TOP CHEF: ALL STARS Brings Back Big Talent, Big Egos and Some Delicious Eats

I’d like to take a moment to welcome Samantha Simorangkir to Team GMMR. She’s going to be covering TOP CHEF for us this season and we are thrilled to have her on board. No doubt she’s going to fit right in. Welcome! — Kath

The heat is definitely on in the TOP CHEF: ALL STARS kitchen! Loved seeing familiar faces, a few changes (hello, sleek new black chef’s coats!), and an interesting new dynamic. They’ve all been through the process before, and the added theme of redemption is palpable. And the way the producers incorporate the history of the show into new challenges is great fun to watch.

To stir the pot even further, the grand prize has been upped to a cool $200,000. Nice. So the stakes are twice as high, everyone wants to win twice as bad, and they’re all doubly worried about being the first to leave. As Dale L. put it, “I would be very embarrassed to go home first.”

The first quickfire challenge appropriately addresses all the smack talk over which season was the best. Chefs are broken up into teams according to their season, and get the opportunity to put their knife skills where their mouths are. My initial reaction was that those teams with more members have an unfair advantage. But then again, too many cooks…

Their task is to prepare a dish that represents the city where their season was held. Team Chicago decides to make a deconstructed Chicago dog, with a mustard ice cream. Clever. Angelo and Tiffany from Top Chef: DC go the Maryland crab/rockfish route. Makes sense. Tiffany and Stephen represent San Francisco regional food with cioppino. Perfect. Season 5 is representing New York with…apples? Fabio: “Apple, apple, apple, big apple, New York…” I see what you’re trying to do there. But really, they competed in the city with possibly the richest culinary culture in the nation, and having them pick “apples” to represent that was a bit of a head-scratcher for me.

I wasn’t surprised that the judges picked the teams representing New York and Los Angeles in the bottom. Having lived in both places, I didn’t see my beloved food cities represented very well at all. Team LA, which consisted of Elia and Marcel, presented a very sad looking shrimp taco, with an apple wrapper. Of all things to substitute for a tortilla! What is it with these people and apples today? Also, while watching Elia and Marcel work together, I felt something was missing, and I realized it was Chef Sam. He made season 2 for me. It wasn’t because he was beautiful. Well, ok maybe it was.

Some personalities are as large as ever. Fabio still talks constantly. Despite Elia’s hopes that Marcel has “matured,” he appears to be as cocky and confrontational as ever (thank goodness.)

Some have appeared to tone down a bit, which seems to be the case with Dale T., who thus far has displayed an uncharacteristic calm, humility and willingness to collaborate. But only time will tell.

The most pleasant surprise for me, personality-wise, is Jen Carroll’s newfound swag. She was obviously great on her season, but seemed particularly hard on herself. So it was great to hear her say “My season is intimidating because of me. *head tilt* That’s why.”  Atta girl.

Team Chicago wins immunity with their sausage and Professor Blais’ liquid nitrogen mustard. Loved his explanation of “you can’t represent Chicago without representing the avant-garde.” What a line.

The elimination challenge is to recreate the dish that sent them home, and make it work. Interesting, since for some people, their last dish was a complete conceptual disaster, and for others, they had made it all the way to the finals and simply got beaten by a better chef, or didn’t win due to a minor technical mistake. It would seem it would be harder to make the conceptual failures successful the second time around, and easier to tweak and perfect near successes, but apparently that was not the case. Spike and Dale T. both had disastrous scallop dishes, and both managed to overcome the issues of the dish without straying too far from the original. Elia’s fish dish, which she appeared to be confident about, and made very little change to, turned out to be very undercooked and one of the worst dishes served.

In a controversial moment, Richard is deemed ineligible for the win due to having continued plating after time was called. Dale T. thinks Richard had the best dish, and it seems that way from the judges and contestants initial reactions, but rules are rules. I am just relieved that he wasn’t eliminated for it. Angelo wins the challenge with his ramen dish, and Spike gets commended for being the sneaky bastard that he is.

In spite of his shrewd observation that “To be eliminated twice for the same dish, you gotta be stupid!” Fabio lands in the bottom, along with Elia and Stephen, after Anthony Bourdain describes his dish as “appalling.” Fabio is of course furious and will not stand for being “made fun of.” I don’t think Tony meant anything personal by it, that he is justly harsh towards any dish that he doesn’t enjoy, and that Fabio needs to take it like a man. Elia pleads (or demands, rather) for the judges not to eliminate her, to no avail. Her undercooked fish sends her packing, which was a surprise to me. I really thought she would have made it farther, but hey – competition is fierce this time around! No one is safe!

What did you think of the first episode?