♪♪♪
BUDDHA: Winning Top Chef has definitely changed my life.
When I got called for this opportunity,
I couldn't refuse it.
Top Chef Season 20 is like the Top Chef culinary Olympics.
♪♪♪
I am the first winner of Top Chef Spain.
My restaurant have one Michelin star in Valencia.
BEGOÑA: I want to win Top Chef
and after that to get my second Michelin star.
♪♪♪
MAY: My name is May.
I'm a finalist in Top Chef Thailand Season One.
I've done over 50 competition.
Top Chef 20 is gonna be the biggest competition in my life.
-Ready to go. -London here I come.
♪♪♪
PADMA: Sixteen chefs
representing 11 different Top Chef competitions
around the world have come to London,
one of the top international food cities,
to compete in the ultimate culinary showdown.
SAMUEL: I'm representing France in this competition,
I've arrived into London.
I was the first woman to ever win Top Chef Canada.
I'm pumped. I'm also terrified
that it's on an international level.
Ali!
I'm back to win this competition.
That's my aim. That's my goal.
I'm back.
I'm ready to kick some ass.
♪♪♪
-Luciana. -[squeals]
I'm so honored to be here representing Brazil.
I have goosebumps on my whole body now. Ooh!
Nice to meet you.
Here they come.
My name is Victoire Gouloubi.
I was a finalist in Top Chef in Italy.
-Charbel. -Gabrielle.
I'm the winner of Top Chef Middle East season five.
I was so happy to be
the youngest Top Chef winner in the Middle East.
I won season seven Top Chef Poland.
DALE: I won season one of Top Chef Canada.
SARA: Runner up on Top Chef Kentucky.
TOM G: Top Chef Germany.
I know the Mexican people is going to be pissed
if I don't win.
PADMA: At stake for the winner,
a feature in Food & Wine magazine.
An appearance at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen.
$250,000 furnished by Saratoga Spring Water.
And the title of Top Chef: World All-Star.
♪♪♪
Hello, Chefs.
Welcome to season 20 of Top Chef.
-All right. -[applause]
Since Top Chef premiered in 2006,
there have been 29 international versions
with over 100 winners from around the globe.
You represent some of the best of the best.
I recognize Samuel because I always watch
Top Chef France and I know he's a great chef.
This competition gonna be fire.
London is a diverse international city.
Many cultures have left their stamp on the food scene here
and that's what you'll be doing
on the journey to the title of Top Chef: World All-Star.
[applause]
[laughs]
Not only is this the first time
we've set an entire season overseas,
it's also the first time
we've brought chefs together from around the world.
And... this year,
Delta Airlines is sending you to the finale in Paris, France.
I mean, I'm excited.
I won the first final in Paris.
I need to win. You know, I don't have the choice.
Is there anyone who hasn't yet been to Paris?
-Sara? -Yeah.
I am pumped.
Take me up in the air and drop me in Paris
where I can whoop everybody's ass.
PADMA: The winner will be crowned Top Chef: World All-Star
and take home the grand prize
of a quarter of a million dollars
furnished by Saratoga Spring Water.
Wow! That's amazing.
-Are your knives sharpened? -Yes.
Good. Because it's time to get right into the action
with your first Quickfire Challenge.
Once we get to the kitchen, you'll have three minutes
to raid the pantry for a total of five ingredients.
You'll find out more later,
but for now, follow me.
♪♪♪
-MAN: Nice. -MAN 2: Top Chef bus.
It's like a school trip. [laughs]
This is like a pinch me moment.
We're going on a London-- [laughs]
WOMAN: This is like amazing.
London is the most cosmopolitan city for food.
We have the best Japanese, the best German,
the best Indian, French, Brazilian.
Who has never been to London?
Sara, you've never been to London?
-Never? -No.
Who else? Ali, you've never been to London?
First time. I won Top Chef M.E.N.A,
Middle East and North Africa.
I would say that I am a competitive person.
I'm bit shy. Maybe they would call me the silent assassin.
I don't know, maybe. [laughs]
We're coming up on Westminster Abbey
and near that of course, is Big Ben.
SARA: I thought that Big Ben was gonna be bigger.
[laughs]
-Dawn, are you rested? -I never am, Padma.
