of the first things she cooked. Lots of shortcuts. Cesar slices zucchini into long strips and rolls them like a rose.

Tom Time! So not blind tasting this time. I see how it is. Katianna is making relishes. Cesar is blending pipian, which is a sauce with pumpkin seeds. Tom establishes that some of the stuff on his station is from the last challenge, and Cesar offers him another gougere. Heh. Tom complains that if you don't know what you're eating, it's very confusing, and Cesar points out that descriptions would have been good. Tom wanders off to the peanut gallery, muttering about Cesar thought blue cheese and white chocolate would be a good idea. Cesar puts blueberries in the pan with his zucchini roulade. No one thinks this is a good idea but Cesar. They are running out of time for plating.

Katianna: vadouvan cauliflower and potato soup with roasted cauliflower, raisins, cilantro, and lime. OK she specifically said she didn't have time to roast the cauliflower so she was deep frying florets instead. She talks about how this is a dish from when she started working in kitchens. Cesar: zucchini spiral with salsa pipian, fried pepitas, and blistered blueberries. He wanted something to remind him of home.

Katianna's relish is good, but the soup could have more seasoning and it's thick. But overall a good dish. Cesar's dish is getting there. Everything is cooked, but the sauce is maybe not spicy enough. Cesar is the winner. Tom says Katianna's soup was bland. She's still proud of herself. See this is why people yell about blind judging. The one time Tom blind judges, he picked Katianna. Cesar is of course thrilled to be back.