Top Chef: The One Without the Cast From Night Court

Fire up the Bloodthirsty Bus of Elimination (patent pending) because we’re back with the fifth season of Top Chef, a/k/a Top Chef: New York.  Let’s meet who Bravo execs thought would create the most drama on screen and play to their targeted demographics: Fabio from Florence, Italy; Jamie the free spirit with the tattoos; Eugene the troublemaking scamp who plays by his own rules because he didn’t go to culinary school; Jeff the pretty boy from Miami (I can relate!), Radhika, the child of Indian immigrants who says she isn’t going to cook only Indian food but is actually only going to cook Indian food; Lauren the army wife who is going home this week because we saw a photo of her deployed husband; Alex who’s overexcited about being in New York (there’s always one); Ariane, the older woman who’s competing just to see if she can do it; Daniel, the Long Island stereotype; Patrick the culinary student with the heart of gold and, as we discover, the Will to Lauren’s Grace; Stefan, our mysterious Germanic chef from Finland; Richard and his inner queen and court of queens back home obsessed with Padma’s wardrobe; Leah, who doesn’t want to “look like a little bitch”; Carla the caterer from D.C. with something to prove.  Plus some other boring people who don’t get their own introductions yet (meaning, none of them are going home or winning this week): Hosea, Melissa, and Jill.

Our contestants take the ferry to Governors Island to see Padma and Tom sing a Sinatra-Minelli inspired version of “New York, New York,” about how if they can make it here, they can make it anywhere, and it ends with Gail dressed like the Statue of Liberty (with sparklers) and Rocco DiSpirito as the Naked Cowboy.  You think I’m making this up?!?  Oh well, cue the Quickfire Guitar Riff^TM.

Because we live in troubled economic times or something, the show only ordered 16 chef coats but booked 17 contestants, so one is going home after the Quickfire.  The challenge will be in three rounds.  In the first round, they must peel 15 apples with a paring knife; the first nine to finish are safe.  Tom’s going around blowing his little whistle again.  Why?  Anyway, Stefan finishes first and wins the challenge and immunity for the episode.  The remaining people must brunoise the apples.

Skipping to the final stage, the final four-Radhika, Leah, Lauren, and Patrick-must cook something for Tom using their apples, with the weakest dish going home.  As predicted, Radhika makes Indian food.  Lauren is making a salad and interviews that tired old line of how “everything’s better with bacon,” and I die a little more on the inside.  Patrick is also making a salad.  With two hot dishes and two salads, one of the salads is going home.  (Long time viewers will recall that Tom likes his food cooked.)  And I’m correct, it comes down to Patrick and Lauren, with Patrick being safe and Lauren swimming back to LaGuardia.

Our remaining contestants learn that the Elimination Challenge is to make a dish inspired by the cuisine of a New York City neighborhood.  The knife block assigns two chefs to predetermined neighborhoods; the two chefs will compete against each other, with the winners eligible to win the elimination and the losers eligible to pack their knives and go.

Back at the spacious, non-Manhattan lair, Richard, Jamie, and Patrick forge an alliance they like to call “Team Rainbow” and Bravo proves that it can still out gay itself.  And Fabio and Stefan form a European Union bromance of sorts, which is gay enough to make them ex-officio members of “Team Rainbow.”

The next day they all head out to their neighborhoods and we see footage of people not knowing much about their assigned cuisine, such as Fabio equating Italian and Latin food, Eugene never having Indian food before, and Patrick getting an “E” for effort in his Asian cuisine class.

In Kitchen Stadium, our chefs scramble.  Of note, we see that Stefan, while confident and intimidating to the more amateurish contestants, is a nice guy for telling Patrick that he doesn’t know how to set an oven.   Patrick is also having trouble with his gummy black rice noodles.  Poor Patrick, he’s likely going home tonight.  Pretty boy Jeff decides to add more components to his plate and runs out of time to plate.  Isn’t that one of the fatal flaws on this show?

Our guest judge is Jean-Georges Vongerichten, joined by Tom and by Gail, who’s standing like she has to pee.  First up, Stefan’s Middle Eastern lamb duo trumps Ariane’s admittedly lackluster risotto.  Richard interviews how attractive he finds Tom and by attractive, he means how many drinks he wants to buy him.  Thankfully Jamie does not say whether she wants to do Padma or Gail, but her deconstructed Greek salad wins over Richard’s overcooked and dry meat.  Speaking of jerking meat, Jill and Radhika each present strong Jamaican dishes but Jill wins.  Jeff, even with his incomplete Latin presentation, wins over Fabio, with Tom the dissenting vote for Fabio.  Hosea and Carla both present smoked fish dishes for their Russian themes, and Hosea wins-and I think his dish sounded the best of all of them but that’s my Russian bias coming through (potatoes, fish, sour cream, and vodka, what’s not to like?).  In Little Italy, Leah’s new Italian red snapper wins over Melissa’s seared rib eye, which needs more salt.  Daniel and Patrick are disasters, with Daniel’s salad (and foam!) being a rip-off of something Wolfgang Puck’s been doing for years (per Tom) and Patrick just shows off his inexperience.  Finally, Eugene, who knows nothing of Indian food, gets Padma’s seal of approval as she explains he inadvertently managed to make the classic South Indian dish, curds and rice; Alex is still trying to explain how Latin and Indian food are related.

In the end, Stefan wins the challenge, setting a high bar as he also won the Quickfire.  Setting the bar even higher, Padma voice overs that by tradition the winner of the first challenge has gone on to win the whole series.  But viewers in the know will know that this was not true in Season 3 when Tre won the first episode but was eliminated in Restaurant Wars II: Colicchio Strikes Back, never making it to the finals to see Hung’s victory.

With the crash of a gong, the judges bring in Ariane and Patrick where both stumble over who’s more nervous and more intimidated by everyone else there.  Tom is excited that someone who’s been cooking for 20 years can compete head to head with a newbie.  It’s unintentionally insulting to Ariane, who’s been cooking since before Patrick was a fetus.  But in the end, Patrick is going home, hoping some day he can be on top.

We get a preview of what’s to come on this season of Top Chef: more potty mouths, Martha Stewart, Rocco DiSpirito, and a lame WMD joke (it’s time to let it go, people).

Season 5, Episode 1: Melting Pot (originally aired November 12, 2008)

For another take on this episode, check out If You Can Make It Here… by Jaimie Campos.

For more on Top Chef, click here.

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Photographs courtesy of Bravo