Top Chef episode 3: Thanksgiving with Achatz and the Foo Fighters

November 27, 11:03 AMChicago Dining ExaminerEmily Szopa

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Cheftestants find out they're cookin for the Foo Fighters

My omission of a recap last week was no accident. I simply didn't have anything nice to say about Episode 2 and didn't want to subject my readers to a diatribe entailing how disheartened I felt about the cheftestants' abilities. This week I'm presenting a quick recap, with some links to other Top Chef reviews I always find to be entertaining.

This week featured Chicago's Chef Grant Achatz, of Alinea, as the guest judge for both the quickfire as well as the final judging. I thought the quickfire was one of the best challenges thus far, with the chefs picking numbered knives that corresponded with a page in the Top Chef cookbook. They then had to put their own twist on the selected recipes, but the real twist was when they were stopped partway through the challenge and told to use what they had made so far to make a soup instead. I love soup.

This challenge really forced the chefs to be imaginative, and the end products proved to be more impressive than a lot of what they had made up until that point. Leah won with her chilled white asparagus soup topped with a "tapenade" she made out of the tartare she had been preparing for her original dish. Chef Achatz's critiques were more detailed and insightful than those we usually get from guest judges. It would have been way more awesome if the numbers on their knives had corresponded with pages in the Alinea cookbook, which is what I thought they might...for like a millisecond. But this was still a vast improvement over last week's hot dog challenge.

The elimination challenge was, of course, a Thanksgiving challenge, with the group split into teams: Team Sexy Pants and Team Cougar. All in all, it was kind of a silly challenge, with the chefs' kitchen stationed outside the stadium where the Foo Fighters (their dinner guests) would be rocking out later that night. They only had a single burner, a hot box and a wall of microwaves and toaster ovens to use. It was hectic, with most of the drama surrounding Ariane's turkey. Everyone's fears that she would fail (again) were put to rest when Dave Grohl deemed the turkey Best in Show. Still, her team ended up losing, due to a number of failed desserts, and Team Sexy Pants attended the concert while the Cougars did dishes.

I thought the grossest of all the dishes had to be Jeff's poorly thought out "Berries with Pumpkin Mousse," and although the judges felt much the same way, it ended up coming down to Richard's failed Banana S'mores and Danny's undercooked potatoes. In the end, Richard was sent home after Achatz's admonishment that, if you're going to take a classic recipe and put a twist on it, elements from the classic recipe should still appear in the final product. FAIL!

Radhika was invisible in this episode, which means we'll never know if she made another Indian-inspired dish for the quickfire, but hopefully we'll see more of what she has to offer next week. This week made me feel more confident in some of the previously weak chefs--plus we didn't have to deal with too much Stefan or Fabio--but the highlight was definitely getting to see Chef Achatz on the tee-vee. Chicago represent!

Here are some great takes on the most recent episodes:

• 30 Seconds on Top Chef: Foo Fighters Edition
  A brief, humorous look at last night's episode by Hungry Mag's Michael Nagrant. He might have mixed up the names on who packed their knives, but hey, it was the night before the biggest American food event of the year. I know I was a little distracted, running into the kitchen during commercial breaks to make my cheesecake. Plus, it's so early in the season that I didn't even know that guy's name was Richard. Just like how I can never remember Danny's name. I just call him "weird beard dude."
   
•  Top Chef: The rising rate of sugar violence
  Flipit, who recaps Top Chef somewhat regularly, has me lmao with every review. The writing is totally irreverant and often puts into words the catty things many of us are thinking while watching the show. Well, the catty things I'm thinking, anyway. It's a nickname-laden gossip fest, but isn't that really (at least part of) what every show on Bravo is all about?
   
• Top Chef 3: Happy Thanksgiving preview
  Okay, so it's not a recap, but it does include a neat video that features "culinary god" Grant Achatz, as well as a link to the New Yorker's fabulous profile of the lauded chef. Covered by our Top Chef Examiner, Matt Wolf, I'm sure this week's episode will be recapped soon, so check back for more!
   
• Bravo's interview with Grant Achatz re: his appearance on Top Chef
  Achatz admits that he was "pulling hard for [Richard] Blais" in the last season, but that he was happy to see Stephanie Izard win because "she's a respected chef here in Chicago." Darn right she is.

Photo courtesy of BravoTV.com