Top Chef Recap
By Jason Lee
February 26, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
It's here. After 13 episodes and 17 chefs, we are finally ready to crown a Top Chef for Season 5. It's been a long and rocky road (no food pun intended) with some crazy drama (the Hosea vs. Stefan rivalry), some ridiculous hooking-up (Hosea and Leah), some undeserved eliminations (my beloved Ariane) and some surprising triumphs (Carla making it to the finale).
So who do we have in New Orleans, competing for the title of Top Chef?
First is our Finnish villain of the season, Stefan, who prides himself on his European cooking techniques and pompously believes himself to be the only chef among the cast with the talent worthy of being Top Chef. He's won two Quickfires and four Elimination challenges.
Nexy up is resident adulterer, Hosea, who's been cheating (via kisses and flirting) on his girlfriend with Leah and has an ever-ready eye on Stefan, who he's unofficially dubbed as his rival. Pretty much the douche-bag in the cast, Hosea has won one Quickfire and two Elimination challenges.
Finally, we have wacky but lovable Carla, with hair out-to-here and eyes that seem perpetually in a state of shock. I think that every viewer has grown to love Carla as the season progressed, both for her perplexing-but-cute one-liners and her penchant for using "love" as her secret ingredient in all her dishes. Carla has won one Quickfire and three Elimination challenges.
As any faithful reader will know, I am definitely rooting for Carla to win this. I think that she's proven herself to be a great chef and a fantastic competitor and I would love nothing more than for her simple-but-delicious style of cooking to bring her $100,000 and the title of Top Chef. Baring this, I want Hosea to win. I hate Stefan.
The show opens with each contestant preparing for the finale challenge. Hosea is ready for a "do or die" competition, proclaiming that he has more to prove than his two fellow chefs in this competition (which I agree with, since he's been the biggest douche this side of the Top Chef kitchen). Carla sums up her run to the finale in one word, "wow," saying that she's been building momentum up to this last challenge. Stefan doesn't say much other than he thought that his food in the last challenge was much better than Hosea's (too bad the judges didn't agree with ya there).
The chefs come before Padma and Tom to receive their final directive. It's simple: cook the best three-course meal of your life. They will be cooking back-to-back and serving dishes simultaneously. Tom also says very specifically that they do NOT have to make a dessert - a boon for Hosea since both Carla and Stefan have proven adept at making desserts.
They will each have two hours in the first day to prep followed by three hours to cook before serving their dishes before 12 distinguished guests. But of course, they will have help. In seasons past, we've seen eliminated chefs come back to serve as sous-chefs, famous culinary masters serving as sous-chefs...what would happen this year?
In yet another great twist (the producers have really out-done themselves this season), our three finalists will have the help of past finalists from previous seasons. Richard from Season 4, Casey from Season 3 and Marcel from Season 2 all made it to their respective finales but fell short of taking the title. Now they'll be fighting to help someone else take the title.
Carla, as the winner of last week's challenge, gets to draw the first knife to see in what order she'll choose her sous-chef. She draws knife #3, meaning she goes last. DAMMIT. Hosea draws #1 and Stefan of course goes in the middle.
Smartly, I think, Hosea chooses Richard, who is not only a great chef in his own right but also has a much more mellow demeanor than Marcel, who's brash, arrogant, stubborn and flat out rude. So of course, Stefan chooses him. Talk about a match made in heaven. This leaves Casey for our third finalist but Carla is thrilled, proclaiming that she'd wanted Casey on her team anyways.
Of these three sous-chefs, I think it's obvious that Casey is the worst of the bunch. Marcel was an endlessly inventive chef and Richard was among the very best at marrying his talents with the restraints of each challenge. Casey managed, almost by accident, to win her way to the finale - but she's the last of the three that I would trust in my kitchen.
The main question, however, is how these three runner-ups will fare when fighting for someone else. I think there is a real danger that they will fall into the role of stage-mother, hovering over their finalist, wielding far too much influence and living vicariously through their chef. I would imagine that Marcel is the biggest candidate for falling into this trap.
The chefs get to the Audubon Tea Room to start prep and immediately a fight breaks out between Stefan and Hosea. Apparently, while Stefan was in the walk-in, mulling over his choices of ingredients, Hosea entered and decisively chose his proteins - which just happened to be the same ones as Stefan wanted.
"Gimme back my foie gras!" whines Stefan.
"Make me!" exclaims Hosea.
"You took three cartons of caviar. You don't need all that. Gimme some!" shouts Stefan, stamping his five-year-old foot impatiently.
"It's MINE! It's MINE!" yells Hosea, throwing a temper tantrum.
So okay, it wasn't exactly like that but you get my point. Apparently you can take the chef out of the boy but you can't take the boy out of the chef. Or something like that.
Meanwhile, Carla is focusing on her own food, deciding to take a French spin on her dishes. Of course, Casey has her own thoughts on it.
