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Quickfire Challenge We start this week off with a familiar face. The chefs are introduced to everyone's favorite (especially the girls) chef from season two - Sam Talbot! We all know he should have won.
The chefs are given the task to make a "sexy salad" in 45 minutes, a rather long amount of time to make a salad if you ask me. This, of course, only means that the chefs better create some amazing salad, or they're in for it!
Sam was not a fan of Richard's salad, Stephanie's unfinished fall flavored salad or Lisa's grilled squid salad, despite the high end ingredients. It's interesting how some of the best chefs this season were all in the bottom three. Dale and Antonia both did well with their unique salads, but Spike took the win with his beef and pineapple salad.
Quickfire Challenge This week we start off with... no guest chef. The chefs are greeted by plain ol' Chef Tom Colicchio and Padma. Right off the bat Padma drops the first bomb - from now on the Quickfire Challenge does not grant the winner immunity. She then asks the chefs to divide into two teams, the Forks and the Spoons.
Then the chefs learned they would be doing one of our favorite Quickfires - the relay race. The first task was between Lisa and Antonia to slice an orange. Lisa smoked Antonia and gave her team a head start. The next task was between Spike and Andrew - to de-construct an artichoke. With the help of a peeler, and Spike breaking an artichoke top, Andrew quickly broke up his artichoke and picked up the slack. Up next, Richard and Dale, who were pretty much head to head. They had to clean up a monk fish and produce two fillets which they do at pretty much the same time. The last task was to make homemade mayo. Stephanie and Nikki both beat the crap out of some eggs to make a mayo. Apparently Stephanie has stronger arms and her mayo gave her team the win.
Two notes: No one was able to shock viewers as much as Hung did last season when he broke down the chicken. Also, was this foreshadowing or what? Dale couldn't stand that Nikki said she hadn't made mayo since culinary school. We just know this means drama for them later in the episode.
This week's celebrity guest chef is none other than Art Smith, Oprah's personal chef (it is Chicago, remember) and owner of the restaurant Table 52.
The chefs are quickly told they must create a simple, tasty entree - in fifteen minutes! It's going to be a madhouse!!! Luckily they get to use good ol' Uncle Ben's quick cooking rice (who was clearly a sponsor).
After pure chaos, the guest chef tastes each cheftestant's quick entree. Art was not a fan of Mark's dry miso turkey breast, Stephani's rice pancake (not good sounding at all) or Lisa's southwest dish which was not very original. Chef Smith loved Dale's fried rice and scallops and Antonia's rice salad, one of her mother's homegrown dishes that she loves. Antonia wins the challenge and gets immunity. She better call her mom and thank her for that recipe!
Elimination Challenge
Sticking with the Oprah theme, the chefs are asked to share their culinary skills with the common folk and devise a healthy, nutritious, and (above all) tasty meal for a family of four. But the catch is the dish has to cost under ten dollars. How are they going to pull this one off?
After a trip to Whole Foods ( and Mark ripping it up on the Didgeridoo -- an Australian instrument), the chefs head to the kitchen to start working on their ten dollar meals. There Padma throws the chefs a curve ball and tells them they will have a little help with their meals - literally. The chefs are paired up with a team of little kids from Chef Smith's school, Common Threads! How fun!
Thirty seconds into cooking Spike's little chef cuts himself peeling carrots. After a quick wash, the kid hops right back on the horse and keeps peeling. Thatta boy!
As the chefs walk into the kitchen this week they are greeted by tables covered with pastries, chocolate cakes, and everything else that is yummy and sweet. They are then introduced to this week's guest chef, James Beard Award-winning Executive Pastry Chef of Jean-Georges, Johnny Iuzzini. Wonder what this quickfire will be all about.
Padma begins to point out that usually in Top Chef, the one killer is the dessert. So, to test this theory, the quickfire challenge this week is for the chefs to make their best dessert. The winner will get their recipe in the new Top Chef cook book.