In my season of Top Chef I made it to the finale.
Hurry. But I was not able to complete my plates,
which I think cost me the win.
-MAN: One. -Oh [bleep]!
What was the format of yours?
Did you have Quickfire challenges?
Of course.
DAWN: The competition is very stiff.
Lots of countries represented here
and I'm gonna bring everything that I have.
♪♪♪
Now we're headed towards to Knightsbridge.
-Harrods Food Halls. -Also Harrods.
Actually Harrods has a fantastic food hall
but it's very pricey.
Top Chef is coming to London.
[laughs, cheers]
♪♪♪
WOMAN: Oh, Jesus!
PADMA: Chefs, you have three minutes
to get five ingredients only.
MAN: Where's the baskets?
WOMAN: Where's the dairy? Dairy?
-MAN 2: Any cucumber? -VICTOIRE: This is Top Chef.
-MAN: Where are the proteins? -Prawn, prawn, prawn, prawn.
Proteins? There's no proteins?
NICOLE: Ha-ha. I get it now.
It's a vegetarian challenge.
I should have guessed this. I just gotta make sure
there are five ingredients that go well together.
Blue cheese and zucchini, it sounds good to me.
-TOM G: Hi, Padma. -Hello, go!
I'm truly sure it's a vegetarian challenge,
so I want to make a red cabbage steak, red cabbage sauce.
You ever been to the Oktoberfest?
It's a lot of red cabbage.
-PADMA: One minute -Chili. Chili. Chili, chili.
So, I need cucumber, chili. Have anyone seen chili?
For a Mexican guy we need chilis, you know?
Chili. One, two, three.
I'm grabbing ingredients that are highly versatile.
Cream could be whipped into butter,
it could turn into a sauce. Same things with eggs.
-Poach it, boil it, fry it. -PADMA: Three, two, one.
Time is up. Everybody come to the center please.
-Ooh, that's a tough one! -WOMAN: Oh gosh!
I don't even know what I got.
Did anyone have trouble finding protein in the pantry?
-We all did. -Not to worry.
[cheers]
-Hello. -Hi, chefs.
TOM C: Chefs, how you doing?
Welcome to London.
MAN: Fabulous. You saved us.
After watching 19 seasons of Top Chef, I've been waiting
to see Tom's face and him kinda shake his head while he eats
things cause you generally know that's-- that's a good dish.
And I love Gail. She's a Canadian.
Chefs, if you had asked me season one
if I thought I would be standing here looking at winners
and finalists of Top Chef from all across the globe
about to start season 20,
I would've thought you were absolutely crazy.
It's actually pretty astonishing
and I cannot tell you how excited I am
to get to know each and every one of you through your food.
PADMA: All right, so let's get to it.
Chefs, the UK is comprised of England, Scotland, Wales,
and Northern Ireland and it's surrounded by four seas.
So, it's no wonder it's home
to some of the finest seafood in the world.
And that is what you'll be cooking with
in your first Quickfire Challenge.
NICOLE: Okay, great. I'm screwed.
The blue cheese and fish, I've never heard of it before.
DAWN: I want to utilize mackerel,
but I don't have tomatoes which I love with mackerel.
PADMA: So you have your pantry ingredients
and you have this beautiful array of seafood.
-But... -[tense music]
We're waiting for the but.
We do love a twist here on Top Chef.
Pam pam pam pam.
[laughs]
♪♪♪
Do you guys wanna know what your twist is?
-No. [laughs] -Kind of.
All right. Let's do this.
Take a look around at what ingredients
your fellow competitors chose...
because we want you to pair up in teams of two.
WOMAN: Oh, my Lord!
What a ----ed twist, huh? [chuckles]
Together, you must make a dish featuring ingredients
you chose from the pantry, and at least one seafood item
from this beautiful display.
There is no going back into the pantry.
Pair up please.
SAMUEL: I pair with Tom.
French and Germany, we go well together.
But I'm a bit concerned when I have a look in his basket.
What the hell are we gonna do now
with this cabbage and these blueberries?
What have we got?
Everything to make like persillade.
Lemon, garlic, parsley, eggs.
DALE: I loved watching Sara on her season.
I thought she did great. She's from Kentucky.
I'm from Saskatchewan and I think we have kind of
similar feeling towns.
