Top Chef Masters: Champions Round Begins ... (Begins? You Mean There’s More?)

Top Chef Masters
Episode: Champions Round Begins ... (Begins? You Mean There’s More?)
July 26, 2009


Previously on Top Chef Masters: A thousand and one extraordinary chefs put their master-y skills to the test in a retread of competitions usually undertaken by lesser men and women. Some excelled. Some embarrassed themselves. And others were done in by the GE™ Monogram appliances. Now the six winners remain to compete for the title of ... well, you know.

---

Well, here we are. That moment we’ve all been waiting for. The grand finale, where one Master will be crowned the most Master of all Masters and ...

What? No? There’s a whole other round of one-by-one eliminations? But I wanted to get on with the next regular season! These people may be gifted, but they’re not terribly interesting. And how many different types of hats can there be, anyway?

So, here we go. Our top six Masters competing in this marathon are ...

• Art Smith: We saw him last week. Oprah’s chef. The Caucasian reincarnation of Butterfly McQueen. The chef I’d most like to sauté over an open flame.

• Hubert Keller: French chef extraordinaire. Part-time DJ. Earns extra residuals for the use of his silhouette in each episode’s promos for the Champions Round.

• Anita Lo: The silent-but-deadly lesbian super chef. Left her personality back home, but packed extra cooking skills instead.

• Rick Bayless: Great chef (as expected), sweet guy and brings about as much TVQ as you’re going to find here. Most known for being the Anglo who perfected Mexican cuisine.

• Suzanne Tracht: The designated mom with the flat affect. Does double-duty as the “heart and soul” chef. Perpetually looks like she just got out of the shower.

• Michael Chiarello: Napa Valley super chef. In my mind, Mr. Sex Appeal, though others seem to differ.

NotPadma greets the top six and explains how there will be three (three?!) more elimination rounds before the finale. Chef “I Don’t Know Nothin’ ‘Bout Birthin’ No Babies” says he wants to go “all the way,” which sends cold chills down my spine for more reasons than one.

Quickfire Challenge

NotPadma explains that, as always, these Quickfire Challenges are revivals of ones that were done on the regular Top Chef. This week’s will be the ... Mise En Place Relay Race, where they will have to perform basic food preparation skills correctly, efficiently and quickly. They will compete as two teams against each other in a timed relay.

And since these folks are Masters, and at this stage of their careers generally have other folks perform these tasks for them, they will likely do worse than the usual TC contestants.

The Masters draw knives to pick teams. They are ...

• Team Pepper: Chef Art, Chef Michael and Chef Michelle.

• Team Salt: Chef Rick, Chef Hubert and Chef Anita.

To time the Masters, out comes “Big Daddy himself, Tom Colicchio,” says Chef Prissy.

In relay format, the chefs will have to shuck 15 oysters, dice five onions, butcher four chickens and separate five eggs and beat the white to the point where if you hold the bowl upside down, it will hold for five seconds. The first team to finish wins. Since there are four tasks, but only three chefs per team, one chef will have to perform two tasks.

The Masters pick tasks. On Team Salt, Chef Anita remembers Kiss-Of-Death Chef Casey totally crapping out in her three-week quest to chop an onion in Season Three and wants no part of that job. Over on Team Pepper-With-Miss-Pepperpot, Chef Art is happy to be tasked with the egg leg.

Go!

First up, Chef Hubert versus Chef Suzanne O’Monotone with the oysters. They’re fast and finish almost simultaneously.

Next, Chef Hubert (again) versus Chef “Did I Tell You About The Time I Served Dame Elizabeth Taylor?” chopping onions. Frenchie works quickly, but the resident name dropper has to slow down to convince folks that it’s the onions that are making him cry so much. Still, not employing Hubert’s slow, Gallic onion chopping style, Art finishes first.

Third is Chef Michael versus Chef Anita on the chicken butchering. Both fast. And we’re back to a dead heat.

Finally, it’s egg time. Chef Rick versus Chef Art. Chef Michael suggests Art put his “limp wrist to work” breaking the eggs. Turning everything into a sex joke, Art replies that “it’s coming.”

Chef Rick explains to us his pastry making background and how he’s really good at this task. Art makes a reference to the Egg Lady from Pink Flamingos.

Still, Art’s yokes fall flat. And, they fall into his whites too, leaving him way behind. Rick beats his way to a first place finish and Team Salt wins!

As a result, Chefs Anita, Rick and Hubert win the challenge and each gets five stars towards their final total. The other chefs each earn four stars for their efforts.

Once that’s out of the way, NotPadma tries to convince us that the Masters will have NO IDEA that the next thing they’re about to do will be in any way related to their upcoming elimination challenge. She asks the six Masters to prepare their signature dish.

They’re all thrilled and get cooking. Chef Dishy flits about, waves his spatula at Chef Hubert and chastises him for cooking something “French, French, French!”

Is everything  a sex joke with this guy?

They finish and serve to each other their dishes with a side order of biographical data and old snapshots. They are ...

• Chef Hubert: A very “French, French, French” lobster and truffle cappuccino with a corn medeline.

• Chef Beverley Leslie: A seared grouper with hearts of palm. Because that’s what he served the President when he came to his restaurant for Valentine's Day. And what better way to remind us all that he knows famous people? (Incidentally, did I tell you about the time that  Sally Kellerman and Yitzhak Rabin ...)

