Top Chef Power Rankings, Week 11: Handle My Meat and Berries
Aka: Goin' to Calgary. Aka: Sherpas and Suede. Aka: Saskatoon Beef Cheeks. Aka: I'm a little boy who likes berries and meat.
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This week’s cold opening really underlined the stakes of this competition. The gravitas with which Tom Colicchio growls “there’s more garnish than spätzle here…” in the flashback, set to tense music during a frenetically-edited montage… ooh, baby, that’s classic Top Chef.
Last week, a few wiseacres online were complaining that, for a Top Chef season supposedly based in “Canada,” the show sure seemed to be spending a lot of time in Toronto. And that last week’s supposed love letter to Montreal was, once again, set almost entirely inside the Top Chef kitchen in Toronto (albeit featuring produce grown on the famous rooftop gardens of Montreal, and with guest judges conversant in the bastard French of Quebecois fur trappers).
Well, this week’s episode was meant to remedy all of that. Which it attempted to do by taking the entire Top Chef gang, corporeal beings and all, to Alberta’s beautiful capital city, Calgary. The Sunshine Province! Gorgeous! I’m told Calgary is considered the gateway to Edmonton.
Calgary is of course named for its two founders, Cal and Gary, twin brothers who were stranded there one winter in 1826 while foraging for moose. Okay I made that up, but it is actually known for hosting the 1988 Winter Olympics. The big winner that year? Italian skier Alberto Tomba, aka “Tomba la Bomba,” known for his swarthy Bolognan good looks. Mamma mia! What a spicy a-guest-a judge that would’ve been! Sadly, he must’ve been busy.
Every summer, Calgary also famously hosts The Calgary Stampede, one of the world’s biggest rodeos. For ten days in July, people from all over the world gather in the Alberta capital to get drunk, wear cowboy hats, and pop the collars of their denim jackets. Naturally, the judges had to show up in their full frontier finery. The fits. The FITS!!!!!!, raved the contestants, who surely weren’t at all kissing ass.
Now, let’s see those outfits that so bowled over our contestants:
GRR, WARM TONES! Jeez, who financed this episode, Big Sherpa Collar? Anyway, they look pretty good to me, but to be fair, everything I know about modern Western Wear I learned from watching Dumb & Dumber:
Our cozy, warm-toned judges were there to introduce this week’s quickfire challenge. Which would be based on a Calgary tradition that exists literally nowhere else on Earth. The pancake breakfast!
To guest judge said challenge, Top Chef trotted out Calgary native and Top Chef Canada all-star, Connie Desousa. Rawr, more like Connie Desizzle, am I right? Alberto Who? Desousa took the teleprompter baton, explaining that the tradition of Calgary pancake breakfasts dates all the way back to the days of pioneers and chuckwagons. Which, in her inimitable Great Plains accent, Desousa pronounce something like “Chuck Weggins.” (Let me know if you need me to translate, my in-laws are from Montana).
The contestants would be given 45 minutes, on account of they’d be cooking for 50 people, with the further stipulation that they “not just throw a couple pancakes on a plate and cover them with syrup and call it a day” (per Hopalong Colicchio the Earth-toned outlaw). Oh no ho ho. This challenge was meant to test their creativity, with a further further stipulation that these be hand-held pancakes. What a weird twist! Personally, I think any pancake can be a hand-held pancake if you want it bad enough.
And hey, if I wanted hand-held pancakes I’d call your mom, am I right?>?> (*struggling against five burly orderlies attempting to stick me with a syringe*) It’s still a good bit!
The other big reveal of the early part of the episode was the destination for this season’s finale: Milan!
Sheesh, you couldn’t even let them enjoy the majesty of Alberta for a few days before you teased a trip to Italy? Rude.
After that it was time for the elimination challenge, introduced by guest judge Denia Baltzer. Baltzer is a chef, caterer, and indigenous food activist, but more importantly for Top Chef purposes, she was one hell of a berry stickler! If your dish didn’t have enough berry flavor, boy was Denia Baltzer going to tell you about it. A real berry nazi, this one.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, because I haven’t yet explained this episode’s Elimination Challenge, which was intended to “celebrate two ingredients representative of both ranchers and Alberta’s First Nations”: Berries and beef! And get some berries in that dish, or else you’ll have beef with Denia Baltzer!
