Well … the Canadian-themed challenges had a good run, eh?
After last week’s episode burned through both poutine and maple syrup, this week’s Top Chef did its best to live up to the (so far so) good Destination Canada name by throwing down an ice-hockey-themed Elimination Challenge. Nothing wrong with that in theory, but in practice? I walked away doing the Massimo-Fonzie shoulder shrug of “The [challenge] sucked!”
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of my nitpicks, let’s rewind to the Quickfire, which doesn’t deserve the smoke the Elimination’s about to get. In fact, it was a solid start that even introduced a fun twist on the format’s typical constraints.
Kristen is joined this week in the Top Chef kitchen by dozens of Jamaican patties and Toronto chef Dwight Smith, who explains the significance and general construct of the bright-yellow pastries surrounding them (all from local bakeries — a nice touch). They task the chefs with creating their own version, giving them not just 15 minutes to make dough but a lunch break in order to let the dough rest before they dive back in. Splitting up the cook is a smart variation on the Quickfire theme that keeps the task tense but ultimately doable in a way that feels very Bake Off. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of this approach in the future, whether in Quickfires or in Eliminations like season 19’s overnight barbecue challenge, etc.
Anyway, back to business — by which I mean bui$ne$$, because this time there’s a very tasty $10,000 on the line. Anything requiring baking on Top Chef tends to bring out the extremes in people, and this Quickfire’s no exception. Some chefs immediately lock in with unsettling calm (see Katianna and Corwin). Others lose control of the basics and can’t quite recover (César, Kat). And then you have my sweet maniac, Massimo, who careers through the kitchen like a tornado as he creates his own unnatural disaster (i.e., a densely ground oxtail patty that almost makes Dwight retch). This rightly lands him in the bottom alongside Kat and César, whose dough becomes batter and crumbles.
Otherwise, the judges are pleased. Like last week’s poutine, the patties ended up running the flavor gamut, incorporating everything from nori (Katianna) to fenugreek (Henry) to chopped cheese and a full bottle of [redacted] hot sauce (Vinny and, despite the production sticker’s best efforts, clearly Tabasco). Katianna and Zubair impress the most, and though Corwin went into this challenge with the most firsthand knowledge, he’s beaten to the third spot by Shuai’s scallion-pancake-inspired take. It would’ve been interesting to hear Corwin’s reaction to that, but oh well. Katianna comes out on top, taking her winnings thus far to a cool $15,000.
Okay, now we can get into the Elimination Challenge, which is almost something interesting until it becomes something else entirely.
After bringing out Canadian hockey player Natalie Spooner, Kristen explains that the chefs have to create a dish that’s best served cold. That could be tricky, but I was definitely waiting for the other shoe to drop on a challenge that seemed too simple to be true in this Top Chef era. Sure enough, Kristen then summoned a parade of cloches, each paired with a different hockey term, and instructed the chefs to pick whichever one struck their fancy. The cloches then revealed a specific food item allegedly corresponding to the term (e.g., “assists” being called “apples”) that their cold dishes would have to highlight.
I thought typing all that out might make me understand it better, but if anything, it only feels even more convoluted. Maybe if the challenge had been presented in the opposite order — “This week’s theme is hockey! Also, make it cold!” — it might’ve made more sense. As it was, I deeply sympathized with every chef’s struggles throughout Kristen’s explanation to keep their brows unfurrowed. And since no one had any idea what any of the terms mean anyway, they might as well have drawn knives. As Anya says, it was “Russian roulette! … No pun intended.”
Now, I’m admittedly not a hockey aficionado, so I can’t speak to whether or not players frequently use food terms like grapefruit (i.e., “when the goalie is unable to stop an easy shot”) or licorice knob (the “tape wrapped around the end of a hockey stick”). But even a cursory Google search tells me that at least half of these terms are rare at best. Also, giving some chefs ingredients like peanut butter (“a shot puck that hangs in the net for a second”) and others fully formed foodstuffs like biscuits (“pucks”) and muffins (“shots that should’ve been stopped”) simply isn’t a one-to-one situation.
It’s, therefore, hard to blame Zubair and Massimo for being unable to hide their exasperation at getting stuck with making cold muffins (??) while their competitors get to play with the likes of eggs (“games ending in zero”). If they’d also realized the show could’ve chosen hockey slang like cheese (“the top shelf of the net”) or lettuce (“a player’s hair”) instead, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see them walk out the door and into the sea. Zubair luckily has immunity, but Massimo …? Well, more on him later.