"Carla has this idea of doing meat and potatoes," Casey explains to the camera, "but with something simple, you have to really do something to make it better." Oh lord, someone stop her. "My idea that I lent to the plate was ‘Let's sous-vide the sirlon.'" Oh Casey, Casey. Nevermind that Carla has no experience with sous-viding proteins. Nevermind that it's her challenge not yours. Let's stick your nose into her business and change up her dish.
I'm fearing for Carla's viability as a Top Chef at this point. If she wants to BE a Top Chef, she needs to stop letting someone who bombed in the finale direct her dishes.
The chefs return the next day to prepare for their meal...but they enter the kitchen and see Head Judge Tom standing on front of a table full of crab, red fish and a dead crocodile carcass.
"It wouldn't be a finale without a twist," concludes Hosea. Ah, so your WERE paying attention during those earlier seasons.
This finale's twist is simple: each chef will be assigned one of the aforementioned proteins and must create a hors d'oeuvre to go along with their meal. To determine which chef gets to assign the proteins, they're using a New Orleans tradition: the King cake. A bundt cake is baked with a small gold figurine inside and whichever chefs eats their 1/3 of the cake and finds the little man gets to dole out the proteins.
Hosea finds the little figurine in his food and gives the red fish to himself, the crab to Carla and gleefully gives Stefan the alligator. I'm thrilled. "Bite on THAT, Stefan!" I think happily to myself.
Unfortunately, Stefan is a pretty good chef and he also has Marcel's inventive mind on his side. They decide to make a soup out of the aligator's tail, which sounds good on the surface but a potentially strange hors d'oeuvre in my mind.
The chefs begin putting together their menu. For lunch today, the guests will be having:
From Hosea, a trio of sashimi followed by scallops & foie gras and ending with venison loin with mushrooms (deliberately not doing a dessert).
From Stefan, we see a halibut & salmon carpaccio, squab with braised red cabbage (his cabbage was such a hit in the Blind Tasting challenge in episode 9) and and ice cream and chocolate mousse with lollipops (doing a dessert) .
From Carla, a seared snapper with saffron aioli, sous-vide New York strip steak (courtesy of Casey) and a cheese tart with apple coins
Of course, Casey wants to change up Carla's cheese tart. She'd rather do a soufflé. "DON'T LISTEN TO HER, CARLA!!!" I yell but alas, Carla cannot hear me and she acquiesces to Casey's suggestion. I am really worried about Carla's food.
The other storyline going through the preparation is the fact that Stefan has decided to freeze his raw fish in order to cut very thin slices off of it for his first-course carpacio. Strange that you would do this for a food that's served raw...even his sous-chef Marcel questions this move. I rejoice in it.
Service begins and we see that the majority of the guests are chef / owners of prestigious restaurants in New Orleans. Hosea appropriately calls them "legendary" and admits that his heart is beating out of his chest.
The appetizers are served with Hosea putting out a blackened red fish on a corn cake with a creole remolade. Everyone agrees that Hosea nailed it. Stefan serves his alligator soup with a puff pastry floating in the middle and again, all the guests love it. Carla serves a shiso soup with blue crab and a chayote salad on top and like the two chefs previous, everyone likes it. Sounds like everyone is off to a good start.
The guests take their seats and the real meal begins - it's Stefan's carpaccio vs. Carla's red fish and saffron aioli vs. Hosea's trio of raw fish. Carla has a huge hit, with one guest saying that it was something special. Another guest says that she would order it again in a minute, taking her next breath to criticize Hosea's dish for not "popping." Fabio (our fourth runner up) agrees and says that it needs salt. As for Stefan's dish, the halibut overpowers his salmon and the freezing process that he put the fish through rendered the dish watery. WOOHOO! I think round one goes to Carla! I'm thrilled.
Round two sees Stefan's squab against Carla's NY strip loin and Hosea's seared scallop. Gail immediately criticizes Carla's steak for being too tough and Tom agrees, saying that sous-vide cooking removes any sense of spontaneity in the cooking. Both Tom and Toby Young agree that the dish seems nothing like what they would have expected from Carla (damn you, Casey!!!). Meanwhile, Stefan has hit his dish out of the park with a beautifully cooked squab and a classy preparation. Gail loves Hosea's dish but guest Rocco DiSpirito says that he's tired of foie gras. Call round two for Stefan.
Round three sees Stefan's ice cream and mousses against Carla's soufflé and Hosea's venison. Oh lord...but wait, we have a disaster. Carla apparently forgot to turn her oven down while cooking her soufflé and the tops are bubbling over (I don't know a lot about soufflé but apparently they're not supposed to bubble). She's mortified and I'm aghast. In a last ditch effort, Carla ditches her soufflé and serves the remaining half of the dish that she's happy with.
"I would give a half a dish before I served [those soufflés]. The main part of what brings the elements together doesn't make it on the dish" she says. My heart is breaking for her. I'd also really like to break Casey's legs.
Gail, upon eating Carla's dish, admits relief that Carla didn't actually intend for her dish to look the way it looks, saying that, "if anyone could have made a good dessert tonight, it would have been Carla so I'm incredibly disappointed that whatever happened in the kitchen didn't make it to the plate." Me too, Gail.
