Show Us Your Growth: Top Chef Power Rankings, Week 12
Who will reign as the Cheddar Caesar of Wisconsin? Favorites fell and underdogs rose on this episode of Top Chef, season 21.
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The conceit of this feature is that I treat Top Chef like the NFL and release a power rankings after each week of competition. It’s transparently an artificial conceit, but lately even I’m starting to wonder: is the format breaking down?
Because we’re down to the final four now, and for the last few weeks leading up to this one, we had two clear favorites and some obvious underdogs. Now, at the last minute, it seems like the faves and underdogs have flip-flopped. And I can’t tell if it’s real or if the producers are just trying to bake in some suspense, for a season that has mostly felt like a two-way race for a few ‘sodes now.
You ever wonder, like, what’s even real, bro? (*coughing out huge bong load*)
It feels like Top Chef’s producers are working overtime to keep this thing interesting, and they’re still mostly succeeding, but is it just me or is there a distinct lack of personalities this season? Maybe it’s just a natural come down after Party Mom and Buddha and Big Sleazy from last season, but I feel like I got nothing to make fun of over here. Maybe the chefs are starting to show up to this show too media trained, like elite athletes. Or maybe the best personalities just keep getting eliminated. Or is it that none of the contestants seem to be learning from the competition? Discuss.
Anyway, this latest episode saved a fan favorite challenge for the pre-finale lull. It was a two-part Quickfire, featuring the ol’ blind taste test. The chefs would try to guess 26 ingredients blindfolded, and then would have only the ingredients they guessed correctly (plus a limited pantry) with which to create a dish in part two. To judge this and the elimination challenge, they brought out Wisconsin restauranteurª Paul Bartolotta — who looks very much like a bizarro world extra in Casino if it had been a movie about really nice guys.
Whaddya mean I’m funny? Funny like a clown? Like I friggin amuse you over here? Well, dat’s very nice a you ta say. Why don’t ya come back to da house and my ma’ll make ya a nice sasige n peppers.
They were a few times this episode where it felt like something funny or interesting happened but the cameras didn’t quite capture it and the editors couldn’t recreate it. Like Laura doing her blindfold taste test and just spitting the food on the floor in between ingredients. I think my favorite moment was after the blind taste test, when the contestants’ ingredients were laid out on trays, and they ran to get them before the cook.
Danny and Laura ended up all tangled together, trying to box each other out.
Guys, YOUR NAMES ARE LITERALLY ON THE TRAYS! Love two people fighting over assigned seating.
Another fun wrinkle to the blind taste test challenge was pointing out that there were 26 ingredients, and they had all been in alphabetical order. Which of course a chef who had really been paying attention would’ve noticed, and used to their advantage, but in the heat of the moment no one actually did. “Hey, you know what would make this challenge even better? Making the contestants feel even stupider afterwards.”
I love that.
After that, the chefs were tasked with the ol’ “represent your journey” challenge. As the chyron explained it, “create a dish that exemplifies culinary growth.”
As Kristen Kish explained it, “We want you to take a look back on your time here and give us a dish that shows us how you've grown as a chef. Was there a breakthrough, or an ‘aha’ moment? Or is there a dish that you know you'd crush now that you didn't early on?”
The judges pitched it as if this would be a tough challenge. “I always perform better when I have a very tight box to work within,” Kristen said.
It’s nice that she brings a former competitor’s knowledge to the hosting gig, but I can’t help but daydream about how sexual that would’ve sounded coming out of Padma’s mouth. No way Padma could get through a schpiel about her very tight box without giggling.
Anyway, much was made of the prompt during the final judging, and how well the chefs fulfilled it, with the various stories they told to introduce their dishes. A good story can definitely make a meal or a drink better (just imagine bourbon with no bottles or labels), but isn’t the “growth” here kind of self-explanatory if the food is good?
It’s a show about becoming a “top chef.” A good dish says “I am becoming a top chef” and a bad dish says “I have not yet become a top chef” without the chefs saying much of anything. Still, it’s fun watching the chefs try to come up with a little story to sell the dish they made. It’s like Top Chef Toastmasters, and the number one competitor was definitely the Toastmasters champion.
ªI know this word supposedly doesn’t have an N in it, but I don’t buy it. “The French word restaurateur comes from the Late Latin term restaurator ("restorer") and from the Latin term restaurare.” Sorry, that’s stupid. They aren’t restoring anything, they’re running a restaurant. Restauranteur. That’s the word. Red line my N all you want, I’m right.
RESULTS:
QUICKFIRE PART 1 WINNER: Manny.