-I have the tomato. -Yeah.
Charbel is there and he has the tomatoes.
Yeah, this is a great match.
I was gonna do an Eastern European dish.
-Really? -Yeah, I was gonna do olivieh.
SYLWIA: Both our baskets, we are like a twins.
Leek, potatoes, double cream. So funny.
-You've got rice, eh? -What is it?
-Come with me. -Okay. Okay.
We're gonna do that. Okay. Okay.
Cucumber, lime.
I don't know anything about Luciana,
but I know that she's from Brazil.
We have a similar flavor profiles, you know?
PADMA: Oh, one more thing. The winning team
of this Quickfire will receive immunity
in the first Elimination Challenge.
-Yep. -Okay.
You have 30 minutes on the clock and your time starts now.
Good luck.
♪♪♪
-Sea bass. -Yeah.
-Have to find monkfish. -Do you want turbot?
-Yeah. Oh, he took it. -All right.
We got the langoustines.
DALE: Langoustines was actually the first thing
that I ever prepped when I lived in London.
My first day at Gordon Ramsay's,
I killed langoustines for about six hours
and I completely shredded up my thumbs from their tails.
-You wanna make a leek sauce? -Yeah, I can do.
SYLWIA: I know Buddha. He won the last season.
Do you want get on a butter, I'll get on the fish now?
Okay. He was a little bit snobby,
but so far, he's really nice and like a professional guy.
-Two will be enough? -Yeah. Yeah.
Two potatoes will be fine.
SAMUEL: We have 30 minutes.
The most challenging part will be
to make a beautiful dish in only 30 minutes.
On Top Chef France, the minimum time was one hour and half.
Definitely it is completely different.
I'm going on the sink.
DAWN: I wanted to make a really nice tomato salad.
I'll take care of that. You start with the fish.
I'm representing Middle East and North Africa
and I'm not here to lose. Sauce vierge, you know?
Okay, let-- let's-- Oh, that's fine.
Just let's make sure we keep something raw.
I'm representing a billion population,
I'm not representing one country.
♪♪♪
ALI: I'm gonna take the eggplant.
I'm gonna make like a baba ghanoush.
-Are you good with sea bass? -We have like similar branzino
on the menus. Been on the menu for 11 years.
ALI: Awesome, man.
VICTOIRE: We are going to make risotto.
Risotto in 30 minutes?
That's uh, kind of a death sentence.
Well, we should probably get that on now
-cause it takes 20 minutes. -I can make risotto.
I just let her do the risotto.
I'm like, "You know what?
"You were a finalist on Top Chef Italy,
"you have to know how to make risotto."
-I know a time. -Yes. Okay.
♪♪♪
These are really fresh scallops. My God.
-Yeah, I can see. -Because it's just half an hour,
we have to do something very quickly.
So let's do a ceviche.
I'm so glad like we are together.
-Yeah, me too. -We have a chili, lime.
-Oh my gosh. -Yeah, yeah.
LUCIANA: Everybody is the best of their countries.
I have a blood in my eyes because I want to win.
MAY: You work with cockles before?
All the ingredients that we are using now, I use quite a lot.
So, I trust you?
Is it like a...
...make it with lemon?
Begoña...
...make me nervous.
In Top Chef Thailand, I was the first runner up.
-Yeah. -Chef Thongthong.
[cheers]
That not good enough for me, so that's why I'm here.
19 minutes.
SAMUEL: You taking care of the salmon?
We said we will poach it?
Yeah, I would say we poach it in the red cabbage juice.
Well, I live on a boat, so when it comes to seafood
I'm quite happy. I'm in charge of all restaurants,
[indistinct] and bars on all our ocean ships.
It's gonna be a nice colorful dish.
A lot of red, we should call it purple rain. [laughs]
I think if we just poach the salmon is not enough.
I decided to blaze it with the blow torch
because the blow torch give also a grilled flavor.
The salmon looks very good.
I think he's finishing to cook now.
♪♪♪
Zucchini are done?
-Yeah. -How long for butter?
-Butter is almost ready. -Okay, cool.
Because I need a butter for leek.
Okay. Cool.
We're making butter out of the cream.
Just because we don't have any butter
and turbot cooked in some brown butter
is absolutely incredible.
