Top Chef: Champions In Paris
June 11, 2023 1:04 PM - Season 20, Episode 13 - Subscribe
The final four head to Paris for the penultimate challenges. First to the Champ de Mars, where they compete in the wall challenge quickfire. Then, after a mushroom harvesting trip, they wind up on Alain Ducasse's floating boat restaurant where they must cook a mushroom-forward dish, highlighting the champignons of Paris for a table with more Michelin stars than Buddha has molds or Gabri has messes.
The quickfire is the Wall challenge, apparently originated in Top Chef France. Filmed with the Eiffel Tower right in the background, in the plein air and eventually in the pluie. Given a limited pantry, the cheftestants cook side by side with a mystery partner to create two identical dishes; the twist is that they have to communicate by yelling through a wall at their partner, who is an Olympic/Paralympic athlete. Ali (partner Mallory Weggemann, Paralympic swimmer) wins thanks to his idea to use measurements. Gabri just melts down entirely.
The mushroom farming segment is interesting, although it has some weird horror-movie editing done as well. The cultivation of the basic-as-dirt button mushroom began in Paris, the show talks about the catacombs but it was actually the Pasteur institute who really figured out mushroom cultivation. The chefs get mushrooms and say cheffy things about picking their own produce.
The elimination challenge takes place on Ducasse sur Seine, right on the other side of the Eiffel Tower. The man himself isn't there for judging but does drop by the kitchen for a surprise visit, including giving Sara a positive review on her broth and shocking Buddha, who commandeers a Bravo camera for a selfie. In the end, it's Sara's take on mushroom soup which wins the challenge for her. Buddha's refined technique also sends him to the finals. It's between Ali and Gabri to fall at the last hurdle, and although Gabri's dish didn't highlight the mushrooms as much as the others (and was missing several elements), Ali goes home as his mushroom steak is too boring and his croquette insufficiently refined.
The quickfire is the Wall challenge, apparently originated in Top Chef France. Filmed with the Eiffel Tower right in the background, in the plein air and eventually in the pluie. Given a limited pantry, the cheftestants cook side by side with a mystery partner to create two identical dishes; the twist is that they have to communicate by yelling through a wall at their partner, who is an Olympic/Paralympic athlete. Ali (partner Mallory Weggemann, Paralympic swimmer) wins thanks to his idea to use measurements. Gabri just melts down entirely.
The mushroom farming segment is interesting, although it has some weird horror-movie editing done as well. The cultivation of the basic-as-dirt button mushroom began in Paris, the show talks about the catacombs but it was actually the Pasteur institute who really figured out mushroom cultivation. The chefs get mushrooms and say cheffy things about picking their own produce.
The elimination challenge takes place on Ducasse sur Seine, right on the other side of the Eiffel Tower. The man himself isn't there for judging but does drop by the kitchen for a surprise visit, including giving Sara a positive review on her broth and shocking Buddha, who commandeers a Bravo camera for a selfie. In the end, it's Sara's take on mushroom soup which wins the challenge for her. Buddha's refined technique also sends him to the finals. It's between Ali and Gabri to fall at the last hurdle, and although Gabri's dish didn't highlight the mushrooms as much as the others (and was missing several elements), Ali goes home as his mushroom steak is too boring and his croquette insufficiently refined.
Well...Top Chef Charleston did the same challenge at (I think, there are four contestants) the same point in the season. I actually enjoy this kind of challenge, but you're right that it penalizes people for whom English is not their mother tongue.
The kaiseki challenge was terrible, as it required specialized knowledge that clearly none of the contestants really had.
Farewell, Ali, you sure were easy on the eyes even if your mushrooms were bland.
posted by praemunire at 5:02 PM on June 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
The kaiseki challenge was terrible, as it required specialized knowledge that clearly none of the contestants really had.
