‘Top Chef’ 20 episode 7 recap: ‘Hands Off’ was the most competitive challenge of the season so far
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Last week’s episode of “Top Chef: World All-Stars,” “Top Chef is No Picnic,” started with 10 contestants, and it ended with … 10 contestants. But it wasn’t the same 10. “Top Chef Canada” alum Dale MacKay returned to the competition after fighting his way back through “Last Chance Kitchen,” and then “Top Chef Poland’s” Sylwia Stachyra was eliminated after a sandwich cookoff against Tom Goetter. So what kind of turbulence was in store for the chefs in episode seven, “Hands Off.” Read on to find out.
The 10 remaining competitors playing for the $250,000 grand prize are Ali Ghzawi (Middle East and North Africa), Sara Bradley (Kentucky), Charbel Hayek (Middle East and North Africa), Victoire Gouloubi (Italy), Dale MacKay (Canada), Buddha Lo (Houston), Tom Goetter (Germany), Gabriel Rodriguez (Mexico), Amar Santana (California), and Nicole Gomes (Canada).
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Quickfire Challenge
Padma Lakshmi introduces the chefs to their guest judge for the episode, Gaggan Anand, whom Padma describes as a “food rebel.” Most of the chefs are very familiar with his work; he was featured on the Netflix shows “Chef’s Table” and “Somebody Feed Phil.” Charbel says, “He’s one of the chefs who inspire me to think outside the box. I’m ready to impress him.”
“Chefs, are you ready to express yourselves?” Padma teases. There with her and Gaggan is a board covered with emojis. The chefs’ challenge will be to grab one of those emojis and make a dish inspired by it. Victoire is immediately excited by this. She’s eyeing the fire, heart, and sun with the intention of creating a dish that represents Africa. Unfortunately for her, it’s another mad rush to select their desired items, and after the stampede is over, Victoire ends up without the fire, heart, or sun. In her disappointment she picks the sushi emoji from what’s left on the board, but she’s not into it. “I’m very worried,” she says. And as she prepares rice with poached scallops, she realizes throughout the process that it’s not her best work.
Gabri is the one who ends up with flame for which he plans to make thick Mexican soup called chileatole to deliver Latino flavors “like fire”; he explains that he was badly burned with boiling water as a child — “The fire touched me, and now I control the fire,” which sounds like the origin story for some culinary superhero — one of the lesser-known Avengers perhaps, who caters their missions. Dale got the heart and makes a dish inspired by his mother’s chicken soup. Sara got the sun and prepares a burnt eggplant puree.
Buddha took the freezing face, so out comes the liquid nitrogen for a coconut sorbet, in which he’s molding a skull to represent freezing to death. Perhaps he’s the culinary supervillain to Gabri’s fiery hero. Charbel took the duck so he’s cooking duck — straightforward enough. Similarly, Amar selected the banana and cooks a plantain dish to honor his Dominican heritage. Perhaps too straightforward, though, is Ali, who grabbed the four-leaf clover and makes a mixed herb salad, not understanding that the clover actually represents good luck and not just, you know, green vegetables.
Unfortunately, Ali ends up with one of the worst dishes, with his salad deemed too simple for the competition. Victoire is also at the bottom with her uninspired seafood-and-rice concoction. And Dale gets low marks for his chicken soup, which he didn’t have enough time to make as special as it needed to be for this caliber of competition.
Buddha‘s “wow” sorbet is named one of the best dishes. So is Amar‘s “bold” dish with its “interesting combination” of flavors. The last chef on top is Nicole, who chose the disguised-face emoji and made a meat-and-rice dish into a crispy meatball. Gaggan told Buddha that his dish was like something he would have made, so it’s no surprise in the end when Buddha is declared the winner of the Quickfire, giving him immunity in the Elimination Challenge. Speaking of which …
Elimination Challenge
Gaggan sticks around to introduce them to their task for the next round. Each chef is presented a platter covered by a cloche. Underneath the cloches is one of Gaggan’s dishes, a world map made in different colors with various dried flowers and fruits over a base of jasmine cream. It represents unity and love, especially for the LGBTQ community at a time of hate and division. But the chefs don’t eat the dish with knives, forks, or spoons. They have to lick it off the plate.
So that’s their challenge, to make a dish that sends a message, that is visually stunning, and that can be eaten without utensils. Ali loves this idea since he already believes that chefs are storytellers and keeps that message posted in his own restaurant. Dale is inspired by a time he tasted mole and was surprised that it was better than a lot of French sauces, teaching him to never judge food until you’ve really had it and to be open to new experiences. So he’s making a mole, which is an ambitious dish especially since Gabri was already on top in “Rice, Rice Baby” for a mole. Plus, Dale doesn’t have a lot of experience with making mole, so it’s doubly risky.
Amar is also taking a big chance, planning on a Thai-style papaya salad that will be eaten by Gaggan, whose restaurant is in Thailand. Also thinking regionally is Charbel, who says the challenge “speaks to me.” He’s mixing old-school Lebanese food with modern cuisine to represent how the nation has been neglected on the global stage and shouldn’t be forgotten. Victoire is likewise sharing her own heritage, celebrating African gastronomy with a fried Nigerian street food called akara. Nicole has more a family focus, representing three generations of her family with a combination of three dishes honoring her mom, herself, and the child she’s about to adopt.