Polish power.
LUCIANA: What do you think this?
We give a shot of that on the side?
It will be lovely.
Luciana took the inside of the lobster
to make tomato [indistinct] soup.
-So freaking delicious. -Yum, yum, yum, yummy.
Do we need something else though?
I mean, we don't have a lot of things.
-Gremolata? -Yeah, why don't we do that
with the parsley lemon. So we use the langoustines
for actual meat and then also for the bisque for the sauce?
-PADMA: Ten minutes. -VICTOIRE: Yes.
It's already done? There's no ----ing way.
-VICTOIRE: I think it's right. -Oh no. It is raw.
My opinion, I think you should put it back on.
VICTOIRE: No, no, no.
I'm just gonna let her do it.
There's not a lot of time left.
-Oh [bleep]! -Oh, sorry.
Okay. ----ing hell!
PADMA: You have five minutes, Chefs.
Quick, quick, quick.
Buddha?
-Yeah. -Let's start plate.
Is the garnish should be on top?
-The sauce in the middle? -Yep.
I think what he wants to do is beautiful.
No, no. Yep. Perfect.
DAWN: Although I'm concerned about the baby zucchini.
I don't know if it adds anything to the dish.
[sizzling]
-Beautiful, my dear. -Yes.
15 seconds. Quite badass.
♪♪♪
WOMAN: I'm shaking. I'm shaking. Oh my God.
♪♪♪
PADMA: Time is up. Hands up.
-Utensils down, please. -SYLWIA: Nice.
Sylwia and Buddha, come on up please.
-Thank you. -Tell me about this dish.
BUDDHA: It's a pan fried turbot with potatoes and leak and dill.
We actually made our own butter from the cream.
Yeah, this is like really old school cooking.
-Yes. But it's wonderful. -I mean it's really flavorful.
The fish was handled perfectly. Really nice.
-Thank you both. -Thank you.
-PADMA: Amar and Ali. -Thank you.
AMAR: We made a pan roasted sea bass with a kimchi emulsion
and like a roasted eggplant baba ganoush.
Why did you decide to be teammates?
We both have feta cheese in our basket.
PADMA: Great first showing. Thank you, Chefs.
-Ready? -PADMA: Luciana and Gabri.
Thank you.
We made scallop aguachile with raw chayote.
LUCIANA: And the shot of tomato lobster water.
-Am I supposed to just drink it? -Yeah, just drink it.
PADMA: It's very light and fresh.
-Thank you. -PADMA: Begoña and May, please.
MAY: I made a pan seared monkfish with zucchini wrapper
and then she made a Spanish style sauce.
TOM C: A lot of work for a very short time
-and very nice dish. -Thank you.
Samuel and Tom, come on up, please.
-Hi, guys. -Hello.
You're-- You look happy.
I'm actually really happy to be back, to be honest.
We made red cabbage juice, poached salmon,
red cabbage puree, cabbage ash and pickled blueberries, onions.
So this puree is just cabbage?
Cabbage and a little bit of red wine vinegar.
Just to kick it.
PADMA: Charbel and Dawn.
Thank you.
DAWN: Today we made a grilled mackerel with grilled zucchini.
And then on top of it, like sauce vierge
but with balsamic vinegar.
Who cooked the zucchini?
Thank you both.
-Thank you. -Sara and Dale, please come up.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
SARA: So we have langoustines in their own sauce with gremolata.
The langoustines are just barely cooked at all,
which is fantastic.
30 minutes to cook and get this kind of flavor, good dish.
Nice start. This is-- this is great.
I'm just loving this.
PADMA: And finally, Nicole and Victoire, please come up.
-Hello? -Hello.
-Is this risotto? -Yes.
-In 30 minutes? -Yes.
PADMA: Okay. Tell me about your dish.
VICTOIRE: Cacio e pepe risotto al dente.
With pesto of mint and poached oyster.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
That was a really impressive start.
Well, you guys know how this works.
Let's get the bad news out of the way.
Charbel and Dawn.
I'm sorry, but your mackerel
just left something to be desired.
Yeah, I-- I think the bigger problem was
that the zucchini was just completely under seasoned.
Gail, who else had one of our least favorite dishes today?
GAIL: Samuel and Tom.
