‘Top Chef’ 20 episode 10 recap: In ‘Thali Time,’ some chefs were cursed trying to cook Indian food for Padma Lakshmi
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“I’m sad, but I’m one of the seven chefs left and I’m here to win. With money I can make a culinary school in Africa. It’s not for me to buy lip gloss. No, I really want to help my people,” says Victoire at the start of “Top Chef: World All-Stars” episode 10, “Thali Time.” She just had to say goodbye to her friend Nicole Gomes at the end of “Restaurant Wars” in one of the season’s most emotional ousters. So the stakes are as high as ever.
The seven remaining competitors playing for the $250,000 grand prize are Ali Al Ghzawi (Middle East and North Africa), Sara Bradley (Kentucky), Victoire Gouloubi (Italy), Buddha Lo (Houston), Tom Goetter (Germany), Gabriel Rodriguez (Mexico), and Amar Santana (California).
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Quickfire Challenge
“There’s something fishy going on here today,” says host Padma Lakshmi as she introduces the remaining chefs to guest judge Tom Brown, the chef and owner of Michelin-starred restaurant Cornerstone. During the Victorian and Edwardian eras, Padma tells us, kippers were a staple breakfast item, but during the 20th century they fell out of favor. A kipper is a whole herring split down the middle, gutted, and then heavily salted and smoked. So for today’s challenge they have 30 minutes to create something new and inventive featuring preserved fish. But since the show is down to its final seven, there will be no more immunity from elimination awarded in Quickfire Challenges, though the winner will get an advantage during the Elimination Challenge.
Gabri grabs the Scottish kippers; he’s going to make a salad with bitter endives to cut through the richness of the fish. Meanwhile, Buddha is intent on “breaking a couple of rules” by pairing his fish with cheese, along with onions cooked to mimic the texture of pasta. Sara is doing a take on a Southern dish called “smak” — smoked mackerel albacore and kingfish. Ali works with Scandinavian dried scallops. Victoire is excited for this challenge since smoking is a common way to preserve food where refrigerators aren’t always present; she’s making a “light but elegant” Mediterranean salad.
As for Amar, “I have no idea what I’m doing yet.” That’s at the start of the 30 minutes. As the time ticks away he explains, “Something will come out of this, I’m sure.” By the end he seems confident in what he’s made with smoked haddock, smoked scallops and potatoes, but you never know. Perhaps surprisingly given his uncertainty throughout that Quickfire, Amar‘s dish turns out to be the best in show with Buddha‘s onion carbonara and Ali’s taramasalata puree also getting high marks.
Unfortunately, Gabri has one of the worst Quickfire dishes with his warm endive salad and prawn tuille on top that never came together, and so does Sarah since her smoked fish dip with celery seed toast is way too salty. And that’s saying something given that this challenge was all about salted fish.
SEE‘Top Chef’ spoilers: Who was eliminated in season 20 of Bravo cooking competition?
Elimination Challenge
Time for a field trip. Padma brings the chefs to Flora Indica, an Indian restaurant where they meet Asma Khan. “It’s an honor to be here with her,” says Victoire, who met the famed chef during National Carbonara Day in Italy — and honestly, I want to visit any place that has a national carbonara day. Every food should have its own holiday! Well … the good foods anyway, so basically the entire country of Italy.
Asma has prepared each of them a thali, an Indian meal traditionally served at celebratory events such as a party, wedding, or religious ceremony. It presents all six different flavor profiles at once: salty, sweet, bitter, sour, pungent, and hot. “It’s like an orchestra, each instrument is playing a piece,” Asma explains about the different dishes that make up a thali. “This really is an experience for all your senses,” agrees Sara. But nobody is under any illusions. This is obviously going to be their next challenge, so as they learn about the cuisine many of them take notes. They will be tested on this later.
But before that time comes Asma tells the emotional story of how she got into cooking. Her mother had a catering business, and Asma would watch her work. Now when she cooks she can feel the presence of her mother next to her. “Every time that you feel down, it’s the food that heals you so this is why I cooked,” says Asma, leading Sara to cry; all this talk of family reminds her of her kids back home, and she wants to create similar food memories for her children that Asma’s mother made for her.
But then it’s time to get down to business. Padma tells the chefs that for their Elimination Challenge they will each have to make a thali incorporating those six aforementioned flavor profiles. But they have a choice of keeping it traditionally Indian or putting their own unique spin on it. Tomorrow they’ll return to the “Top Chef” kitchen — the original plan was to cook elsewhere, but Queen Elizabeth II has just died at this point, affecting life and business in London — and they’ll have two-and-a-half hours to cook … except for Amar. It turns out his advantage from winning the Quickfire Challenge will be an extra 30 minutes on his clock.
Cut to the kitchen the next day and Amar arriving early to plan his meal. He takes advantage of his additional half-hour, sampling everything he can to better understand the flavors he’ll be using in what he intends to be a traditional Indian thali — even though he’s never cooked Indian food before. “What the f*ck is this?” he says when he smells something unfamiliar. But his vibe isn’t confusion so much as excitement. He’s like a kid in a candy store — or like a “Top Chef” contestant in a fully-stocked pantry.
