Top Chef Masters Review: Rock and Roll USA

On this week’s episode of Top Chef: Masters the chefs get to live out their inner rock and roll fantasies, which turns out to be more of a nightmare than any of them could have ever imagined. Teams square off to create a meal for Rock Group Maroon 5, and while Traci comes out on top at the Quickfire challenge, chef Alex tries to take on too much for his team and is pushed out.

We start off this week with a Quickfire challenge designed to take diners to heaven. Given a host of “special” ingredients, among which is listed the likes of scallops and caviar, the chefs are asked to make a dish that will take any diner to seventh heaven. Having yet to have access to such highly considered culinary treats in the Quickfire, the chefs are all ecstatic about the new possibilities. But their excitement quickly turns sour as host Curtis Stone informs them that they will only have SEVEN minutes for this challenge. The chefs are all on a hijacked adrenaline rush to just get SOMETHING on their plates, if it’s edible that would be even better. The chefs range in execution for this task, while Naomi tries to make the most of her time with a fairly complex dish, Hugh completes what he calls the “most elaborate cat food of all time.”

For a surprise this week, the contestants will be judging each other’s dishes and ranking them in order from favorite to least favorite. Up until this point in the competition the chefs have all been getting along really well and some worry that this task may cause some tension in the house. But on the whole, the chefs manage to amicably critique each other, and no hard feelings should come as a result. The competitors were impressed by Naomi’s dish, but thought that Traci’s perfectly seasoned dish was good enough for immunity; Traci’s dish comes first winning her $5000 for her charity. In all truth, Naomi’s dish probably would have taken the top spot were it not for Floyd who gave Naomi a “6” when all the other competitors gave her a 1 or 2. I don’t know if this was a strategy move or maybe the two have sour grapes, or maybe he just disliked her dish. In the bottom three were Floyd, Alex, and Celina; Celina nabbing the spot as the worst among the group. As an additional advantage for the Quickfire winner, Traci had the chance to choose her team going in to the elimination challenge: she chose Hugh, Mary Sue, and Naomi, making Celina, Alex, and Floyd team number two.

Elimination Challenge: For the elimination challenge this week the teams have to prepare a family style meal for Maroon 5. The group members all have special requests: Adam (in his oh-so-sexiness) wants steak, while others of his team want options that incorporate corn, Japanese cuisine, vegetarian, and Thanksgiving. Now how you mash all those up into one coherent meal is beyond me, but then again I’m not a master, or even a chef. The teams will have to do all their prepping and cooking in a tour bus, which for most of the task is riding around the city. Surprisingly enough, the two teams come up with the same menu which is anchored in corn soup and steak, so the winning team is going to pull this one out in execution.

While the teams are prepping it becomes obvious that having a smaller team may just be an advantage in this challenge. Our three man team (Celina, Alex, and Floyd) are stepping all over each other looking for a place to place their food, this problem is only worsened with an additional team member. Add to that the fact that Traci’s team seems to have a hellcat of a driver whose every wild turn always knocks something over onto the floor. On the other bus, Alex seems to be taking on more than his fair share of work and his distraction seems to show in his food, especially his overcooked pasta which by his own admission looks like crap.

The teams serve to Maroon 5, and our judges headed up of course by Chef Curtis. Alex’s team is first. Their potato soup gets rave reviews from the guys and Adam threatens to stab one of the judges over one of the dishes (he was joking, I think), but for the most part the judges are underwhelmed with this team’s efforts. They compare Alex’s dishes to cafeteria food; nothing was original about Celina’s enchilada, and as for Floyd’s salad, well Adam said that he could have made that. The other team fared better in front of the judges although that may very well be because they brought margaritas to the table. One of the members of Maroon 5 said the team’s spanakopita reminded him of his mom’s (that’s a good thing) and in fact knocked their socks off, and the judges loved the Japanese steak even though they called the potatoes mediocre.

At the judges’ table Traci’s team is informed that they have won and because the judges loved her spanakopita Traci wins $10,000 for her charity La Cocina, bringing her total to $25,000 for charity. Alex, Celina, and Floyd are called before the judges to explain their flawed execution of the food. While all of the judges seemed disappointed that Celina and Floyd did not offer much to the meal, it was Alex that was sent packing.

Season 3, Episode 6: “I’m With The Band” (original airdate May 11, 2011)

Top Chef Masters airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on Bravo.

Images courtesy of Nicole Wilder and Bravo.