Your salmon was cooked absolutely beautifully,
but the cabbage around the plate felt
a little bit gritty in the emulsion.
TOM C: Victoire and Nicole.
You know, you called it al dente risotto.
This I felt was just a little too al dente.
And now for some good news.
♪♪♪
Luciana and Gabri.
That raw scallop was spectacular.
I loved all the raw vegetables and the agua fresca.
That beautiful little cup of chilled tomato
and coconut soup brought the whole dish together.
Thank you.
PADMA: Tom, who had one of our other favorites?
Sylwia and Buddha.
Listen, I love the old school approach.
Made your own butter. Made your own butter from cream
and that's just brilliant.
Sara and Dale, you also had one of our favorite dishes
-of the day. -Good job.
I thought your sauce was so rich and flavored
and really complimented that delicate langoustine.
Thank you.
All three of these dishes were really, really good.
But there was one that I think that stood out.
The fish was handled perfectly. Sauce was really luscious.
The winning dish today belongs to...
Dale and Sara.
Yes!
-[applause] -DALE: Good job.
PADMA: Congratulations, Dale and Sara.
You will have immunity in the first Elimination Challenge.
I mean, immunity in Top Chef is like the holy grail.
Immunity's great, but winning that first challenge
and letting everyone know that you're there to compete,
especially this one being World All-Stars,
it's just an awesome feeling.
As World All-Stars, we want you to do well.
So, let's start with something easy peasy.
For your first Elimination Challenge,
we want you to create a vegetable forward dish
where the protein is used more like a seasoning or an accent.
TOM C: Vegetables are where all our flavor comes from
and more and more chefs are really focusing
so much on produce.
BEGOÑA: I'm really happy working with vegetables.
In my restaurant in Valencia,
the food that we do is focus on vegetables.
I'm really, really excited for this challenge.
PADMA: This is an individual challenge.
You'll each have £250 to shop at Whole Foods Market.
Then tomorrow, you'll have two hours to prep and cook
at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
A UNESCO World Heritage site.
Nice.
You'll be serving a distinguished table
of chefs from the United Kingdom.
And your first guest judge of the season
will be Michelin starred chef
and Officer of the Order of the British Empire,
Angela Hartnett.
Oh, wow. I'm so excited. I love her cuisine.
I have seen her many times in events here in London,
but I never had the opportunity to cook for her.
PADMA: All right, chefs.
Good luck. We'll see you tomorrow.
ALL: Thank you.
♪♪♪
MAN: Let's go shopping.
[cheers]
Watch out. Watch out. I don't have a driver's license.
WOMAN: Oh, this is mine.
SAMUEL: In Top Chef France,
So, for me it's the first time going shopping to Whole Foods.
Wow, carrots.
Everyone is running to the vegetable,
so I go straight away to the seafood.
Do you have prawns here?
What are these?
...because I don't want to cook too much tomorrow.
It's gonna be a big mess.
GABRI: I'm gonna get inspired by mextlapique,
which is like a tamal.
-Do you have corn? -No. Oh.
I cannot find the exactly same ingredients for the mextlapique,
so I need to replace them.
All right. Let's see.
Oh, beautiful. I'm going to make it work.
I mean, that's why I'm here, right?
I'm not gonna use really the chicken,
I am just gonna use...
...to make the dish pop.
-BUDDHA: This is my trolley. -AMAR: Oh, sh--. Here.
-Then where's my cart? -Ten minutes left.
Honey, honey, where are you?
DAWN: What the [bleep] am I making for this?
What the [bleep]? I immediately start
to struggle with what I'm gonna make. [sighs]
The last creative block I had actually was,
you know, in the finale of Top Chef season 18.
-Do you have lobsters? -MAN: Lobster tails.
I'm gonna be patient and allow the ideas to come.
Choosing ingredients that also can be manipulated
in different way if I need to change the dish slightly.
I got the flour, so I have multiple options.
ALI: Charbel, what are you up to?
Bro, I'm making a dish outta onion.
-Onion. -CHARBEL: Just onion.
My strategy in my season was play it safe
in the beginning and go crazy in the end,
but after I saw the level of chefs in the Quickfire,
I had a feeling I had to take risk from day one.
NICOLE: Okay, we got some onion hogs in the house here.
