Top Chef Masters telecast its final preliminary round (of 6) tonight. By the end of this episode the slate for the Champions Round starting next week will be complete. Who will join Hubert Keller, Suzanne Tracht, Rick Bayless, Anita Lo and Micahel Chiarello in that round? We'll know soon enough.
The competitors are:
Jonathan Waxman - eminence grise of American cooking and mentor of Bobby Flay at Jams in the 1980s; chef/owner of Barbuto in New York City. He is playing for City Meals on Wheels, which brings meals to the homebound.
Michael Cimarusti - chef/owner of Providence in Los Angeles. He is playing for Grameen Foundation, which fights international poverty.
Art Smith - best known as personal chef for Oprah Winfrey and proponent of southern cooking, he is chef/owner at Table 52 in Chicago and Heart and Soul in Washington DC. He is playing for Common Threads, which he co-founded and which teaches children about food and arts
Roy Yamaguchi - his flagship restaurqant is Roy's in Honolulu and there are a total fo 37 Roy's around the globe; he is known for his Hawaiian fusion cuisine. He is playing for Imua Family Services, which provides support for special needs children on Maui and Lanai.
This gets started with a bang on the Quickfire Challenge, which is to shop with $20 for ingredients from one aisle only at the Whole Foods closest to the Top Chef kitchen. The chefs draw knives to deteremine who gets which aisle:
Michael - baking
Roy - pasta and Italian
Jonathan - internaitonal foods
Art - beans and rice
I expect that the most experienced chefs (Waxman and Smith) will be vying for the crown at the end.
This gets started with a bang on the Quickfire Challenge, which is to shop with $20 for ingredients from one aisle only at the Whole Foods closest to the Top Chef kitchen. The chefs draw knives to deteremine who gets which aisle:
Michael - baking
Roy - pasta and olive oil
Jonathan - international foods
Art - beans and rice
Jonathan claims he will not use cans or jars and he brings $24.01 of other items to the register, having to delete one to reach $20. The judging will be by three Whole Foods employees, Peter, Becky and Pam. How lucky can they get? Also double product placement for Whole Foods. Cooking starts and Art and Jonathan, the two oldest of this group of chefs, both cannot fathom how the top to the pressure cooker goes on. It is very interesting to me that with time pressure, great chefs use pressure cookers. I bet they seldom do that in their own kitchens but they don't have the same type of time pressure there.
The dishes are:
Michael - whipped chocolate parfait with ginger syrup
Roy - pasta with a fried egg and Asian flavors
Jonathan - mint, lentil and roasted pepper salad
Art - multigrain risotto w/ crispy rice salad
The results are:
Michael 5
Roy 4
Jonathan 3.5
Art 4.5
The Elimination Challenge involves a mystery box. Each chef buys with $200 and places in the box (destined for one of the other chefs and they know who) 11 ingredients from which that other chef has to use at least 7 to create a meal. The spirit of camraderie here is exceptional. These chefs take the attitude they want their competitors to look almost as good as they can, so they choose interesting and easy to work with ingredients that facilitate fine ciusine. By the luck of the draw Michael get the box created by Jonathan and vice-versa. Roy gets Art and vice-versa. The only grousing I heard was that Michael was not given fish to complement the meat he did get.
The box Art receives contains cheddar cheese, corn, white sweet potato, green beans, tomato, mushrooms, chicken (for which he is thankful since his signature dish is fried chicken), mangoes.
The box Roy receives contains mahi mahi, short ribs, purple cauliflower.
The box Jonathan receives has pork chops, purple cauliflower (they must have been in season), regular cauliflower, 2 oranges, something like Swiss chard, onions, celery root, black truffle.
The box Michael receives contains lamb T-bone, onions, that ubiquitous purple cauliflower, kumquat, arborio rice, portobello mushrooms, greens, ginger, sunchoke, broccoli rabe
They have 2 hours to cook. The guest judges will be local culinary students. Their dishes are:
Michael-loin of lamb, sunchoke puree, purple cauliflower, broccoli rabe, orange sauce (not enough time for all plates to get it)
Jonathan- pork sausage and chop w/ cauliflower, celery root puree and black truffle
Roy- short rib kalbi and mahi-mahi
Art-fried chicken 2 ways (regular crispy, thigh smothered) w/ lemongrass and garlic, green beans, mango pie
Joanthan says tht he would never use more than 3 ingredients in his own kitchen. The permanent judges leave and the culinary students give their scores. The judges get the special Q&A period with the chefs. Roy claims he is not an improviser, which is needed for this type of competition. The judges ask Jonathan about the plates. He correctly tells them to focus on his flavors and not something that he had little control over.
The scores (C for culinary students, S for Gail Simmons, O for James Oseland, G for Gael Greene) were:
Jonathan C 4.5 S 4 O 4 G 4 Subtotal 16.5 Total 20
Roy C 3 S 3 O 2.5 G 2.5 Subtotal 11 Total 15
Michael C 2.5 S 3 O 3.5 G 3.5 Subtotal 12.5 Total 17.5
Art C 5 S 4.5 O 3 G 4.5 Subtotal 17 total 22
Art wins. His Commons Threads gets the $10,000 check. The others get nominal amounts for their charities.
So we are ready for the 4 or 5 weeks of Champions Round competitions. It should be interesting. The chef I know the least about, Suzanne Tracht, was very impressive in winning her round. However, I think a wily veteran like Hubert Keller will win this. The person I would like to see win is the one who I have learned the most from watching his Mexican cooking show, Rick Bayless. I see Anita Lo, Art Smith and Michael Chiarello all as fine chefs but I don't see any of them winning.