Johnny was not a fan of Antonia's lemon cake and Spike's rum-cake souffle, despite his effort. Dale's traditional dessert won over our guest judge, while Richard's faux scallops (banana) over a dessert guacamole won big points for creativity. So big in fact, Richard won the challenge and immunity for this week.
Elimination Challenge
After the quickfire, the chefs learn they get to go to Second City, the birth place of improvisational comedy in America. But as we all know when the chefs are sent to enjoy themselves, well, they are never just sent to enjoy themselves. At one point in the show, the Second City cast starts to have the audience yell out a color, an emotion and a food used in cooking. Guess what those suggestions turned out to be? The chefs soon learn that they will be cooking a five course meal based on the suggestions yelled out by the audience. This should be good.
I hope everyone has cooled off from last week. And if not, this week's episode might help.
Quickfire Challenge
This week's Quickfire put a huge smile on my face as soon as the chefs walked into the kitchen. They were greeted by this week's guest judge Koren Grieveson, owner of Chicago's Avec restaurant, and sixteen pitchers of delicious beer. The challenge for the chefs is to create a dish to pair with one of the sixteen beers. Mmmmmm. My mouth is watering already.
While tasting the dishes, Chef Koren seems to have a great poker face and doesn't say much.
Spike didn't win the chef over with his boring tapas and clams plate. Richard and Stephanie both did well by using ingredients in their dishes that were similar to what was in their chosen beer (duh). But the winner was Jen with her beignets. Clearly she channeled her emotions from losing Zoi last week and used them for good. Good for her.
Elimination Challenge
The chefs are sent to a Chicago Bears game to tailgate for the fans. Who can't relate to that?
Quickfire Challenge
This week's Quickfire challenge stars guest judge Ming Tsai, owner of Blue Ginger, a well established Asian restaurant in Boston.
The challenge is the always popular blindfold taste test challenge. However, this year's version is a bit different - the cheftestants have to choose the more high-end ingredient of two products while blindfolded.
Most chefs seem to know what they are looking for and did pretty well. The ingredients ranged from meat to butter, and from olive oil to sake. Sounds fun!
Stephanie did the worst, with 6 out of 15, and Antonia did the best, giving her immunity. She was the smart one, using different fingers while tasting and really cleaning out her mouth out with water after each taste. Her trick seemed to pay off.
Hello and welcome back to your weekly recap of Top Chef: Chicago!
Before I start I need to ask a question: At the start of this episode, some of the contestants mention how Jennifer and Zoi have an advantage because they are dating. Do you agree? Personally, I think it is a little unfair. A lot of reality show contestants make dumb decisions because they miss their friends and families. In probably one of the only times I will agree with Spike, he says everyone else has a slight disadvantage because they don't have that person there that they connect with. But on the flip side, if either Zoi or Jennifer goes home, the other might be even more affected. Comment with your thoughts!
Quickfire
This week's Guest Judge is Chef Daniel Boulud, one of the best French chefs in the world.
The challenge - to create a vegetable plate using at least three culinary techniques to impress Chef Daniel. Talk about stressful! Most (if not all) of the chefs get very nervous. Apparently they're a little rusty on technique.
After 30 minutes of running around like nuts, the chefs present their dishes. In the bottom tier, Nikki fails using her endive like a boat, as it was "cute," but not very technical. Lisa had no train of thought with her dish and Manuel fails to impress.
The tops: Dale with his vegan sashimi plate and extraordinary knife skills. Zoi impresses with her wonderfully blanched eggs and Richard's does well with his interestingly prepared mushroom. Dale, however, came out with the win and walked away with immunity.
Welcome to another episode of Top Chef Chicago!
Quickfire Challenge
As usual we start off the competition with the Quickfire challenge. The guest judge: Rick Bayless, a multi Beard award winner and owner of Frontera Grill and Toplobampo in Chicago. The challenge: Create a high end staple of Mexican cuisine, the taco. Mmmm I would be lying if I said I wasn't salavating.
Immediately I'm thinking that Manuel (executive chef of Dos Caminos) should be able to pull this one off, seeing as how he IS the executive chef of a high end Mexican restaurant.