The rest of the chefs enter and we learn some of what they have up their sleeves. Sara isn’t going the traditional Indian route. She actually noticed notes of Southern cuisine in her thali, so she’s taking hers in that direction. Similarly, Gabri was reminded of Mexican cooking, so he’ll be concocting a Mexican-inspired dish — “I just go with my gut,” he says. Unfortunately, he also goes with a pressure cooker, which ends up burning his black beans. So he tries again with some lentils — which also end up burnt. Running out of time he just throws together some fried eggplant and a scallop just to get some food on his dishes.
Buddha also has an uncharacteristic crisis of confidence. The last time he made Indian food for Padma last season on “Top Chef” he ended up on the bottom. And where Gabri has run into trouble with his beans, it’s rice that could be Buddha’s downfall. Amar, on the other hand, just seems to be having fun: “I’m opening an Indian restaurant after this if I win.”
Meal Service
Happy-go-lucky Amar is first up with his lentils, stone fruit chutney, shrimp and crab curry, green mango raita, basmati rice, and tandoori sweetbreads. And if the judges hadn’t been told he’d never made Indian food before, they’d never have known. His thali is “brilliant” and “fantastic.” Then comes Ali’s saffron rice, yellow lentil dal, eggplant curry, beef tandoori, raita, and mango chutney. The chutney is a home run, and the rice is fragrant and flavorful with great texture. So it’s two for two when it comes to these thalis.
It couldn’t last forever, though. Buddha’s chana dal with tamarind, shrimp koliwada, snow peas and methi, date and tamarind chutney, chicken korai, and mango, saffron and coconut pudding present problems. First off, he presents Padma with an incomplete thali. He was also right that his rice isn’t too great, and he overdid it with the tamarind. Things don’t go much better for Victoire’s rice with saffron, lamb with coriander, yogurt with mango, onion and cucumber salad, okra with moringa, and red lentil dal. She didn’t season her salad, which seems to baffle Padma. Her rice is also overcooked. And she threw every spice at her lamb, so there’s an overall lack of balance.
Tom goes over better with his spiced rice, coriander and mint chutney, dal, kakdi koshimbir, chicken masala, and gajar ka halwa. He made a good effort and gave interesting takes on the different components of his thali. From the critiques it sounds like he did okay, not great, but he’s probably ahead of Buddha and Victoire. Gabri comes out with his tamarind and orange chutney; green mango, cucumber, and passion fruit salsa; scallops with encacahuatado; coconut tamale; rice with turmeric and cinnamon; and fried aubergine. There’s too much conflict in his spices, his scallop dish is baffling, and Tom Colicchio can tell from the corners Gabri cut that he must have run out of time.
We round things out with Sara’s dirty rice, tamarind dal, spiced cauliflower, “thunder and lightning,” buttermilk raita, and persimmon chutney. The judges think she did a good job of bringing in flavors from her culture, and the cauliflower is a total knockout. Sounds like a clear top three with Amar, Ali, and Sara. And I’m pretty sure Buddha, Victoire, and Gabri are bringing up the rear.
SEE‘Top Chef’ 20 episode 8 recap: ‘Street Food Fight’ led to a ‘Fast and Furious’ Elimination Challenge
Judges’ Table
Indeed, Sara, Ali, and Amar are the top three, which seems like a bit of a surprise to Sara, even though she’s the only chef left in the competition who has never been at the bottom in an Elimination Challenge. Sara is praised for embracing a cuisine that wasn’t her own while also cooking from her own roots. Ali is once against hailed for his chutney and for the way he “beautifully exemplified contrasting flavors.” As for Amar, Colicchio notes that “usually when you’re having fun cooking, you know you’re nailing it.” Unsurprisingly, the winner of the challenge, just like in the Quickfire, is Amar! He now joins Ali and Buddha as the only chefs this season with multiple Elimination Challenge victories. “I’m Dominican for Christ’s sake,” says Amar. “We eat plantains like beans, and here I am cooking Indian food for Padma and winning the challenge. It’s crazy.”
Now for the bad news. Buddha, Victoire, and Gabri are at the bottom. Victoire’s rice was clumpy and broken and had too much saffron, and her lamb was not cooked properly. Buddha’s dessert was lovely, but his rice was overcooked and his chutney was more like ketchup. And Gabri clearly struggled with his time management, but he gave the judges a good salad. And that’s ultimately what makes the difference. Buddha and Gabri excelled with one aspect of their thalis. Victoire didn’t make anything that stood out in the same way. So Victoire is eliminated from the competition.
“I’m happy because I think it’s just a moment to start,” says Victoire in her exit interview. “It’s not the end for me, it’s the beginning. Now I’m leaving but I’m a Black woman, African chef, a mother, 41-years-old. To me it was a proud moment in my life.”
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