Top Chef: We're On A Boat

May 23, 2022 8:58 AM - Season 19, Episode 12

After saying goodbye to their loved ones and another fellow competitor, the chefs receive an ominous gift from Tom, who tells them to get up early and meet him at the docks. They’ll have to find their sea legs quickly because for their Elimination Challenge each chef must create two fresh fish dishes to hook their guest judges Stephanie Izard and Daniel Boulud. The catch? They’ll be fishing for all of their protein themselves.

Summary from Bravo.

posted by Superilla (5 comments total)

Filmed on what was probably Stewart Beach. Another place we've been.
posted by Spike Glee at 11:22 AM on May 23, 2022

Sad to see Nick go, but I think it made sense given the dish. I always have a love/hate relationship with these fishing tasks. I figure that they're probably ready to cheat and pre-catch the fish if they have to, but I never love the idea that one chef could just be completely boned if they don't get any fish. It seems to be both luck based and also a totally different skill than cooking, so you get into this situation where someone could just be SoL.
posted by Carillon at 2:03 PM on May 23, 2022

Damarr's talking heads were super ominous the whole episode which was bumming me out. Not in the "edited for a surprise triumph" sense like Sarah's, but in the "boy it sure seems like he's telling the 'this is how I go home' story" sense. Which would have been a bummer; I liked both him and Nick (that was a hell of a final five minutes), but it seems like he failed doing something uncomfortable for him, and Nick failed staying in his wheelhouse. Interestingly, Evelyn, on the other hand, got a wakeup call to branch out (?) a little, or just not to coast.

Hopefully Sarah has readjusted to the main competition, but she'd be a fun sous in the final showdown either way. I don't know that I really have a sense of her cookery, between influences in some of her standout dishes of Caribbean and Jewish deli flavors (I'm sure there were more in LCK that I'm not thinking of).

I still think Buddha is getting a winner's edit, which I don't hate, since he has a super interesting+wide range. I would (will) be interested to see how he distills that into a finale meal concept that hopefully marries the molecular fine dining with the rustic.
posted by supercres at 4:57 PM on May 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

Yay Sarah! I am glad she got (at least) one really successful day in the bigger completion. I think I would be excited to eat pastrami fish. This was a hard one, but I like everyone who is left. I’m glad everyone caught something; I hate the challenges that feel unfair and this one felt like it really hd the potential to turn out that way.
posted by charmedimsure at 1:36 AM on May 26, 2022

Just wanted to say how sad I am that the Houston season was filmed in Covid times. It's such a great town for food! There's so much more they could have done and shown. I imagine the logistics were super difficult, so I'm sympathetic, just sorry we didn't get to see more of the place.
posted by Nelson at 3:15 PM on May 30, 2022