Now sure, Top Chef could’ve much more logically combined the berries challenge with the pancake challenge, but IHOP has already been crushing that combination for like 50 years.
Berries and pancakes? No, Top Chef would never stoop to something so pedestrian! They wanted these chefs to combine berries and meat! And then spend the entire judges table complaining about dishes that were too sweet! Glorious. Oh yeah, baby, that’s exactly why I keep watching this show.
Results:
Quickfire Top: Bailey. Shuai*. Tristen.
Quickfire Bottom: Cesar. Massimo. Lana.
Elimination Top: Massimo*, Shuai, Tristen.
Elimination Bottom: Lana**, Bailey, César.
(*Winner. **Eliminated.)
Vince’s Menu Picks, Based on Looks Alone
Quickfire: Shuai’s cheesy sausage pancake taco (with honorable mention to Bailey’s crispelle and Tristen’s Cachapa).
Elimination: Bailey’s beef cheek and bleu cheese polenta (with honorable mention to Shuai’s cabbage roll).
Power Rankings (change from last week)
6. (-2) ((Eliminated)) Lana Lagomarsini
AKA: Breeze. L Train. Choach. B+. Jessa.
Rankings History (recent to oldest): 6 4 4 4 3 6 8 9 10
Notable Quote: "I burn sage when the vibe's not right. I have sage tattooed on me."
Meat/Berry Draw in the Elimination Challenge: NY Strip Loin/Haskap Berry.
It seems that there’s a time for every streak of solid B plus dishes to eventually come to an end on Top Chef, and this was that week for Lana. She was on the bottom last week, and this week was her opportunity to prove that she belonged in the top five. Sadly, our beautiful multi-racial Jessa ended up falling just short. Ugh, I hate that for her.
But at least she went out on-brand, by which I mean: overpowering her dishes with hibiscus and sage. I mean just look at Lana, if you see this woman cooking your food, you know it’s going to have hibiscus and sage.
Lana’s unforgivable sins this week? Too much sage! Not enough berry flavor in the berry condiment! Overrested meat! Potatoes that just felt disconnected! Disconnected potatoes?? Waiter, take these back to the kitchen and put them on some SSRIs!
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the chefs with the most obscure berries tended to do the worst this week, and the ones cooking with berries I’d actually heard of fared much better. That being said, the editors seemed to suggest that Lana’s fateful decision was cutting her steaks extra thick — thereby making the whole cooking/rest time balance that much more fraught. But hey, if liking extra thick meat is a crime your mom belongs in the Hague.
Anyway, Lana’s dish looked pretty good to me, and most of the early reviews seemed to agree (right up until the ol’ berry Nazi got ahold of it. Of course, everyone’s dishes looked solid this week, and so the margin for error was razor thin. It’s been that way all season. It just happened to be Lana’s misfortune to have her worst week one week after Last Chance Kitchen ended, and to draw “haskap berries,” whatever the hell that is.
I don’t know that Lana ever felt like she had a real shot at winning, but she cooked pretty well and more importantly helped keep the show interesting. Every season should have a rom-com best friend.
Elimination Challenge Dish: Grilled steak with pommes anna, haskap berry condiment, and smoked haskap berry jus.
Judges’ Critiques: "I would've maybe liked to see more berry note." "I found the sage to be overpowering." "I found the meat to be overrested." "The potato felt to me a bit of a disconnect."
5. (-2) César Murillo
AKA: Nerdy Eric Balfour. Eric Balfoureyes. Hispanic Patrick Fischler. Patrick Fisch Tacos. Tiny Papillote. Lil Papi. The Gazelle.
Ranking History: 5 3 7 5 5 2 5 7 8 3.
Meat/Berry Draw: Ribeye/Chokeberries.
