top chef
Top Chef Masters Finale
Yes, this post is late; I’ve only just watched the finale last night, almost a week after it first aired………..but it compelled me to post anyway. Spoiler alerts abound for anyone out there who hasn’t watched the episode…..
For me, watching it was agony and ecstasy — Ecstasy at the perfect challenge for the final three chefs: An autobiographical meal. Wow. For these chefs, this was truly the perfect device for them to tell the story of their lives and careers and relationship with food. Watching all three meet this challenge was better tv than an entire season of Top Chef. I was positively glued to it. The courses to be prepared were as follows:
- First course: First food memory
- The second: The dish that made you want to become a chef
- The third: A dish related to the opening of your first restaurant
- The fourth: The future, and where it is/you are going
Now, the usual element in Top Chef challenges is to take a chef out of his/her comfort zone in some way; as if to say “yeah, you’re good, but what about with one hand tied behind your back“? (insert evil laugh). This was entirely different. So geared was it towards actually allowing these professionals to naturally shine, they actually delivered each contenstant’s personal sous chef to the set to help prepare the meals.
Here’s the agony: how the hell do you judge this thing? The panel of food critics were the same as the entire season, but no matter how well developed your palette is or how well you can articulate your critiques of food, there is just no clear way to judge the meals that the chefs created. Seriously, these weren’t just standalone dishes, these were exceptionally well told stories. I’m not sure the judges handled the food-as-narrative approach as best they could. The teacher in me wanted a rubric. In any case, I’m fairly certain that in this finale, the chefs outperformed the critics. I could not listen to anything that James Oseland had to say about the food without breaking out into laughter. His singular ability to pick apart dishes was utterly contrary to the mood that the challenge had set, and he had to go to such ridiculous lengths to criticize the food that it was truly comical. “Beautiful presentation, but the individual dishes were a little further apart from each other on the plate than I would have liked….”. (not actually said, but offered to illustrate my point).
So one guy walked away a winner, which meant that his designated charity received a 100k donation. But it felt all wrong this time, liking picking the best scientist from a lineup of Newton, Einstein, and Curie. This is where the show stumbled big for the first time. As an avid watcher of the show, my vote rests squarely on more time devoted to the stories behind the dishes in this challenge, making it less about who wins, because in this case, each chef was truly a winner.
Why I love Top Chef Masters
I am a big fan of Top Chef, the reality series that recently wrapped up it’s 5th season on Bravo. This summer, however, we are treated to the first season of Top Chef Masters, a spinoff of the original series in which already-established chefs at the top of their game are competing against each other in the same types of challenges as the up-and-comers in the regular series.
The majority of the buzz that I’ve read so far on the new series is that it’s a little lackluster in comparison to it’s counterpart. The chefs that are competing in the Masters series are already well established, so the stakes are lower and the usual excitement over the competition is not as robust. I couldn’t disagree more.
The 24 contestant/chefs that have appeared on the show thus far are successful professional chefs already. The individual competitions are not packed with the schadenfreude of the original series, it’s true, but that’s because the chefs on the series have a deep reverence for the craft of cooking, and a healthy respect for each other. In this environment, the focus is on the ingredients, the cooking, and only a little about the personalities behind the dishes. It’s a great pleasure to watch these chefs do their thing amidst the hair raising challenges that they are tossed into. And they take pleasure in watching their colleagues without the backbiting.
(minor spoiler alert)
In last week’s episode, the elimination challenge gave each chef a chance to completely sabotage one of their competitors. It was their job (a la secret santa) to shop for one of their competitors, and the competitor would be obligated to make use of all of the ingredients that they selected. No one took the bait. Each chef showed great care and consideration in picking out a fine assortment of ingredients for his competitor, because, as one chef remarked, he wanted his colleaugue to be able to show his chops as a chef. The grace and camraderie shown by the chefs elevated the entire competition to a celebration of talent and the craft of cookery. Bravo, indeed! Encore!