Given the confusing setup and the judges sitting in a makeshift hockey rink mere feet from the chefs’ workstations, the final dishes’ success rate is predictably scattershot. In terms of the top three, we once again have Katianna, whose last-minute decision to reduce some Pernot for more licorice flavor in her Korean cold noodles pays off. Corwin bounces back from his disappointing Quickfire showing with a scallop aguachile that packs in Scotch-bonnet heat and as many apples as possible. Tristen, buoyed by a FaceTime with his (adorable!) mom and stepdad, creates a tartare and deviled egg with a liquid-nitrogen-shattered yolk that I’d order in a heartbeat. Ultimately, Katianna’s hot streak continues with her second win in a row, officially bumping her up from a quiet contender to an out-and-out favorite.
Elsewhere, there are a lot of desserts for an Elimination that doesn’t actually mandate desserts, like Vinny’s spin on a strawberry shortcake that goes too light on his requisite “biscuit” element. Several ice-cream meltdowns (pun absolutely intended) even prompt Tom to suggest they should’ve pretended it was supposed to be crème anglaise. I’m not sure Massimo needed encouragement to embrace the art of bullshitting, but it’s a good reminder that sometimes pointing out a mistake on Top Chef can be more of a mistake for the chef than the dish.
The worst ice cream, unfortunately, belongs to two of my faves. Massimo spins out big time, ending up with a plate of various muffin-flavored preparations — crémeux and ganache and meringue, oh my! — resting on a muffin-flavored ice-cream puddle that not even liquid nitrogen could freeze. Meanwhile, poor Anya had an absolute nightmare trying to highlight eggs. Her pine-needle ice cream is either too hard or too soft, and she never cracks how to add sea-buckthorn powder to her cake batter without an overly dense result.
But I might feel the worst for Paula, who’s so proud of introducing Ecuador’s particularly brothy ceviche to Top Chef yet lands in the bottom three for not having enough peanut flavor in her peanut-butter dish. Food & Wine editor-in-chief Hunter Lewis pivots well enough to that point once Paula explains that, yes, Ecuadorian ceviche does indeed have that much broth. Still, it doesn’t feel great to see the judges drag her dish for an element that absolutely belonged there.
As Kristen points out, the final judging is a slightly unusual instance in which all three chefs know why their dishes didn’t fulfill the brief (even if Paula is surprised to hear her name called at all). Massimo’s immediate, hilarious, and extremely thorough mea culpa (“The dish sucked! I’m embarrassed!”) had both Tom and I on the edge of nervous giggles even before he claimed he doesn’t usually have “performance issues.” Usually, this level of self-awareness would be enough to save him, but again, they all know what went wrong.
As painful as it is, though, the judges really had no choice but to axe Anya. Massimo’s dish indeed sucked, but hers both included multiple cooking mistakes and failed to honor eggs in any meaningful way. Her exit’s a heartbreaker, not least because she literally says she’s “heartbroken” to leave. I’d love Anya to kick ass on Last Chance Kitchen, but until then, it’s До свидания and on to the next.
Stray Crumbs
• Kristen Kish Suit-Envy Watch: For a challenge emphasizing how cold everything should be, she sure wore a summery linen outfit! I, of course, still loved it, but since it wasn’t a suit, this week’s rating sadly must be N/A on a technicality.
• Shuai missing his dogs is extremely relatable to me, a person who has more trouble sleeping without the weight of her pup, a.k.a. nature’s greatest and clingiest weighted blanket.
• Tristen’s “after-school” beef patty and Lana’s “crabby patty” didn’t win the Quickfire, but they’re my personal winners for the Cutest-Names Award, which I’m sure feels just as rewarding as $10,000.
• Vinny put off some viewers with his first Quickfire gambit of serving soup in a hollowed-out apple, but it seems clear to me now that he’s just a playful kind of guy. A little cocky? Sure. But I’d always rather watch someone have actual fun on Top Chef, so Vinny’s bad jokes and hairnet “skates” will do nicely.
• I miss the Stew Room! Bring back making chefs guess if they’re being called into the principal’s office for good or bad behavior!
• “I’m not making fuckin’ muffins.”