Top Chef World All-Stars Power Index, Week 13: Parsley Is Pointy

The chefs headed to Paris this week for the last episode before the finale.

Before we begin, let’s light some mourning candles. This week was our first week without Top Chef Germany finalist Tom Goetter (aka Funnybot, aka F-Boy Tom), who revealed last week that “pranks are my superpower” and that he had attended clown college. He ended up getting sent home at the end of last week’s episode, and it’s inconceivable to me that the Top Chef producers would sit on a clown college revelation all season and then give us less than a full episode to savor it. Life is so cruel!

Anyway, this was the first episode of the Paris-set finale, which usually isn’t the time for “cute” challenges. It’s when things heat up and everything matters; human interest montages are delivered, families are facetimed, and tears are vigorously jerked while the competitors gear up for the final showdown.

This episode of Top Chef World All-Stars had all of that, but also a nice little Quickfire. The Wall Challenge!

Remember that one? It’s where competitors have to try instruct someone else (usually a non-chef) on how to make a dish from the other side of a wall — this while simultaneously preparing an identical dish themselves. I suppose it’s theoretically meant to tests the chefs’ delegation and communication skills, but mostly it’s the food equivalent of that old idea about how all Olympic events should have a regular person competing in them, in order to provide a stark visual reminder of the difference between a normal person and an elite athlete. “Haha, imagine if Aunt Grace was up there, trying to brunoise some fennel for a squab reduction!”

The twist in this case was that “the normals” were actually Olympic and Paralympic athletes! (The tie-in? Paris is hosting the Olympics and Paralympics next year).

Aside from the cosmically elegant concept, this challenge also allowed for the inevitable drama (and TV mainstay) of elite chefs yelling at non-chefs.

AND there was an additional edge of reality show cruelty this time around, having non-native English speakers like Ali and Gabri (who barely know some of the English names for ingredients themselves) having to scream at non-chefs who are literally in wheelchairs. And all amid the din of an advancing Paris rainstorm! Magnificent reality show sadism. Someone let Magical Elves productions reboot Climbing For Dollars.

The chefs also didn’t know who was across the partition until after the cook was over, which was a hilarious reveal. Some of the chefs were like, “Did you bring my mommy in here? It doesn’t sound like my mom, but maybe…”

And then the judges were like, “Surprise! It’s 2006 Paralympics fencing gold medalist Harrison Malmsteen!”

And then the contestants had to feign amazement, like “Oh wow, Harrison Malmsteen, that’s crazy, I’m so star struck right now, I’m so glad it wasn’t my family.”

I exaggerate slightly, but it was actually jarring to realize how little non-food people know about cooking. Some of the food terms that it turned out the athletes were unfamiliar with included:

• Leeks

• Poblano peppers

• Coriander

• Lardons

• Rosemary

• Parsley

Lardons is maybe understandable, but PARSLEY?

After Buddha asked the Johnny Moseley guy (aka Paralympics sprinting champion Hunter Woodhall) to grab some parsley, the guy started muttering to himself, almost like a personal mantra, “Parsley is pointy, parsley is pointy…”

The idea that someone needs a mnemonic device for parsley is wild, and even wilder that the mnemonic device was “parsley is pointy.”

Buddha was rightly dumbfounded, in probably the reaction shot of the episode.

Did I mention Padma wore her biggest fur coat for the occasion?

David Moir/Bravo

Looks like she murdered a cartoon from Monsters Inc and slept in the carcass for warmth. (For which I don’t blame her, that set looked cold as hell).

Additionally, up until this moment, I had believed wearing Jordans with a suit was something that could get you killed in France.

After the absurdist sadism of the Quickfire, it was time to get back on track with something classic, something serious, something food-specific. For that we had Champignon De Paris (the famous button mushroom) and Alain Ducasse, the famous French chef with the second-most Michelin stars of all time.

It’s wild that in the restaurant world, raves from a tire company are considered as prestigious as an EGOT. It’d be like if Laurence Olivier walked by and people reverently whispered, “There he is, the only living actor with seven Geico medallions…”

The challenge was to make a Michelin-star-worthy mushroom dish, to be served on Alain Ducasse’s cruise ship. Padma kept telling the contestants that Alain Ducasse wouldn’t actually be there, just to manage expectations, but then Alain Ducasse would sneak up behind them and surprise them by making little French sounds. At this, they were genuinely star struck. Ducasse got to watch the chefs prep and drink some wine, but didn’t actually stay for the service, proving that Alain Ducasse is a very busy man. I imagine he spends his time going from party to party all over Paris, surprising people with his French sounds while collecting fat appearance fees.

Also, TURTLENECK TOM!

He looks like he’s about to take your mom out for some Italian food.

RESULTS

Quickfire Bottom: Gabri. Sara.
Quickfire Top: Buddha. Ali*.

Elimination Top: Buddha. Sara*.
Elimination Bottom: Gabri. Ali**.

(*Winner. **Eliminated.)

RANKINGS (Change from Last Week)

4. (even) Ali Ghzawi

AKA: RRR. Maui Wowie. The Strain. The Ghizza. Muhammara Ali.

I had originally nicknamed Ali things like Maui Wowie because his name rhymed, and Muhammara Ali because he made Muhammara and that seemed like an excellent pun. But he’s really been leaning into Muhammara Ali and all of its possibilities, dropping rhymes like the champ himself. “It wouldn’t be a finale without Ali,” Ali said for the second or third time this week.

That’s the spirit, champ! Float like a butter bean, sting like a ceviche! Crumble, young man, crumble!