Manuel makes the quintessential taco with chorizo (a staple type of sausage in Mexican cooking). Oh man am I hungry.
Lisa blows her chances by creating a chewy skirt steak taco. Andrew uses duck meat, which works well seeing as Bayless' favorite taco in the world is duck taco. Spike manages to gain points by going with a street style taco. Richard decides to use jicama as the tortilla for his taco which is an interesting choice.
Once judging comes around, the guest judge doesn't like Eric's taco because it doesn't look high end enough. Eric retaliates by saying Mexican food can't be high end. So there.
On the top end, the guest judge really likes Andrew's duck taco, Richard's jicama tacos and Spike's street style tacos. In the end Richard's oddball jicama taco pays off as he wins the Quickfire challenge. On top of the win, Richard's taco will be featured in one of Rick Bayless' restaurants. Not bad.
It’s the time of the holidays, and this means it’s time for giving. Top Chef decided to bring back a few of their chefs from the past three seasons and let them compete, or shall we say cook, for a prize of $20,000 to bring home.
From Season 1, Tiffani and Stephen returned. From Season 2, Josie, Betty, and Marcel returned. From Season 3, CJ, Tre, and Sandee returned.
Most of the chefs have gone places since they were eliminated from their respective seasons. Tiffani is opening her own restaurant in LA, and said she proves that Top Chef does change lives. Without this name, her restaurant wouldn’t have been possible.
Tiffani also seemed a bit bitter about not winning Season 1. She was runner up, but didn’t quite make it to the top. This was her time to shine.
Marcel went to Alaska after he was eliminated, and says he hasn’t stopped traveling for the past five months. Not such a bad life.
Stephen is also opening his own restaurant and following his dream of becoming a restaurateur.
Hosting live from Chicago, Lakshmi and the audience members were more pumped up than ever tonight for the season finale of Top Chef: Season 3.
Still in the mountains of Colorado, the three remaining cheftestants (Hung, Casey, and Dale) were preparing for their final shot at winning this competition.
The first morning, they were surprised by a delicious breakfast provided by room service, with a note attached. They were told to meet Lakshmi and Colicchio at the top of a mountain, and we all know the easiest way to get up there is a gondola ride.
After the chefs enjoyed a scenic tour of Colorado’s breath-taking mountains, Lakshmi and Colicchio presented the final challenge. It took place at the world-famous Aspen Mountain Club, whose membership costs over $100,000 and whose waitlist is years long.
In the beautiful, snowy mountains of Colorado, this week’s lucky four remaining chefs hardly had time to vacation. They were there to win, not to ski.
Without fail, Hung's typical arrogance came out immediately. He let everyone know that “compared to the other three contestants [his] skills and techniques are much more advanced. [He is] definitely qualified to win.”
This week’s Top Chef had the chefs cooking for a once in a lifetime chance to go to Aspen for next week’s finale.
“Being in the top five, it just feels amazing,” Dale said right before Sara M. expressed that “everyone is really excited because this tells you whether or not you’re going to go onto the final 4.”
Much to their surprise, the chefs had a rough morning yesterday. Instead of a mechanical alarm clock, they were woken up by a different kind of alarm clock: Padma Lakshmi. With her stomach growling and eyes of hunger, she definitely was not in the mood to wait long for a meal.
Top Chef is heating up week by week, and this week was definitely one of the more interesting ones. With a small budget and limited time, the chefs need to be quick and careful – a combination that can be very dangerous.
Off to a sentimental start, Hung expressed how much he missed Trey. He thought it was a mistake that he went home, revealing that “[he’d] lose to him rather than anybody else if [he] had to lose.”
Snappy guest judge Michael Schwartz was the definition of a tough critic, and felt immediately felt comfortable letting the chefs know how he felt about their food. Let’s just say there was no censoring.
“Looking good and making the most of what you have is what Miami is really about” Lakshmi prepared the chefs for their Quickfire challenge.
This week's Top Chef shows us a lesson: there is simply no room for error. A continuation of last week's Restaurant Wars elimination challenge, Top Chef this week was definitely not pretty.
