Top Chef Recap: Around the World in 150 Bites

If I were ever on Top Chef, the Elimination Challenge I’d anticipate/dread even more than Restaurant Wars would be the “make 150-plus tiny plates for a crowd of hungry people who love the camera and hate to wait” round. These makeshift food festivals are as inevitable on Top Chef as they are interminable, and it’s clear the chefs hate them, too.

I jump right into the Elimination Challenge because, hey, so does the episode. Tension’s already running high in the stew room after Zubair’s elimination, so Kristen and Gail walking in with the knife block definitely doesn’t help. Even the way they react to their $1,000 budget — with educated fear rather than relief — betrays the overall apprehension at play here.

Kristen explains that there will be no Quickfire this week. Instead, they’ll spend the next morning working on the line at a local restaurant, thus drawing inspiration from all the different ~ cuisines of the world ~ currently thriving in Toronto before churning out dishes for 150 diners. When all you want to do is make a knockout dish, having to become a conveyor belt of “tasty bites” (shudder) must be intensely frustrating. That, plus the fact that an entire team of two will go home, had our chefs living out the kind of nightmare not even high-school flashbacks can touch.

To determine teams, they draw knives. Kat ends up with Corwin, Katianna with César, Vinny with Lana, Shuai with Henry, and Paula with Massimo, making them this week’s winners of the Oddest Couple award. After Bailey makes her triumphant return from Last Chance Kitchen — much to everyone’s obvious shock and admiration at her gumption — she teams up with Tristen by default to keep their immunity statuses from messing up the double-elimination plan. So, despite 12 chefs left in the competition, everyone else now has a one-in-five chance of going home. As that realization washes over them throughout the episode, I could feel the sweat through my screen, and not just because Tom seems to be refusing hats this season when he desperately needs them. Let the bald man have his hats!

This season’s done a lovely job highlighting local and/or Canadian chefs and restaurants, and this episode takes that to a new level by throwing the chefs into Toronto’s kitchens to absorb as much as they can before creating their own takes. This follows in the footsteps of other Top Chef challenges like season 13’s exploration of Los Angeles neighborhoods and season 17 sending All-Stars all around … actually, it was L.A. again, right?

Anyway. Random though these pairs are, it’s always interesting to see how people approach a challenge that’s deliberately trying to get them out of their comfort zones. Katianna and César, moonlighting at Thai restaurant Kiin, are quietly appreciative and methodical, pointing out specific ingredients and preparations they like to each other along the way. Shuai and Henry are practically giddy to be working together at BB’s Filipino diner on their self-proclaimed “Asian Sensation Redemption Tour.”

On the more tentative side of things are Vinny and Lana, who visit Dil Se’s Indian kitchen for a “crash course” in a cuisine neither is too familiar with. Paula and Massimo get on well enough at Miss Likklemore’s, but they are still unsure how to translate Caribbean flavors into their own cooking. Tristen’s trepidation at tackling Greek food would be included in this mix if he didn’t have immunity, but since he does, his and Bailey’s trip to Soulas Modern Greek is pretty drama-free. Plus, as the other chefs observe immediately, post–Last Chance Kitchen Bailey has a totally different vibe than the sour bag of nerves who once made “Korean shrimp arrabbiata poutine.” And you know what that is? Growth!

“Drama-free” also describes Kat and Corwin’s dynamic, but … how to say this … maybe they could’ve used a little more friction? From what we see of their brief stint at the Portuguese restaurant Mercado, these two are laser-focused on how they can backwards-engineer their own sensibilities into the cuisine rather than how it can inspire them to try something new. They immediately glom onto the idea of making salt cod with arancini (a distinctly Italian preparation, but okay!). When Whole Foods has no salt cod, they just pick up some regular cod and hope for the best. Ominous.

That relatively safe approach contrasts with teams like Katianna and César or Bailey and Tristen, who all take risks trying new techniques and come out on top for it. Katianna dyes her signature daikon flowers purple with Thai pea-flower powder. César makes a pad Thai glazed pork, and to quote Tom of last week: yum. Bailey creates an “olive tapenade caramel” situation that instantly made me crave it, so I was relieved when the judges — including Kentuckian World All-Star Sara Bradley — confirmed it tasted as good as it looked. Tristen even hit his groove while grilling their brined octopus over charcoal. “If I had sandals and a beer, I’d be in a good place right now,” he says, eyes twinkling like the star he is. (Not that I play favorites, but he’s my favorite.)

