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The chefs head to Whole Foods Market where (surprise, surprise!) we see a bunch of them making a number of elementary mistakes. Mistakes that we've seen before on Top Chef and mistakes that, frankly, these chefs should not have made because they know better. I mean, really, haven't these chefs have watched previous seasons of the show? Doesn't Hosea know to buy fresh crab as opposed to canned crab meat? Doesn't Jill know that using an ostrich egg for a quiche is a bad idea when you have no idea what an ostrich egg tastes like?

And then there's Ariane, the woman who undercooked her farro grain last week and barely escaped elimination. For this New American challenge, she's making a lemon meringue martini . . . and in the process, she's ignoring one question that every Top Chef should ask themselves as they compose a dish for the Elimination Challenge: Can I win this challenge with this dish? If the answer is no (as it clearly is for this woeful martini), then you're not reaching high enough and will inevitably be ripped to shreds by the judges.

As the chefs finish up their meal preparations back in the Top Chef kitchen, judge Tom Colicchio unveils this week's twist: not only will they be cooking in HIS iconic NY restaurant, Craft, but the 50 diners at the lunch will all be NY chefs that applied to be on Top Chef but were rejected.

As twists go, this is definitely one of the juiciest ones that we've had on Top Chef. A bunch of pissed off, bitter, overly critical diners will be actively looking for reasons to dislike the food in front of them. Call it reality TV heaven.

Among the many plotlines that are running wild in the kitchen in the final hours before service starts, two stand out to me: Fabio (the self-impressed Italian) is making a beef capriccio with olives that he chemically altered to be firm on the outside but near liquid on the inside. This almost reminds me of the overly-ambitious culinary machinations by Season 2 runner-up Marcel, who seemed to always prioritize his "cool" cooking methods over the actual taste of his food.

The other story is that dear Ariane is stressing out over her lemon meringue martinis. If you can believe it (I hardly could), she actually goes around the entire kitchen and makes EVERYONE TRY HER DISH AND GIVE HER FEEDBACK. This is the equivalent of Roger Federer walking over to Rafael Nadal during the French Open final and asking, "Hey, would it be better for me to push my serve out wide or should I hit it down the center? Which one is better for beating you?"

Incidentally, the near-unanimous feedback is that it's too sweet. More on that later.

Service begins and surprisingly (given the ample preparation time that the chefs had, their large budget and the flexible challenge theme) the chef's hours of work in the kitchen has resulted in a number of very disappointing dishes. While Jaime's corn soup and Fabio's beef carpaccio (though it looks like beef pizza to me) are praised by the judges, a large number of them fall flat.

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