Farewell, Ali, you sure were easy on the eyes even if your mushrooms were bland.
posted by praemunire at 5:02 PM on June 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
I loved the Wall a million years ago when the Hawaiian guy recognized his wife's voice immediately and everyone else was baffled by their loved ones... it was so weird that the others didn't know who they were paired with but he was so sweet. I'm sorry, I cannot recall his name (he made a Singapore Sling they loved but ultimately lost the finale if that rings a bell for anyone. Sheldon? Sherman?) This wall was much more frustrating! It was very funny that the big idea that made it work was just using measurements.
The main challenge irritated me. The brief itself was cool and I love mushrooms. They liked Buddha's dish which was a perfect redo of something classic apparently. They were amazed by Gabri's dish but it was too chicken-y. Those two seemed to me they should be switched. Gabri is on the bottom partly because he needed a few more seconds to finish his dish. But it's obviously new and forward looking. Whereas it seemed like Buddha's was just a really good quality version of something anyone at that table could have made. None of them could have made Gabri's dish because they would never even have thought of it! To me that seems more worthy of reward.
I'm happy for Sara that she got her win. Her asking Buddha if he was making pizza rolls made me laugh out loud.
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:21 PM on June 11, 2023
The main challenge irritated me. The brief itself was cool and I love mushrooms. They liked Buddha's dish which was a perfect redo of something classic apparently. They were amazed by Gabri's dish but it was too chicken-y. Those two seemed to me they should be switched. Gabri is on the bottom partly because he needed a few more seconds to finish his dish. But it's obviously new and forward looking. Whereas it seemed like Buddha's was just a really good quality version of something anyone at that table could have made. None of them could have made Gabri's dish because they would never even have thought of it! To me that seems more worthy of reward.
I'm happy for Sara that she got her win. Her asking Buddha if he was making pizza rolls made me laugh out loud.
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:21 PM on June 11, 2023
Well...Top Chef Charleston did the same challenge at (I think, there are four contestants) the same point in the season . I actually enjoy this kind of challenge, but you're right that it penalizes people for whom English is not their mother tongue.
The kaiseki challenge was terrible, as it required specialized knowledge that clearly none of the contestants really had.
You're right, the kaiseki didn't work well, but the concept was good - it was an attempt to use the Olympics to talk about food. For me it's less the quality of the challenge and more the waste of the opportunity; while the global food scene has never been more diverse, Paris is the origin point, the ground zero of so much of the Western cooking tradition, all the way down to the literal word "chef". This show is doing three (3) challenges in Paris, and one of those three is wasted on a challenge that could be done literally anywhere, including on a sound stage in Charleston.
posted by Superilla at 10:40 AM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
The kaiseki challenge was terrible, as it required specialized knowledge that clearly none of the contestants really had.
You're right, the kaiseki didn't work well, but the concept was good - it was an attempt to use the Olympics to talk about food. For me it's less the quality of the challenge and more the waste of the opportunity; while the global food scene has never been more diverse, Paris is the origin point, the ground zero of so much of the Western cooking tradition, all the way down to the literal word "chef". This show is doing three (3) challenges in Paris, and one of those three is wasted on a challenge that could be done literally anywhere, including on a sound stage in Charleston.
posted by Superilla at 10:40 AM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
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(The last Top Chef Olympic promo I think was in All Stars LA, where to promote coverage of the Tokyo games, they trotted out some athletes and then made the cheftestants cook a kaiseki meal paying tribute to Japanese food culture. Before that, there was Colorado where it was a team-based head-to-head competition with athletes and medals and it was like a bunch of Quickfires strung together, but it sort of felt like athletic competition at least. Texas had one at the finale in Whistler which also felt like three Quickfires, but it involved chefs being at Olympic venues and doing Olympic sports.)
And I was a little frustrated by Ali losing this one; they asked them to cook meals highlighting the button mushroom and then complain that the meals are a little bland, and move on the person who had the least mushroom flavour because his dish had the most powerful flavours? Mushrooms are great, love 'em, cook 'em weekly, but they aren't powerhouses no matter what you do. And it seemed to me like three chefs followed the brief and they aren't the three chefs in the finale.
posted by Superilla at 3:37 PM on June 11, 2023 [2 favorites]