César’s creativity throughout this competition has made him the competitor with the highest highs and the lowest lows. A real Russell Westbrook in the kitchen. All of which made it strange to see César just kind of muddle through on the low side of the competitors this episode. His quickfire dish — a cornmeal pancake XO pancake with basil and chinese sausage — sounded mostly good, but then he decided to top it with a grilled tomato. That seems like… not a great idea for a hand-held pancake challenge. When I think “hand-held food” I rarely think “big ol’ slice of tomato.
That’s too watery! I mean, if I wanted soggy flapjacks I’d call— (*taken out with dart to the neck*)
Okay I’m back. César narrowly avoided going home this week, thanks to… adding sugar to his berries! The dastard!
Shame, because I think I speak for everyone when I say that his beef fat cornbread sounded fanastic. A cornbread riff on a Yorkshire Pudding? Now you’re speaking my language!
But apparently those over-sugared berries were just a bridge too far — not only for the Berry Nazi, but for Tom Colicchio in particular. As Tom described it, people like to pair tannic wines with steak, because that tannic, acidic flavor pairs great with a rich steak. So why shouldn’t a berry known for its tannic acidic qualities be the same?
It seems like a great point, though in my opinion, there was another, equally valid point in César’s favor, which was left unsaid: No one makes wine out of chokeberries!
You ever think there’s a reason for that, Tom?? Perhaps one related to the fact that they’re called “chokeberries??” Would you bash the Zinfandel people for fermenting their shit too?
Geez, César, I can’t believe you would stoop to adding sugar to a chokeberry! Everyone loves their natural flavor! Let’s hear it from one satisfied chokeberry enthusiast:
Anyway, even though I think César kind of got a raw deal, it was partly his own fault for failing to self-advocate.
Elimination Challenge Dish: Grilled Ribeye, chokeberry reduction, rutabega cream, and bone marrow cornbread.
Judges Critiques: "I think he cooked his beef perfectly." "That cornbread too." "I couldn't taste the tartness of the berry that much." "Let it be tart. It wants to be tart."
4. (+2) Bailey Sullivan
AKA: Lisa Frank. Tchochkies. Il Mano Italiano. Manic Pixie Dream Chef.
Ranking History: 4 6 6 7 7 7 8.
Meat/Berry Draw: Beef Cheek/Saskatoon Berries.
No one was more stoked about the possibility of going to Milan than Il Mano Italiano herself, Chef Bailey. Because, as we all know from her official Top Chef bio, she cooks with “an Italian hand.” I had never heard that phrase before this season, and it sounds partially ominous, like a euphemism for the mafia or domestic violence. But Bailey reiterated her own branding, even including some pantomime:
That’s it! That’s the Italian hand! I shouted, momentarily becoming the DiCaprio meme. (Is that considered an “Italian hand” as well? Discuss.)
Great work for Bailey there. If there’s one thing we know about Italian Hands, it’s that they’re made for talkin’.
But also cookin’, as Bailey proved with arguably her strongest week so far. She nearly won the quickfire with a buckwheat crispelle (arguably the most naturally hand-held of the pancakes) but then finished bottom three in the elimination challenge. But to my eyes, Bailey’s beef cheek on creamy polenta with blue cheese looked amazing. The judges ended up objecting to the sugar she used to brulee her blue cheese but how the fuck else does one go about brulée-ing something? (She brulees blue cheese for the Blue Jays fans, that’s a nice little tongue twister I just came up with)
Does Bailey have what it takes to survive one more week and punch her ticket to Milan? My gut says yes. Partly because that jacket/necklace combo Bailey has been wearing during the confessionals for the last three weeks looks exactly like the kind of outfit you’d wear if you just found out you were going to Milan.
Quickfire Dish: Buckwheat Crispelle filled with brown butter pecans.
Elimination Challenge Dish: Saskatoon braised beef cheek, creamy polenta, bruleed blue cheese and roasted walnut.
Judges Critiques: "The layers of flavor I'm really impressed with." "But the brulee is throwing me off." "Why would you decide to put pure sugar on the top?" "The flavor of the saskatoon is lost in the sauce."
Side note: “Saskatoon beef cheeks” was your mom’s stage name.