QUICKFIRE PART 2 TOP: Savannah*. Laura. Danny.
QUICKFIRE BOTTOM: Manny, Dan.
ELIMINATION CHALLENGE TOP: Savannah*. Laura.
ELIMINATION CHALLENGE BOTTOM: Manny**. Danny. Dan.
(*Winner. **Eliminated.).
POWER RANKINGS
5. (even) Manny Barella
AKA: Manny. El Cid Vicious. Brawny. Gerard Guey. F. Lee Gueyley.
Manny’s elimination comes as no shock to anyone who saw the two or three or four previous episodes, but the show did a decent job of making us believe in the possibility of redemption for a few minutes. First, Manny guessed 23 of the 26 ingredients correctly in the blind taste test — a positively stunning degree of accuracy. The show gave us a nice little editing package dedicated to Manny’s tongue scraper as if it was the origin story for his blind taste test mastery.
That was fine, but you know what also would’ve been nice? Telling us which three ingredients he missed. It’s a 90-minute show now, you didn’t think to throw that little tidbit in there? He only missed three!
Manny’s Quickfire dish ended up being a “salmon crudo with edamame-jalapeño puree, parsely and gooseberry relish,” which had me once again screaming at the screen. “MAKE SOMETHING MEXICAN, YOU FOOL!”
Still, I had to admit, the dish itself actually looked pretty good. (By the way, multiple chefs being able to identify “gooseberries” in a blind taste test is maybe the wildest thing that happened this episode).
(Probably could’ve used something crunchy on there. You just know Boy Named Soo would’ve covered that shit in little rice puffs).
Only Tom said the salmon was bland, and I’m beginning to wonder whether the judges are becoming self-aware. It seems like I’ve made fun of them for loving crudos and ceviches and cured fish preparations for so long now that as soon as the chefs put one out the judges slap it away and tell them it’s terrible. How else to explain this season’s plague of failed aguachiles? Honestly, Manny should’ve picked up on that by now (one of those failed aguachiles was his!).
In the elimination challenge, Manny had me rushing to kick the football like Charlie Brown once again. “Why don’t I make pescado a la veracruzana?” Manny asked himself.
That was the dish he’d planned to make on Restaurant Wars before his teammates inexplicably decided to buy pork tenderloin instead. Lest we forget, part of the prompt was “is there a dish that you know you'd crush now that you didn't early on?”
Manny’s pescado seemed to fit that to a T.
Unfortunately he kept giving corny explanations about going back to his roots and “you can take the man out of Mexico…” instead of just pointing out how well it fit the prompt.
Not that I honestly believe any of that was much of a factor. Manny was trying to sear off snapper in pans and then finish them in the oven. As he said, one of the pans was hot, meaning he probably had to take it out of the pan too early, and with all the fish resting for different times before going in the oven at the same time, it’s not that surprising that he ended up with an inconsistent cook.
The nail in the coffin was that while Casino Joe got a perfectly cooked snapper, the raw one went to… Tom Colicchio, the world’s bitchiest nitpicker and Chief Commandant of the Protein Nazis. Poor Manny has to be sitting up at night wondering, couldn’t the raw one have gone to one of the guest judges instead?? Things might be different!
I know, Manny, I know. I only just found out he was a former law student. I’ve nicknamed him “F. Lee Guey-ley.” You hate to lose a nickname like that.
4. (-2) Dan Jacobs
AKA: Ness. Handsome Dan. Froggy Fresh. Kermit. Frames. Jordache Peterson. The Gipper. Two Frames. Herb.
I’m going to call the show’s bluff and put Dan here at number four, even though in my heart I’m not quite a believer. I’m hesitant to throw stones about the blind taste test when I’m not doing it myself, but I have to think that Dan failing to recognize rosemary, an herb so pungent it repels insects, was the most egregious error of the entire segment.
How does a guy I nicknamed “Herb” for his maximalist approach to garni misidentify ROSEMARY, for God’s sake? (Yo, this mf said “oregano?”)
That had Dan so flustered that he served up a puke-scented steak omelette disaster with extra shells. It was so bad Dan (and everyone else) had a laugh, seemingly setting him up for a big redemption in the final round, which has mostly been Dan’s pattern on this show after his screwups.
Instead I have to think Dan’s story of growth was the worst of the whole crew. He seemed to be trying to take one component that was successful from each of his past challenge dishes and combine them. Which I’m not sure was a great idea in the first place, but making matters worse, he couldn’t find lemongrass, only “lemongrass turmeric paste,” which just ended up adding even more complicating wrinkles to an already hopelessly complicated dish.