Gabri, meanwhile, goes on and on about organic corn until Victoire has to lovingly tell him to “shut up.”
Taking a big technical risk is Tom, who is making a mousse that needs to set just right in order to be stable enough to be eaten by hand. That starts with him freezing it overnight on night one of their meal prep. Foreshadowing perhaps? Will it be stable enough?
So far so good when we get to day two of the challenge. Tom’s mousse is out of the freezer and looking good, but it still needs to defrost just enough to work but not too much or it falls apart. Yeah, I think I can guess where this is going. Dale is starting to question his life choices too. But time’s almost up. Padma and Gaggan enter with fellow judges Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons. For this challenge, they’ll be eating right there in the kitchen.
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Meal Service
The dishes come out in twos. The first pair are the bromantic duo of Amar and Ali. Amar’s message was that travel is the best way to understand people’s cultures, so he presented a seafood sausage wrapped in green papaya, peanut and tomato purees, dehydrated herbs, and toasted peanuts. Ali made a vegan dish to comment on the unsustainable overproduction of livestock: mushroom kubbeh, chickpea mousse, and pickled grape leaves. The one two-punch wows the judges. “They both did a spectacular job,” says Gail. Colicchio appreciates that this kind of challenge inspired the chefs to cook their dishes in new and unique ways. It’s clear to the judges already that it’s going to be hard to outdo these two.
Buddha and Tom are next, and guess what, Tom’s mousse defrosted too much and is too soft, but there’s nothing to be done about it now. Buddha’s message “from the hands of mother nature” consists of caramelized onion and black garlic puree, Brillat-Savarin, shallot and bread crumble with pickled vegetables. Tom’s message … what is Tom’s message exactly? He’d suggested earlier something vague about understanding the produce from your own homeland. His ginger and turmeric mousse, pumpkin and carrot chutney, carrot and pumpkin gel go over great flavor-wise, but they can’t overlook how badly the mousse is falling apart. Buddha’s, meanwhile, is subdued and elegant, though for something celebrating nature’s bounty, it could have used more bountiful vegetable selections.
Sara’s message seems like a stretch too: her pecan pork with cocoa buttermilk is slow-cooked, so it’s about slowing down to enjoy the sweet things in life. Dale explains the cultural ignorance that he overcome when he tasted mole, so the message of his roasted chicken thigh with corn custard, mole, pineapple, pickled jalapeno and nuts is “don’t be ignorant.” Again, the message there seems kinda tacked on. But Sara’s dish is good enough that you could make a fast-food chain out of it, according to Gaggan. Gail is blown away by it, and Colicchio loves the buttermilk. Alas, Dale’s chicken is flabby, floppy, and bland. The mole was good, but the chicken “fell short.”
Then Gabri and Victoire. Gabri conveys his message of the wide varieties of corn getting lost with tacos al pastor with seabass and multicolored tortillas. Victoire’s cassava cannoli, textures of roots, white potato and bacon cream, pineapple and mango sauce are meant to express the breadth of African cuisine and how food can change the continent. Both stories resonate with the judges, but only Gabri’s food does. Gail licked it up. Colicchio thought it was delicious and turned a taco on its head. Victoire’s dish, however, was bland, needed more African ingredients, and got a little muddled in its execution.
Last up are Charbel and Nicole. Charbel expresses his support of Lebanon by spreading the colors of the Lebanese flag right across the plate with his labneh with confit garlic, za’atar paste, tomato puree, chili oil and filo cracker. Nicole’s three-generation story comes through in her turmeric jianbing crepe, green onion pancake, and sesame chicken, which is the easiest of all the dishes to eat with your hands, though it came out a little dry. Charbel’s, however, is “exceptional,” packing a ton of flavor with great storytelling.
Judges’ Table
The judges explain that it was difficult to choose just three favorite dishes from what was all-around the best food served to them all season. But they do single out Charbel, Ali, and Amar. They reiterate that Ali’s dish was soft and warm and savory with a strong message. Amar’s Thai flavors came to life. And Charbel’s dish was a powerful call to action with a variety of great flavors. But there can be only one winner, and that turns out to be Ali, who becomes the first chef of the season to collect two individual Elimination Challenge wins. So he undoubtedly redeemed himself from his poor Quickfire.
The bottom three aren’t surprising given how much praise everyone else got: Dale, Victoire, and Tom. They explain to Dale how his chicken failed the dish and seemed completely unrelated to the mole. Victoire is complimented on her socks, which isn’t a good sign when they’re actually judging her food; they fault her for boiling instead of frying her potato, which sucked much of the flavor out of it. And poor Tom gets the painful news that he actually might have won the challenge if only his mousse hadn’t fallen apart at the end. “I’m so upset,” Tom says in the Stew Room with the other chefs. “It’s like two punches in the face” to find out the dish could have been a winner.
But I’m pretty sure the fact that his flavors were so fantastic will keep him in the competition against the blander offerings of his counterparts, and it turns out that I’m right. The chef sent home from the competition, in a case of deja vu, is Dale, who didn’t get to enjoy his return to the competition for very long before being ousted again.
“I’m going home again. Two-time loser. Feels terrible,” says Dale in his exit interview. But given that he was cooking with “some of the best chefs in the world,” anyone should “go home with your head held high. So I’m going to keep fighting and hopefully I’ll slide my way into the finale and ride off with that win.” See you back in “Last Chance Kitchen.”
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