The Quickfire Challenge required each chef to compete against each other. It was a Mise en Place Relay Race, and apparently the saying "slow but steady wins the race" did not apply here.
Casey caused her team to lose by slowly dicing away, giving Team Garage the title of winner this week. She taught us that, each challenge is only given an extremely short amount of time for a reason, and the chefs need to use that time wisely.
Team Garage this week also received a little help from designer Christopher Ciccone, who happens to be Madonna's (yes, the Madonna) younger brother.
Though he may not have the most cooking talent, our friend Howie sure has the most audacity in the group. At this point, nobody can stand to be around him anymore, but they simply don’t want to ruin their chances of becoming Top Chef, so they deal with it.
Top Chef sure knows how to get America excited. This week’s quickfire and elimination challenge included two of American’s favorite things to do and eat: ice cream and party. Now, don’t get excited, we all know this sounds too good to be true. What’s the catch? You’ll have to wait and find out.
The quickfire challenge tonight was one of the most interesting and fun ones thus far. With guest judge Govan Armstrong keeping an eye out on the cheftestants, they had 45 minutes to mix their own ingredients into the new sweet cream flavor of Coldstone Creamery.
“I immediately think peach cobbler. A lot of texture. For me, it’s a no brainer,” bragged Dale. While peach cobbler may be a no-brainer, Tre definitely didn’t stick behind Casey’s spicy flavors she decided to include.
Not only is back to school time coming up for most students, it hit the cheftestants hard last night, as well. Instead of the traditional quickfire challenge that includes actual cooking, there was an unusual spin added to this week’s interesting, but unexpected quickfire challenge.
After last week’s largely unsuccessful group efforts, this week the chefs were in for a treat (no pun intended). Now that there’s only 11 cheftestants remaining, the stakes are high and the ovens are getting hot.
Who would have guessed that on a show based around cooking, this week’s quickfire challenge was based around drinks? Cocktails are an added bonus to appetizers, but they can’t just be any cocktails. Not only does the food have to be delicious on its’ own, it has to taste good and blend with a specific Bombay Sapphire cocktail. Nobody said cooking was simple.
Though last week’s grilling challenge was a hit for the cheftestants, this week’s seafood dive was not as successful. With only 13 remaining chefs, this quickfire challenge required each chef to create a scrumptious and inspiring shellfish dish in only 30 minutes.
In the sizzling heat of Miami, 14 cheftestants cooked for their lives in order to improve their chances of becoming Top Chef of Season 3. Contrary to the exotic proteins of the premier, the quickfire challenge of this episode included a wide range of colorfully provocative citruses. The cheftestants were instructed to create a special dish incorporating some of the gorgeous fruit in only 30 minutes.
Get your cooking utensils ready and aprons on, because Top Chef Season 3: Miami is here and loaded with fire and fun. With 15 new brilliant and powerful “cheftestants,” this season of Top Chef should be very interesting.
Host Padma Lakshmi, head judge Tom Colicchio, judge Gail Simmons and surprise guest judge, author, chef and world traveler Anthony Bourdain prepared themselves for the 15 dishes about to hit their palates from the “Quickfire Challenge.” According to Lakshmi, the first round is “all about getting to know each other,” and this specific challenge gave the cheftestants only 10 minutes to prepare a tasty amuse bouche and show the judges a little bit about each of their culinary personalities.
In the middle of Union Square Park today, BravoTV hosted a “cook-off” between fan favorite Sam Talbot and winner of Top Chef Season 2 Ilan Hall for the kick-off of Top Chef Season 3: Miami, and the start of NYC’s famous restaurant week.
In the sweltering heat on this mid-June day, host Padma Lakshmi and judge Tom Colicchio along with 4 of New York’s top restaurant owners kept everyone’s spirits high and bellies hungry throughout the cook-off despite the sticky weather. Both Sam and Ilan were instructed to pick a dish to cook, and in the meantime Padma and other guest hosts handed out prizes and entertained the large lunchtime audience. The lucky winning dish will tentatively be added to some of the top restaurants’ menus during restaurant week.