Anyway, Ali was off to a hot start this week, taking home the win in the quickfire for his cauliflower soup with Paralympics swimmer Mallory Weggeman. Ali’s innovation there was to give his protege specific amounts to follow, like a tablespoon of salt and a cup of cream. Obvious stuff for a recipe book, but still kind of hard for chefs cooking on the fly.

Then in the elimination challenge, Ali tried to go full German Tom, giving the chefs mushrooms 16 or so different ways, with a big mushroom steak as the centerpiece. His downfall was a lack of textural contrast and whole pomegranate seeds inside the croquette — which IS a textural contrast, but only in a mean-spirited kind of way. In this close a competition, that was enough to sink him. It was a tough loss this episode, even if he arguably deserved to go home last week for his quinoa turtle falaffel garden (great name for your mom’s V).

And so we say goodbye to the Jordanian Top Chef MENA champion, who may not be a Top Chef All-Stars winner but is still all-star handsome. Seriously, look at that man. That beard belongs on a statue.

3. (even) Gabri Rodriguez

AKA: The Black Pearl. The Mongoose. Wile Y. Coyote. El Mangosto.

It seemed downright unfair to force Gabri, whose voice is a little soft and his English sometimes shaky, to scream cooking instructions through a wall. He ended up berating Olympic gold medal Gymnast Suni Lee so badly that she may have sworn off cooking forever. In Gabri’s defense, if my partner didn’t know what coriander was and tried to tell me a poblano pepper was purple I’d be sick of her shit too. (How the hell is a poblano purple?!)

In any case, an English communication-based challenged seemed wildly unfair to Gabri, which was only slightly mitigated by his minor advantage being a native romance language speaker in France during the following challenge. (All of the grocery workers pretending not to speak any English to keep from having to do extra work was the most French thing).

The Mongoose, tornadoing around the kitchen as usual, ended up forgetting multiple components in his over-ambitious elimination challenge dish. In a victory for ADHD kids everywhere, the judges still seemed to love it. It definitely seemed like the most inspired one, a puree with a potato nest and a fermented egg yolk.

Reviews: “This is the spiciest thing we’ve gotten from Gabri all season.” “Gabri gave me the crunch I wanted all meal long.”

I thought Gabri was sunk when Tom Colicchio said something like “Gabri gave us the better tasting dish, but was it the better showcase for mushrooms??”

At that point I thought for sure the judges were going to lawyer their decision to death and I was going to end up throwing a shoe at the TV. “Gabri gave us the better-tasting dish, but…” NO BUT. IT WAS THE BETTER TASTING DISH. THE END.

It seemed like it was all leading up to one of those insufferable “the player didn’t survive the ground”-style decisions, but luckily Gabri moved on and my television stayed sneaker free. Phew!

Gabri getting to the top three despite being on the bottom five times cements his run as one of the great dark horses in this show’s history. The Mongoose is always dancing with disaster!

2. (even) Sara Bradley

AKA: Party Mom. Reebok. Sassparilla.

Sara seemed the most competent during the quickfire challenge this week, working easily with her partner (who was also from Kentucky! seems like cheating!), sprinter Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, to put together a relatively low-stress dish with no shouting. Unfortunately that low-stress dish was a grilled chicken breast with no sauce, which I think can get you jailed in France. Maybe a little stress would’ve been good? The stress of making a sauce?

After a visit from Alain Ducasse during prep, Sara made the fateful (I guess?) decision to peel her mushrooms. Which is one of those things I guess French chefs do that I not only would never do but don’t actually even understand the mechanics of. Peel… a mushroom? Does a mushroom even have skin? Which part are you peeling? The top layer of the cap? What the hell for?

Reviews: “Very simple very clean very pure.”

Sara ended up taking home the win this week, which was both a bit of a shock in the context of beating Buddha’s elaborate, refined mushroom Wellington thing, but also deserved in the sense that Sara arguably should’ve won a couple other challenges this season. Like I said last week, I watched Tom devour her Restaurant Wars dish like he’d just gotten out of prison.

With Sara not surprisingly ending up in the finale, it’s setting up a battle of Sara’s “simple, down-home honest comfort food” vs. Buddha’s conceptual art, modernist tweezer cuisine. Which is clearly a little unfair to the actual level of refinement in Sara’s food, but does cut a great promo. And anyway, Sara has been playing up her own aw shucks-ness all season.

The Pump clearly knows her brand, which is maybe the most American thing of all. USA! USA! USA! (*squirts celebratory breast milk around like champagne*)

1. (even) Buddha Lo

AKA: Moneyball. Double Down. Big Data. Buddha.

Is anyone surprised that Buddha, the great triangulator, the Dean of Data, the master of molds, has made it to the finale this season? He’s been so consistently dominant this season it almost felt like he was trolling. “Oh, is this is what you want, you piggies? How about some ice cream shaped like a tree? You’ll eat a foie gras mold shaped like Anwar Sadat and you’ll like it!”

Buddha even did the “suck it” hands when he was done with this dish this week!

It goes to show, the greatest artists all have just a little bit of contempt for their audience.

Otherwise, Buddha was back to his old tricks this week — Wellington, tuiles, something shaped into a lil’ quenelle — and it seemed like he was going to cruise to another easy victory. (Making a Wellington seem “easy” is one of those things only Buddha can do).

Reviews: “I think everybody liked it.” “To do that in three hours I’m quite impressed.”

It’s possible that Buddha went back to the well one too many times (back to the Wellie?) and Sara ended up eking out the win instead. Still, I don’t think there’s anyone on Earth at this point who’s been watching this show all season who doesn’t think Buddha is the heavy favorite to win. Not that Sara, and to a lesser extent, Gabri, don’t still have a puncher’s chance.