In case you didn’t catch the most recent episode of Top Chef All Stars, here’s a little recap so you’re all up to speed for the next one.
Episode 2: Night at the Museum
In this week’s QuickFire challenge, the chefs are asked to prepare a midnight snack for 150 kids who are sleeping over at the American Museum of Natural History. The challenge, judged by Joe Jonas (whose barely out of his teenage years, himself) resulted in a tie between Tiffani Faison’s snowball-moonpie-rice krispie treat concoction and Spike Mendelsohn’s homemade potato chips and dip. To decide the official winner the cheftestants break into two teams – Team Tiffani and Team Spike – to prepare the dishes for the kids themselves. Not surprisingly, Tiffani’s chocolate moonpie madness was the clear winner, and earned her immunity.
For the elimination challenge the cookers are tasked with preparing and serving an après sleepover brunch for the kids and their parents. Given first pick, Tiffani opted for the Tyrannosaurus Team, which could only use meat and dairy products while the Brontosaurus Team could only use vegetables and grains. The judges deemed the herbivore menu more successful – especially the banana parfait conceived by Marcel, Richard and Angelo. Chef Jen Carroll, whose pork belly missed the mark, went out with a bang – giving the judges what for before packing her knives.
Episode 1
Eighteen contestants from the previous seven seasons, including Rocca‘s Tiffani Faison, are back -ready to face off against one another and finally take the title of Top Chef. In the QuickFire challenge teams are divided up based on season and asked to cook a dish or dishes that best represent the city in which their season was set. Working with sommelier Stephen Asprinio, Faison prepared a cioppino gazpacho, inspired by the seasonal cooking and regional seafood of San Francisco. The team from season four (Spike Mendelsohn, Richard Blaise, Antonia Lofaso and Dale Talde) took the day with their edible ode to the Windy City – a deconstructed Chicago-style hot dog, complete with a mustard gelato.
In the elimination challenge, the chefs were asked to confront and recreate the dish that sent them packing in their original season. To make room in the kitchen – and to set up the season’s most dastardly twist – half the chefs cooked while the other half joined the judges in evaluating their competitors plates. In the end, Chef Tiffani’s crispy branzino with black olive papardelle and spiced fennel was deemed an improvement on her original and she’ll live to cook another day in the Top Chef kitchen. Not the case for Elia Aboumrad whose banana leaf-wrapped fish didn’t earn any rave reviews.
Tune in to Bravo at 10:00pm on Wednesday nights to see the chefs go head to head (and to root for Faison, of course).
