Top Chef Review: Chefs and Goodfellas Together At Last

The great thing about reality shows is that when an annoying contestant gets kicked off,another contestant rises to take the place of “most unlikeable.” I love having someone to hate on my reality TV, and since Marcel was booted last episode I wondered who would take his place.

Enter: Mike. Episode 8 of Top Chef All-Stars started off with Mike ranting about Marcel and everybody, including the viewing audience, wanted him to stop talking. Mike never stopped talking. I have found my new villain.

This week the nine remaining chefs took part in an extremely weak Quickfire Challenge that was more about product branding for a new Bravo show than an actual challenge. It’s Fashion Week, but we shouldn’t care because this is a cooking show, right?  Wrong.  Apparently we should care. A lot. Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi joined Padma as a guest judge, and you just knew the words “style” and “fashion” were going to be used in describing food. Padma and Isaac announced that “for the first time ever!” the food would not be eaten (so fashion week!), rather the dishes would instead be judged on aesthetics alone. Yes, I agree it’s a stretch and everybody seemed to know it by the amount of B.S. used in making and describing their creations.

I’m telling you now you do not want to know what they made for the Quickfire challenge. But I’m going to tell you anyway. Tre: abstract dots. Mike: a raw egg puree. Antonia: A tree. Tiffany: Rye bread dirt. I have no idea what Angelo made but it looked like he found it in a back alley and decided to serve it wrapped in plastic. Richard: Black ice cream. Carla: a cucumber cauldron. Dale: Graffiti?  Fabio: A tuna “woman” with lemon rain (I am not messing with you, this is what they made).

The winner was Richard because his dish didn’t seem like it was created in an insane asylum. I don’t blame the chefs for doing so poorly on this one. It was a really weak concept that yielded horrid results, an outcome any Top Chef viewer could have predicted.

Elimination challenge! The chefs were asked to prepare a traditional three-course Italian meal at one of New York’s legendary restaurants, Rao’s. The challenge was to cook for Frankie No, Junior, and Dino (the men who run the restaurant), along with a few other guests, including actress Lorraine Bracco (Karen Hill in Goodfellas), Rao’s bartender (in an awesome rainbow sequin vest), and of course Anthony Bourdain.

After the instructions, the chefs split up to tackle their assigned part of a three-course meal. Starters: Carla, Antonia, Tiffany. Pasta: Mike, Dale, Tre. Meat: Fabio, Richard, Angelo.

The judges understandably focused on the three Italian contestants - Fabio, Antonia, and Mike. The first course was pretty solid, the ladies coming through with simple but tasty dishes. Carla’s minestrone, Tiffany’s polenta, and Antonia’s mussels in white wine all skated through with only the slightest snarky comments.

Second course… not so much. Tre’s vegetable risotto had too many vegetables for people’s taste. Dale’s pasta with Brussels sprouts was uninspired, and Italian Mike couldn’t cook rigatoni.  Bourdain was irate and he should be. How do professional chefs mess up the pasta course? Hell, I cook pasta, they should be able to do it with their eyes closed.

Thankfully, the meat course re-raised the bar. Angelo made a pork with pancetta and tomato dish that I could smell through the TV. Richard does his thing (being the front runner) with a pancetta cutlet and hot pepper dish. Fabio didn’t let his Italian heritage or his accent down with an “Old World” chicken cacciatore with polenta dish that was a huge hit with the judges.

The top chefs this episode were Antonia, Fabio, Carla, and Tiffany. Antonia wins for her steamed mussels in white wine, which confused me, considering Fabio’s dish.  I don’t think I was alone in my confusion, was I America?

The bottom three rightly consisted of Mike, Dale and Tre.  Of course there were insults hurled and apologies and excuses given, but in the end they booted Tre for his poorly cooked risotto.

With some of the other chefs stepping it up, I’m now thinking Richard won’t run away with this thing after all. Do you agree?

For another opinion on this week’s episode, check out “Lacking Drama” by Zarna Patel.

Season 8, Episode 8: An Offer They Can’t Refuse (original air date Feb. 2, 2011)

Top Chef: All-Stars airs Wednesday 10/9c on Bravo.

Photos courtesy of David Giesbrecht and Bravo.