I write these for a Top Chef fantasy league my wife Anna and I serve as co-commissioners. This was written for the participants, so IGNORE any mention of points. INSANE SPOILERS BELOW!
Chefs get their java on in one of the many comfortable sitting areas of a Rosemont Residence suite. They all wonder why they’ve been assembled, some excited, some worried. Shuai utters, “no one is safe anymore,” hinting at his paranoia that Henry will come back and beat him with a bunch of pickle jars in a pillow case while he sleeps. Then there’s a knock, and an envelope slides under the door. Massimo reads the note: “Chefs, grab your knives and meet me at the warehouse venue. -KK” I think they all know… IT’S RESTAURANT WARS.
Chefs file into the restaurant and greet Kristen and guest judges Nina Compton and Janet Zuccarini whose vibes are giving “just got done with a root canal+IRS audit performed by an employee of the DMV.” Dear personal friend Kristen Kish tells the chefs to draw knives. The teams are: Tristen, Vinny, Massimo, Lana vs Shuai, Paula, Bailey, Cesar.
The teams must assign roles right here and now with an executive chef, a front of house person and two sous chefs. Massimo naturally wants front of house as the most gregarious of the group. Lana also wants it, but they rock-paper-scissor Lana loses and takes sous chef. Lana seems like such a delight to cook alongside, so let’s not overlook how this probably worked out how it should. Vinny and Tristen decide their roles, and it’s pretty obvious you gotta go with the hot hand with exec chef. Vinny grabs the other sous chef role, which might round out the perfect team. Vinny is excellent as a #2 or #3. And Massimo is Massimo.
On the other team Shuai takes front of house because the thought of another team challenge where he might black out and throw away someone’s food scares him more than anything. Paula takes EC. Bailey and Cesar take sous chef.
The teams split up and sit down at their tables and come up with their restaurant concepts. Vibes could not be more different between the two. Team Tristen is nooooo fun. Massimo comes in with an idea to make “six dishes that represent the different stages of Canada” something French, English, and four other dishes representing other ruling powers. Basically Six Flags. He wants to make a Six Flags concept, serve a Foie Gras and a full English breakfast while he dances in the dining room to the Vengaboys. The team ices him out completely as Lana just says let’s go with whatever Tristen wants. Tristen comes up with “vegetable forward” as the concept. It’s a nice cold shower for Massimo, but team business loves it. Massimo lobbies one more time for something with the smallest amount of joy like protein but Tristen assures him they’ll have protein in a sauce somewhere. I’m with Massimo here but second guessing Tristen isn’t usually the right move.
Over on team fun, Bailey bangs on the table and says let’s try something new and go with an upscale molecular gastronomy / a take on japanese omakase, just kidding she pitches italian. They land on an Italian/Latin mix. Cesar pitches “grandma chic” they all love it. They call it Nona Pipon after Paula’s grandma.
Back to the no smiling club they think of names. Lana throws out Flora, which is a nice name, floral and light. Then the gang says how can we make that worse and less fun? Put a PH- in front of it for no goddamn reason! Phlora. It’s sciencey, medicinal, and the exact opposite of Massimo’s Six Flags idea where he gets to do close up magic and everyone eats baked bean cotton candy and pâte funnel cakes.
Next up the teams pick out their chairs and linens and stuff. PhTristen’s team Phates Pheverything, but team grandma picks out a bunch of cute stuff. It’s time to go shopping!
Massimo splits up with his team and heads to Whole Foods ALONE to shop and also recreate this scene in Footloose. The other three go to St. Lawrence market to recreate this scene in Footloose. The grandma team does the opposite, they decide to all go together to Whole Foods and recreate this scene in Dirty Dancing. But that proves to be a mistake as they run short on time. Bailey and Paula split off to St. Lawrence Market and Shuai and Cesar go back to the kitchen to prep. Also to get back to it, I understand that I probably should have found another Footloose clip instead of switching to Dirty Dancing but some but not all of you know that I believe Dirty Dancing is a top five movie ever made, so it was frustrating for me to only talk about Footloose here. This email took a lot longer because I had to rewatch the scene where Baby goes and gets her father to help Penny during her medical emergency even though she knows she’ll get in trouble and her father might order her to stay away from Johnny. For that, Baby takes this week’s BRETT’S BOARD.
