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Shirley immediately deduces that anyone with classical French training has a huge advantage in this challenge. She believes that she and Nick and are the primary contenders for immunity this week. For his part, Nick relays that his previous job ended because a new company bought the restaurant. They promptly offered to re-hire everyone previously employed there…except for Nick. Given the way that Nick has excelled on Top Chef this season, somebody at that company needs to be fired. All Nick states is that he has been cooking “pissed off” for a year now. I think you are supposed to put love, not hate, into the food but Nick’s grudge-cooking seems to work for him.

After 35 minutes of duplication, the chefs present their dishes. Carlos and Nina in particular have struggled mightily. Carlos has failed with time management while Nina forgot to turn on her oven (!), making me feel better about any number of cooking mistakes I’ve made in the past. Brian doesn’t have all of his components on the plate in a timely matter, so his presentation is disastrous. He doesn’t even remember the sauce! Brian wryly notes, “Good thing this is not an elimination challenge right now.” Suffice to say that his tang is less than hip today.

When chef Pépin reveals his losers, there is one surprise. Nina is spared such criticism while Stephanie is on the bottom. She had honestly informed the septuagenarian that it was not the dish she wanted to present to him. I had not expected her dish to be less cooked than Nina’s given the latter woman’s oven mistake, though. As Shirley had deduced, the choice for winner of this challenge comes down to her versus Nicholas. And she is not on the happy side of the decision. Nicholas wins the challenge and thereby earns immunity. He will be one of the final five contestants on Top Chef season 11.

The Elimination challenge embraces the delicate history of New Orleans with regards to cultural battles between the French and the Spanish, each of which claimed the land as theirs. Sparing you the history and civics lesson, what matters is that all of the above is an excuse to pit a pair of two Michelin star winning chefs against one another. They will battle by proxy via Top Chef teams. Yes, the remaining six players will be divided into two groups, meaning that whomever is placed on Nick’s team had better win. Otherwise, those two players will be a coin flip for elimination since he is safe. The design of this particular challenge is ill considered.

The early portion is fun. Julian Serrano and Dominique Crenn are both vaunted chefs. Crenn was the first woman to earn multiple Michelin stars in the United States. Serrano is a Spaniard who presumably cannot hit the curveball (apologies to those of you who are not Major League fans…the lack of baseball in the winter makes me get twitchy). The two chefs will guide their teams through a five course menu designed to highlight French/Spanish influences.

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