And then his story in turn had to then get big and vague enough to encompass turmeric, and in the end what came out was some complicated nonsense about honoring Wisconsin but also not being afraid of global influences (like… turmeric, I guess). It felt like he asked Chat GPT to come up with an explanation for his dish. It did not go well. It didn’t help that it just looked like an inferior version of an earlier walleye and potato dish, with oversmoked fish and no crunch on the potatoes.
Still, I’m not betting against Froggy Fresh quite yet. He’s also a sentimental favorite of mine on account of being the only chef with some piss and vinegar left in the competition.
Dish: Smoked walleye and potato dumplings with lemongrass, turmeric, and brown butter emulsion.
Reviews: “It's a lot of everything. But many of these elements work.” “I'm finding that all I'm eating is smoke.” “It needed something fresh it was really heavy for me.”
3. (-2) Danny Garcia
AKA: Grok. Squeaky. Brooklyn. Stretch. Hype-bot. Subsidy.
Much like Chef Dan, I don’t entirely buy my own bullshit in ranking Danny this low, but in Danny’s case I sort of want to believe it.
“Let’s Go” count: Three, including the promo reel for the next episode in the credits.
Only three let’s gos counts as progress for Danny, who feels to my old eyes almost like the very embodiment of every mildly grating Zoomer trend. He doesn’t have his hair combed straight forward into his eyes, Looney Tunes Sheepdog style, I’ll give him that. That’s facts. No cap. Bet. Lit.
When Danny made a crack about gaining “an uncle or a grandpa” from being on the show with Dan, it only lit a bigger fire under my boiling cauldron of Danny haterade. KICK HIS ASS, DAN! DO IT FOR THE HOPELESSLY WASHED!
I almost got my wish. First Danny had a lackluster performance in the quickfire, naming only 13 ingredients correct, which he blamed partly on his OCD and not liking to have food dirtying up his hands (bro, aren’t you a chef?). This OCD had never before been mentioned explicitly, so I’d like to pat myself on the back a little for picking up on it pretty early in this season. I’ll say again: scuff Danny’s Jordans, Dan! Untidiness is Danny’s kryptonite!
Danny’s elimination challenge dish, a cod poached in soba cha buried in mushrooms, was meant to be a redemption arc for his most-pilloried of previous dishes, the soba cha tea cocktail from the restaurant wars episode. That was the one that inspired Tom to make this face:
All season there seems to have been a disconnect between how good Danny’s dishes taste to the judges (incredible) and how they look on TV (kinda boring). This time Danny said his dish was meant to embody “restraint” which basically got him laughed out of the room even though the thing looked pretty restrained on television. It was a little piece of poached cod underneath some mushroom slices, served on top of a tiny mushroom puree in a bath of soba tea broth.
Again, to me? Zzzzzz. To the judges? Flavor bomb.
Long story short, he had an off night and managed to skate through anyway. Story of Danny’s time on this show. I’m pretty sure Danny is going to win this thing but I’m telling myself that maybe he won’t.
I think my favorite part of Danny’s episode this week was Gail asking him, “So, you think this is subtle?”
Which she said in the same tone of voice with which Regina George asked Cady Heron, “So you agree, you think you’re really pretty?”
Dish: Soba cha mushroom broth, mushroom purée, and cod.
2. (+2) Laura Ozyilmaz
AKA: Yogurt Soup. Zed. Z-Squared. Ozyilmandias. Oz-matazz. The Wizard of Ozyilmaz. Wild Pistachio. Ruthless. Gamebred. The Sphynx.
Speaking of contestants playing right into the persona they’ve established, Chef Laura. Lowra. Or Lada, according to Danny.
Chef Laura reads completely blank as a personality, despite having one of the most interesting backstories of any contestant (Mexican immigrant who has worked at some of the best restaurants in the world, and now cooks almost exclusively Middle Eastern food with/because of her Middle Eastern husband). To hear Laura talk, she really is just there to make friends and show that she can cook and blah blah blah. And yet to actually watch Laura compete, she’s like the Dennis Rodman of Top Chef, greasing up the floor for the guy with a degenerative disease to slip on and kicking cameramen in the nuts and whatnot.
I’m exaggerating slightly, but she really did try to choke out Chef Danny to get to a tray that already had her name written on it.
And during the blind taste test challenge Laura was just spitting her food on the floor in between tastes to save time. That was great, except the cameras just didn’t get a good shot of it. I like to think she was just doing that to get the floor all greasy for Dan again. “Ay, slip on this shit, puto. Ptooey!”
Then for her elimination challenge dish, she made a lamb manti with a barbacoa sauce: