Top Chef Chicago Wedding Wars: Nikki is eliminated
This past week on Top Chef had the producers bringing back two of the all time favorite Top Chef challenges. The cynic in me wonders if they really are fan favorites, or if the producers are running out of things to do.
The Quickfire challenge had the contestants entering the kitchen to see Tom Colicchio standing with Padma. They were told that these favorites were returning and that they would need to draw knives to divide into two teams. The knives had either a fork or a spoon on them and here’s how they ended up:
Fork: Richard, Andrew, Stephanie, Antonia
Spoon: Spike, Lisa, Nikki, Dale
The Quickfire challenge was the culinary relay race, also known as the “Mise en Place Relay Race.” There were four challenges for each team and they would compete head to head. They were given two minutes to decide who would do what. Team Fork seemed to be pretty confident, while Team Spoon was having trouble figuring out who would make the mayonnaise by hand. This ticked Dale off, but then again nothing seemed to make Dale happy this week.
The first challenge was to peel and supreme oranges. At least I think that’s what you call it. Antonia and Lisa were up for this and Lisa did a great job, giving team Spoon a big head start. Second up had Spike and Andrew cleaning two artichokes in a specific manner. Andrew made up all the time they had lost and the two teams were neck and neck for the third challenge, when Richard and Dale had to clean and fillet a monkfish. Again they ended up pretty evenly which left Stephanie and Nikki to finish up by making a mayonnaise by hand. Stephanie kicked butt on this one and Team Fork won the challenge. There is no more immunity for the winner of the quickfire challenge, but they are assured by Padma that they will get an advantage in the upcoming elimination challenge. Dale is all ticked off when the team loses and he starts cursing and punching his locker. As I mentioned before nothing made him happy this week.
Padma announces to the chefs that they will not be doing Restaurant Wars this season. The chefs seem disappointed since this is the challenge they look forward to the most. For many, if not all of the contestants, their goal is to open their own restaurant some day. Instead the chefs will be participating in Wedding Wars. During season 1 of the show the top five chefs had to cater a wedding. This year the chefs will be catering for half of the guests of a wedding. One team will cater to the taste of the bride while the others side will cater to the taste of the groom (125 guests each). Corey and JP are the engaged couple and they are not uniformed when it comes to weddings – they own their own restaurant and wedding venue.
The advantage given to team Fork was the right to choose who to cater for. They choose the bride. Later on in the show it’s mentioned that it would have been easier to choose the groom, but as Richard said the day is all about the bride and that’s what they wanted. The bride wanted Southern style comfort food (meat and potatoes) while the Groom wanted Italian food.
You’d think that team Spoon would have been thrilled because Nikki is an expert in Italian cooking. However, she doesn’t really take the lead in the challenge. She says she and Dale have different philosophies in how to make a Ragu, but she is the expert not Dale and probably should have stepped in and said let’s do it this way. Dale has his hands into everything which worries Spike. Spike said he needed to take one dish and really own it for it to be his ace in the hole.
The judges call back the bride’s team first and lets them know that they won the challenge. Tom Colicchio said they did them proud, that the judges feel responsible for the overall wedding food and want to make sure it’s good. Guest judge Gale Gand (an executive pastry chef and co-owner of Tru) picks Richard as the winner since he assumed responsibility for the menu. He said he wanted to give the win to Stephanie because of the awesome job she did on the cake. The winner was given a $2,000 gift certificate to Crate and Barrel.
The groom’s team was called back next, and it seemed as if the only thing the judges really liked was Lisa’s cake (which Colicchio called ugly like a battleship) and Spike’s sea bass dish, though they said it wasn’t enough to be the centerpiece of the work. Colicchio can’t believe that Nikki didn’t assume creative control for the team. Dale said that he busted his tail the entire time, implying that he was the only one to do any work at all. Spike tells him to get it all out and point fingers if he wants to, so he and Dale get into an argument. Spike then says he can’t believe Nikki and Lisa are standing there quiet while Spike stands up for the three of them. Spike even goes as far as to cal Dale a little b*tch.
In the end it was Nikki who was sent home. She had the most experience with Italian food but didn’t step up to take responsibility for the team. She should have been a leader, which is a large part of what being Top Chef is all about.
Next week looks interesting. From the highlights it appears as if there is some sabotage in the kitchen. I wonder if this is really the case or just some clever editing to get us to watch next Wednesday.
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