Top Chef All Stars Review: They Get To Go To The Bahamas?

The first episode of the Top Chef “finale” in the Bahamas was pretty underwhelming. You’d think if there’s a fryer fire in the show, like in this one, I would say something like “Top Chef All Stars was On Fire last night!” But even with a fire in the kitchen and only five cheftestants remaining, the drama and excitement was not what it should have been, from the beginning of the season to the end.

The show started out strong with a brilliant Quickfire challenge set-up. For the challenge, the chefs went head-to-head with the winners of their respective seasons.  It’s Tiffany vs. Top Chef Kevin Sbraga, Mike Isabella vs. Top Chef Michael Voltaggio, Carla vs. Top Chef Hosea Rosenberg. Richard and Antonia, who were in the same season, took on Top Chef Stephanie Izard. Tiffany, Mike, and Richard won their battles and received $10,000 in pocket change. Ultimately the challenge felt anti-climatic because the contestants were going against the Top Chefs and not each other.

The chefs were then told they must prepare a meal for Bahamian royalty during the elimination challenge. They thought they’d serve an honest to god king and queen, which was totally incorrect. After the chefs prepped dishes fit for a monarchy, they were shocked to find the royalty they’ll be serving was actually the king of Junkanoo.  Junkanoo is a type of festival and he seems like a kind of jester king (think Homer Simpson but Bahamian).  So all the fancy dishes the chefs were thinking of making were quickly thrown out the window and changed to more popular fare. Because you know how “normal” people absolutely hate gourmet food.

Because this is Top Chef, the chefs only had one hour to cook. The previously mentioned deep fryer caught on fire, and they all evacuated after trying to save and cover their food.  Firemen put out the fire, but not before they sprayed flame retardant chemicals all over the place. Tom and his bald head told the chefs their food was contaminated, and everyone started from scratch.  Richard and Antonia unwisely decided to totally change their dishes, I’m guessing because they didn’t want to win and just wanted to hand the Top Chef crown to Tiffany. Seriously, these chefs make the show harder on themselves all the time and it’s getting old.

The judges didn’t really like any of the dishes, but Tiffany, Carla, and Antonia’s dishes were deemed the worst.  I would like to say here that all season long, no matter what the judges say about the chefs’ dishes at the Judges’ Table, I would have eaten everything these chefs make. I understand the Judges have to be critical and nit-picky, but the majority of the dishes these contestants have made look and sound delicious. I would love to be able to try them all.

Carla, who I like a lot and thought was a contender, undercooked the pork in her dish and was rightly booted. She undercooked the pork! Come on, Carla! You can’t do that, not now, not this far in the season and expect to stay for the next episode.

Oh, the next episode of the four part Top Chef Bahamas finale features Padma in a bikini. So I will be dedicating most of my review to that. Things are looking up.

Season 8, Episode 13 “Fit for a King” (original air date March 9, 2011)

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

Photos courtesy of David Giesbrecht and Bravo.