Okay. Now I'm going to cool it on talking about Dirty Dancing and jokes in general because as the teams are cooking Tristen gets pulled away by a producer. He learns that his stepdad Russell has had a stroke and is in a coma. We learn the next morning that he passed away. The show highlighted his relationship with his mom and Russell, and you can tell how close Tristen and Russell were. Tristen stays to cook as "He's always been one of the most supportive people in my life. When someone believes in you that much, you don't want to let them down, and so I do not want to disrespect my family by giving up. I was told to stay and I listen to my parents." Tristen’s team all learns what happens, and it seems they all understand that the best way for Tristen to deal with all of this is to cook their pants off. So they do.
The restaurants are up and running! Skipping ahead to service, the judges visit Nona Pipon first. They are seated and Shuai is super nervous. Instead of him going over he has a waitstaff approach the judges and introduce the concept. Shuai doesn’t know when to go over! He’s nervous! I get it honestly and would be the exact same way, I’m usually convinced I ruin most interactions. But also he probably shouldn’t have been front of house. I think Paula or Bailey would be better in the role as Cesar seems way more shy. The food comes out for the judges and Shuai pops by to say hello. They ask him how he is doing, and he answers honestly that “he’s a little tired, but good” Janet hated that. She also hated how the family style dishes didn’t have sharing utensils which she has a point about. The aranchi is good, the seafood is bland.
Back at Phlora, there’s some mixups with tickets. A rogue server writing tickets wrong! Sabotage from the folks at Nona’s? Or a bad actor with their own bad intentions?! It’s neither! It’s Massimo’s job to fix it so he swoops in and fixes it. At the exec table, Tristen isn’t playing around, he’s in it to win.
Back to the Nona Pipon restaurant, another two dishes get dropped off. Shuai is slow to approach the judges. They like Cesars short rib, don’t love his polenta, like the idea of Bailey’s cannelloni, but hate the chunky almonds in her romesco. Next up is dessert and Paula’s cake is universally hated. They all liked the concept quite a bit, but some of the dishes fell off a little bit. B- for Nona Pipon.
The judges head over to Phlora and seconds upon them getting there Massimo has a glass of prosecco in their hands. Janet hates it. Tom (a common man) points out that the group in front of them didn’t get the same treatment. It’s because they’re nothing, Tom. They’re nobodies, losers, freaks. Massimo comes over immediately and chats with the table of judges. He’s his usual Massimo self and asks Nina and Janet questions. Then he makes the fatal flaw of crouching down a bit, which Janet hated. Janet wanted him to be “a little bit more buttoned up and professional”, this is Buckingham Palace afterall, what’s that? It’s not? Oh it’s a TV show where this isn’t a restaurant at all but cheap prop walls in a venue that hosted a quinceanera twenty four hours before this? Get a life Janet.
The dishes come out. Lana brings out her potlicker consomme dish. Tristen brings out his mushroom escovitch. Chefs liked Lana’s consomme, and loved Tristen’s mushrooms. Next Lana brings out her pithivier which looks to me like a little meat pie (uncultured). And Vinny has this crazy butternut squash with a grilled pork and XO sauce. They liked Lana’s and loved Vinny’s squash. They’re chatting about it Vinny’s dish as Massimo comes close to the table. They freak out and accuse him of being around too much. They. have. to. relax. Tom finishes his thought that he didn’t like how there was more pork on the plate than squash and that goes against their concept and he has a point but also who cares. I’m starting to think these judges spent a little too much time with Janet in the green room. Nina has been nice though. The dessert comes out next. Massimo brings out his corn cremeux which is topped with a blueberry crisp. In an attempt to say something simple in the weirdest way possible, Massimo instructs the judges to “break the crisp with energy and eat with harmony.” Tristen presents his dessert too with a “please enjoy”. The judges loved both desserts.
We get to the serious judges table moment. Janet gets a couple more jabs in before the judges award the winner as Phlora and Phauna! Judges compliment everyone’s dishes, but award Tristen with this episode's top dish. Tristen tells the judges about his dad. Everyone gets emotional and they all say nice things to Tristen (as they should). The TV gods were paying attention to this one, as it’s so great that Tristen brings home the top dish.
Next the judges pick apart the Nona Pipon dishes. They go down the short list of things they disliked, and unfortunately as EC of the team Paula is responsible for a lot of them. Judges tell Paula to P.P.Y.K.A.G.
In LCK Paula competes against Katianna. Katianna wins. She’s still so strong. I don’t think this competition has seen the last of her.