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Claudette runs out of time. Despite having all her components complete, she is unable to get them on the plate. Therefore, she won’t be competing here and automatically is on the bottom three (although being on the bottom three in a Quickfire isn’t particularly a big deal).

After tasting all of the dishes, Richard says that the bottom tier chefs are Claudette, who obviously wasn’t able to plate her creation. He also didn’t enjoy Adrienne’s hushpuppies, which isn’t surprising given her difficulties with the challenge. To her credit, after his comments, she tastes her dish herself, hopefully planning for the future and learning from the experience. Finally, Padma calls out Fatima, who made a chicken biryani that had been inspired by watching Padma’s cooking show when she was growing up. Yikes. Padma is annoyed that Fatima isn’t cooking flavorful Indian/Pakistani food as she had been with Western flavors in the previous challenge.

With the unpleasantries out of the way, Richard announces that his three favorites include Chris’s pepper pot shrimp, Brother’s paella, and Mustache Joe’s scallop and gnocchi dish. The winner, though, is the chef that made a restaurant-quality dish that any home cook could create themselves. This week, that chef happens to be Chris, whose daughters are sure to be impressed.

After the challenge is complete, Padma says that she thinks the chefs have been working really hard, so it’s time for a party. To that end, she welcomes celebrated German chef Keegan Gerhard, amazing pastry chef and owner of D Bar restaurant in Denver.

So, the chefs don’t really get to go to a party so much as they get to throw one. It will be a little German festival done Top Chef style. Keegan tells the group that German food goes way beyond pretzels, beer and mustard, and that he wants to see them elevate German food to a new level. Padma chimes in to let them know that they will also be creating their own version of a radler, which is beer mixed with a sparkling drink of some sort (like a soft drink or carbonated apple juice). Yuck. Keegan explains that it’s like a summer shandy, or a 50/50 mix of beer and some sort of fruit setup.

Mustache Joe: “Where I come from, if you order one of those, you get kicked in the nuts.”

Padma tells the chefs that they must pair their radler with their dish in order to create the ultimate German food experience for 200 diners.

On the plus side, Keegan is going to take the chefs on a “field trip” so that they can eat some authentic German food themselves.

First, the chefs are served some radler so that they can be thinking about how they want to prepare their own concoction. Chris doesn’t drink, so he has to ask his fellow chefs what the radler tastes like. He explains that he is an alcoholic with three years of sobriety under his belt. Once again, we find a challenge a little annoying, although we understand the importance of pairing drinks and meals. Still, if there is a chance a contestant is an alcoholic, it really hurts that person if your challenge forces them to confront that demon.

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