Meanwhile, Tom hates Stefan's dessert, saying that it's not a complete thought. Gail says that it's dated presentation, arguing that it "sings 1982."
On the other hand, Tom says that Hosea's venison dish was well done and Gail says that she really enjoyed it. Even Fabio, who's been Stefan's stalwart supporter through this entire competition says that Hosea served a better set of dishes. "I think for the way that they decided to end this, it hurts me to say it because I would like the title in Europe but I think Hosea closed the meal in a much better way." Call Round 3 and the title for Hosea.
Back at Judges table, we go one by one through the chefs and their dishes. We start with Carla. Gail professes love for Carla's appetizer. Tom and Gail both praise her first course but then criticize her meat and potatoes second dish.
"It was a kind of polite, rather anemic dish," says Toby. "I wanted a much bigger, much bolder dish from you, that's what I was expecting from you, that's what I've come to expect from you."
Tom asks how much influence Casey had on Carla and her dishes and she admits that Casey was the source of the idea for both the sous-vide decision and the soufflé. Tom is not happy. "It seems as if you let your sous-chef talk you out of the food that got you to the finale and I'm not quite sure I understand that," says Tom. Carla is crestfallen. I am, too. After all that work and all that great food, it looks like Black Widow Casey has reaped her own mistakes that she made during the Season 3 finale onto Carla in Season 5. I am extremely sad.
Hosea's appetizer is called "fabulous" by Toby. No one seems crazy about the sashimi dish to open the meal but the scallop dish was well done, with Tom finding the apple counterpoint a nice accompaniment to the scallop. Gail proclaims it the best dish he made all night. As for the venison, Gail likes the earthy components but couldn't taste the blackberry glaze. Toby seems stuck on the fact that Hosea didn't make a dessert, saying that his meal had a beginning and a middle but no end.
Stefan's appetizer was well-executed said Toby and Tom agrees. On the other hand, both Gail and Tom disliked the capriccio, with Tom taking issue with Stefan's method of freezing his fish.
"But, but did it taste good?" Stefan wants to know, trying to find something good about the dish.
"I found it bland," admits Tom.
On the other hand, Gail LOVED Stefan's squab and Tom calls it the best dish of the night. In contract, his dessert was not met with praise from the judges. They seem like they thought it was mediocre overall.
Lastly, the chefs take their turns giving reasons why the deserve to be Top Chef. Stefan says that he deserves it for his work in its entirety, having been consistent. Hosea says that he put out delicious food out that night. As for Carla, she says that when she cooks HER food, it's really delicious . . . that it has a lot of heart and a lot of flavor. You can just see it in her eyes that she knows that if she had just cooked her type of food, the food that got her to the finale, the food that won her the last challenge, the food that won her the first dish of the meal...she could have absolutely walked away with this title.
"Do I think that I'm a Top Chef? Yes," she continues. "My food is good, yes. When I make it, yes." Everyone's heart is breaking for her and Carla tries to hold back tears. Stefan recognizes it and goes over to her and gives her a hug. I wish I could as well.
The judges begin their final deliberations but it seems pretty clear cut. This is likely the easiest decision in the history of Top Chef finales. Padma and Tom agree that Carla is completely out of the running. As for the other two, Toby likes the structure of Stefan's meal better but Tom hated the capriccio. Toby counters by pointing out that Stefan's squab dish was great and Tom agrees, again, calling it the best of the night though he can't get past the dessert. Padma agrees, calling it "pedestrian at best."
As for Hosea, Tom liked the arc of his meal a lot, saying that it was a good progression from one meal to the next. Toby agrees that Hosea's venison was the winner of Round 3 but criticizes his meal for not having a beginning, middle and an end. Tom disagrees, saying that it's a moot point since they specifically didn't have to do a dessert. Gail pipes in saying that Hosea gave her a meal that she was totally satisfied with, arguing that Stefan lacks soul in his cooking.
"Well, if we're awarding this title on the basis of ‘soul' then we should give it to Carla," says Toby. My heart leaps in my chest.
The three chefs are called back. Tom compliments Carla saying that when she cooks her food that comes from her heart, they love it. Hosea put together a nice meal and was steady across the board. Stefan had some nice high also some lows. They ultimately based their decision on the meal overall from start to finish.
And the Season 5 Top Chef...HOSEA! In a huge come-from-behind victory, Hosea takes the title over his self-proclaimed rival, Stefan. He's thrilled. I'm just happy that Stefan didn't win, who says that if he'd done a different dessert, he would have won.
Carla, as she hugs Jaime, tells us that she should have made "her" food and that she will not make that mistake again. "When I came here I wanted to show people a different way to compete," she says through tears," to compete with love. So, I did one of the things that I wanted to do here."
I hate that she didn't win Top Chef . . . . but I bet you anything that she wins Fan Favorite. She'll likely have another $10K to go along with her brand new Toyota and Super Bowl tickets. And you know what? She deserves all of that and more.
Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed Top Chef Season 5 as much as I did!
So, were you paying attention? Here's your chance to prove your knowledge of this season of Top Chef. How Well Do You Know: Top Chef New York