Across the festival, brothers-in-arms Shuai and Henry are so caught up in their many condiments that they neglect to nail the actual dish sitting underneath. There’s a great moment (though not for Shuai and Henry) when Gail and Sara are complimenting the flavors, but Kristen catches Tom’s eye and asks, “How’s the meat cooked for you, Tom?” with an ever-so-slight squint that makes her feelings plain.

“It’s okay,” he replies with a grin. Padma and Tom clearly respected the hell out of each other, but Kristen and Tom have more of a casual, shit-talking camaraderie that feels directly related to them both being chefs first. They might not have worked in the same kitchens, but they understand each other’s instincts in a way that manifests in the judging very differently than when Tom was the only chef with a permanent seat at the table.

Paula and Massimo, meanwhile, briefly veer into the kind of push-and-pull drama that used to define Top Chef team-ups. Massimo began this episode deeply annoyed with himself (“I worked hard; I didn’t work smart”), so it’s not surprising to see him get so nervous this week. Concerned that their short rib won’t cook all the way through, he takes the lid off despite Paula’s protests. She’s understandably pissed — enough so that Katianna catches her eye to share in the silent, universal ritual of, “Can you believe this fuckin’ guy?” To his credit, Massimo does seem to know he overstepped, apologizing to Paula in their joint confessional (“Sorry I was an asshole”). Luckily for him and Paula both, the fact that their meat did indeed dry out a bit wasn’t enough to send them home.

Overall, the judges agree that no one team completely whiffed it. Unfortunately, that means two people will be eliminated for a decent dish, which is a tough pill to swallow. This made me nervous for Lana, whom I really vibe with so far but who’s barely had a chance to talk — until now, about a dish that landed her in the bottom. She and Vinny are both surprised given that they worked so well together, quickly identifying aspects of Dil Se’s signature “chicken kamasutra” into something that showcased both their strengths — though I really needed someone to correct Vinny from calling it “chicken karmasutra,” a mispronunciation that rendered his “like the book!” joke even weaker than the flavors in their dish. They’re lucky Padma wasn’t there, is all I’m saying.

Still, I was dying to try Vinny’s “curry hollandaise” until the judges lamented that it was buried under another sauce I didn’t even realize was part of the dish at all. He even catches some strays for attempting to re-create his past Nomad magic, with Sara throwing down a line I bet got stuck in the other judges’ minds going forward: “You’re looking for Top Chef; you’re not looking for Top Worked for a Bunch of People and Are Redoing Their Dishes.” Whew.

And yet, in a twist I certainly didn’t see coming after their strong performances last week, it’s Corwin and Kat who end up packing their knives and going. No one else made as obvious a cooking error as they did with their arancini that evolved into a “wet fritter” — which, yes, does sound pretty gross. When the judges are using words like “watery,” “mushy,” and “gummy,” you know you’re doomed. But I suspect that what did them in is that they tried to play it safe by just making a croquette (not another croquette!), and didn’t even do a good job of that. A strong cast means strong chefs will be leaving every week, and so it goes.

Leftovers

• Oh, yeah: Bailey and Tristen both won immunity, again. Their happy dance of victory was adorable, but it does seem wild that two chefs will be immune from elimination two weeks in a row, let alone the same ones.

• If the editors could please leave the explanatory chyrons for dishes and guest judges up for more than approximately 2.3 seconds, my weary pause button and I would greatly appreciate it!

• Kristen Kish Suit Envy Watch: Is her pinstriped cream waistcoat and pants the most striking thing she’s ever worn? No. Is it also exactly what I’ve been looking for going on three summers now? Yes, yes, it is. So it’s gotta be a 10/10 for me, dawg.

• Could Gail have been any cuter when revealing that Vinny was giving his “karmasutra” spiel to her dad? (“His daughter lives in New York. It’s me! That’s my dad! And my brother! This is my FAMILY.”)

• Quietly devastating to see Corwin and Lana quickly hug in the stew room before the final elimination knocked one of them out.

• “This is my second time being on the bottom. I guess I’m just a bottom queen.”