Top Chef: Top Chef is No Picnic

April 17, 2023 4:55 PM - Season 20, Episode 6

It's picnic time for the Top Cheftestants, who are challenged with catering a high-end picnic at Downton Abbey filming location Highclere Castle.

In lieu of a traditional quickfire, the episode begins with the first half finale of Last Chance Kitchen, where Dale and Begoña are challenged to create seven three-tier tea towers with a finger sandwich, a scone and a pastry in an hour. Little suspense here, as Begoña crashes in the kitchen and runs way out of time, sending out plates with only two of the three dishes.

Back in the competition and holding immunity, Dale gallantly chooses a simple and relatively cheap deviled egg to start his team's picnic with, while goofus Tom spends his team's money lavishly on caviar and seafood that are lost in his cioppino salad. Tom and Sylwia are chosen as the two worst dishes, and then engage in a sandwich cookoff shown online on LCK to determine that Sylwia is the one who has to pack her potato-cutting knives.

posted by Superilla (5 comments total)

Hoo boy. They’re really setting Tom up for villainy huh? There has been a distinct lack of drama so far (Buddha’s willful ignorance of home cooking notwithstanding). I like looking for the hand of the editor, and it would have been really easy to edit it in such a way that downplays his team being ok with uneven funds distribution. He really screwed the pooch with that though.

Though someone did just point out that Amar is a big Trumper so, uh, I guess I have someone to root against now, much more than just thinking Sara is kind of middling.
posted by supercres at 7:22 PM on April 17, 2023

I really do wonder what Tom was thinking taking all that budget. I guess a winning dish, but come on, cioppino salad? Also, why is a German making an Italian-American San Francisco dish for a cookout? I really want to know the food path that story takes.
posted by Carillon at 8:58 PM on April 18, 2023

The tea challenge I think was a little too tight on time; Dale's stuff didn't look astounding, more he just put his head down and pushed. Begoña's choux pastry looked pretty gooey and weird while she was piping it, not sure she would have been helped all that much by those eclairs actually making it to the plate. I originally was less fazed by it because they did have a little time to plan (they travelled between locations), so it seemed feasible, and I assumed that Begoña would remain in LCK for the next chef to meet. But as a in-or-out challenge, it just wasn't enough time. A three item tea tower in 90 minutes would still have been pretty difficult, but the chefs would have been able to push out the boat a little more.


I really do wonder what Tom was thinking taking all that budget. I guess a winning dish, but come on, cioppino salad? Also, why is a German making an Italian-American San Francisco dish for a cookout? I really want to know the food path that story takes.

Not only that, but a soup salad? That is a dish that never made any sense to me at all. But neither did Sylwia's chicken roulade served with lemon curd as a dip; that seemed really odd to me. The only thing I can think of vaguely in that universe is the Chinese-Anglo takeout dish Lemon Chicken, which has deep fried chicken with a sweet lemon sauce. But in that one, the deep frying is bringing a lot to the party; you could replace the chicken with deep fried wontons for all the flavour it brings.
posted by Superilla at 10:40 PM on April 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

I kind of interpreted Slywia's bizarre dish as a fuck you to the judges for having to deal with the team budget nonsense. She didn't seem that upset to go.
posted by xxx9038709992203 at 11:07 PM on April 18, 2023

I was surprised Dale went with the egg. If his team had been on the bottom I hear Tom saying "Really, coming back from LCK to serve a hardboiled egg?"

If I had been at the store with them I would have sent Tom to the back of the line and AFTER the other chefs checkout he can see what money is left. Maybe they did that and I can't tell through editing.

I'm not familiar with Middle Eastern food so Ali's dishes tend to fool me with their unpretentious looks... and then every time they're a total home run on flavor. I want to eat that stuff!

I love Sylwia and I wanted her to stay and bring the sunshine & laffs with Victoire.
posted by Emmy Rae at 12:48 PM on May 2, 2023 [1 favorite]