• Chef Anita: A seared scallop with a potato purée with bacon, sea urchin and mustard greens.

• Chef Michael: A fennel balsamic quail served with a bunch of tasty-yet-totally-unfamiliar stuff found in the Napa Valley.

• Chef Suzanne: In keeping with her bubbly and energetic personality, steak and egg.

• Chef Rick: A roast rack of lamb with black pasilla chile with mission figs. It’s somehow extremely Mexican.

NotPadma arrives with the shocking news.

Elimination Challenge

The Masters will have to take one of their comrade’s signature dishes and reinvent it, putting their own twist on it. (And who could have seen THAT coming?)

The Masters declare this “mean.”

Since Hubert did two tasks in the Quickfire and won, he gets to pick which competitor’s dish he’ll recreate. He picks Chef Anita’s scallops. So, Anita gets to rework Hubert’s dish.

The rest pick knives to determine their assignments.

Chef Michael notes that his style is so completely different from Chef Rick’s that that’s the last one he wants to do. Naturally, that’s what he gets. And Rick will be remaking Michael’s quail dish too.

Which leaves Chef Dull Surprise to trade dishes with Chef Bruce Vilanch.

They head off to the Foodtown™ to shop. And I head off to the medicine cabinet for an extra boost of No-Doz.

Once they get back, we see that Chef Hubert’s twist on Chef Anita’s dish involves a sea urchin sauce. And Chef Anita’s twist on Chef Hubert’s dish will be naming the lobster, chasing it around the kitchen and petting it gently before slicing it open. Watching those dissected claws still opening and closing in the pot is just so delectable!

Chef Divine (with apologies to the late, great Divine) tackles Chef Beige’s steak and eggs and opts to make an oversized lamb burger with a whole, hard-boiled egg inside. I am informed this is called a Scotch egg. I choose to not think about that, as I’d someday actually like to go to Scotland.

Chef Suzanne, meanwhile, tells us she’s adding ingredients to Art’s grouper dish to make it “more richer.” (English wasn’t a requirement in culinary school, it seems.)

Elsewhere, Chef Michael is getting grief from Chef Rick for “wimping out” on his dish. I gather this involves his not wanting to use spicier chiles or some such. I’ll take their word for this.

Asked how he’s doing with the quail, Chef Rick says he’s trying to “make it work.” Lawyers for the Weinsteins and Lifetime Television arrive and immediately serve him with an injunction and a “cease and desist” order.

As time runs out, we hear Chef Suzanne mention that she was really concerned about not finishing early enough. But she may have overshot her target, as we see her totally finished two minutes before time is called. (This can’t end well.)

In the dining room we see our Critics, Jay “Wet Labradoodle” Raynor, Lids.com spokeswoman Gael Greene and Professor Moriarty. And with them are this week’s  “surprise” diners. And who else would they be but several of the Masters who were eliminated earlier in the competition?

How ever do they think up these surprise twists?

Serving first is Chef Edna Turnblad and his lamb Scotch egg with sweet potato fries. The diners like the sides. They’re not too enthused about the lamb thing.

Next is Chef Rick’s take on Michael’s quail dish. He’s concerned how people will take it. But there’s no need for concern. Though surprised he didn’t go full-on Mexican, everyone still loves it.

Third is Chef Snooze and her grouper dish. While the diners think it may have been good at one point, now they just think it’s cold and has been sitting out too long.

This is followed by Chef Hubert’s take on Anita’s scallops. His sea urchin sauce seems like an interesting idea, but it’s flavor (or lack of flavor, depending who you ask) gets mixed reviews.

Up next is Chef Michael’s take on Chef Rick’s lamb. It also gets mixed reviews, with some feeling that the chiles aren’t bold enough and others feeling the lamb was undercooked. (Sidenote: Chef Michael reports on his Facebook page that the oven was 76º too cold. And another chef falls victim to the Curse of the GE™ Monogram appliances.)

Last, it’s Chef Anita’s take on Chef Hubert’s lobster dish. She’s turned it into a corn Chewbacca Chimichurri Cuchi-Cuchi Chawanmushi with a champagne gelée and a raw lobster biscuit sandwich. Everyone is totally over the moon with praise for her offering.

The diners are left to rate the dishes and we head off for ...

Fakeout Scene!

Five minutes of “isn’t Art just adorable?” No. No he isn’t.

Fakeout Scene over!

Critics Table

The Masters face the critics. Blah, blah, blah.

The results:

Two Masters had the highest rating. One will be the winner of this round. They are ...

Chef Rick and Chef Anita.

After calculating all the scores ....

Chef Rick earns a total of ... 23 stars.

Chef Anita earns a total of ... 24 stars. (Chef Anita wins!)

And now for the rest.

Chef Michael earns a total of ... 18 1/2 stars.

Chef Hubert earns a total of ... 21 1/2 stars. (Hubert is safe.)

Chef Art earns a total of ... 15 stars. (Chef Michael is safe.)

Chef Suzanne earns a total of ... 14 1/2 stars. (Suzanne is out.)

And we’re left to suffer Chef Prissypants for another week.

Joy.

Next week on Top Chef Masters: The Masters cater for some actress I should care about. Art smells a rat. And there are a bunch of restrictions.