CHARBEL: My plan is to make the onion the star of the dish.
It is a very risky dish,
but if you're comfortable, that's where you start losing.
Where you working now?
Oh, wow. I'm still 25.
I'll start being comfortable maybe at 45.
NICOLE: I'm getting very hangry.
I'm gonna eat this green vegetable soon.
-AMAR: All right, vámonos. -BUDDHA: All right, let's do it.
TOM G: It's our first night on Top Chef
and it's far away from all Top Chefs back home.
This is a complete different ball game.
Yes, it's painful.
...who cares? I gonna cook with people from around the world
just as nerdy as me about food or better.
[laughs] That's-- that's awesome.
It excites me a lot, to be honest. Let's cook some food.
♪♪♪
-WOMAN: Good morning. -BOTH: Hello.
AMAR: This is the London that I know.
Cloudy, raining. This is a fun group though.
-Yeah. -AMAR: Sylwia's hilarious,
but she is crazy fun.
So, Top Chef.
-[laughs] Yeah. Cool. -And that's it.
Okay. I'm just going to Love Island.
[laughs]
We are in the middle of nowhere without a lot of space.
I feel a lot of pressure. I want to show
so many techniques of different vegetable texture.
Well, we'll try to reproduce a little garden on the plate.
-Okay. I know. -All right, guys, let's push.
-Let's do it. Sara. -I hope I don't go home.
MAN: Thank you for rubbing it in, huh?
Yeah.
So I'm gonna do a little southern pot liquor.
Serve it with cover crops.
A cover crop is something
that a good farmer plants
in the off season to keep the soil healthy.
This is how I explained it to my three-year-old daughter.
This is a play on the dish that made me
fall in love with my husband.
We fell in love over a romantic conversation about kohlrabi.
-It's very sexy. -[laughing]
Dawn, what you got going on?
DAWN: A whole lot.
A west Indian style patty,
with onion, squash and lobster.
It is like a pastry.
I just created the dish
out of everything that I picked up.
I need to have this dough done.
I make these patties often, so I know that this dish works.
I just wanna knock this dust off real quick.
I love carrots. I think carrots is one
of the most underrated vegetable.
I'm making a carrot mousse...
...it looks like a carrot, it tastes like a carrot,
-but it's just not a carrot. -So you're making carrots
that don't look like carrots. Is that what you're saying?
TOM G: You know, cook something for Padma, Tom and Gail,
you need to come up with something,
hopefully they never saw.
You're trying to be cool, but actually,
I just try to not cry.
Try to be cool.
The kitchen is 600 degrees.
MAN: Oh, we got fire!
What are you doing, Amar?
AMAR. A bunch of different vegetables,
serve it with seared scallops.
It is hot.
Whoo!
Ali, you feel good?
ALI: Yeah. Yeah. All good.
My dish is inspired from cauliflower steak.
It's gonna go with the fish and licorice.
This need some salt.
I have never heard the words,
"Pack your knives and go home."
To go home in the first round,
I can't imagine how bad that would feel.
VICTOIRE: Behind.
♪♪♪
-MAY: It's good. -My sauce is perfect.
-MAY: Yeah, really? Let's see. -[laughs]
CHARBEL: I'm making a whole vegetarian dish out of onion,
and I wanted the chicken jus to be like a condiment.
Charbel is just making some onions and chicken jus.
I mean, that's very ballsy to do,
but Top Chef is all about taking risk, right?
Onion is always like forgotten or used as a base,
so I wanted to make it the star.
Whoo!
One hour, you guys.
MAN: One hour!
This is so much work. It's a ----ing vegetable.
BEGOÑA: Hey, don't say it's a ----ing vegetable.
Vegetables are my lovers.
[laughs]
My butternut squash is like,
in your mind you are eating a pasta dish...
I love your name.
-Amar, amor. -Amor, amor.
MAN: Samuel, what's Up?
I got inspired by the garden where we are.
I'm really rushing right now,
trying to show off so many techniques.
Grilled squash, and a squash puree.
Red onions, and beetroot pickles.
I'm cooking the carrots in their own juice
and I smash the prawn to make a carpaccio.
This challenge, it's pushing me.
Chef, coming through.
MAN: 45!
WOMAN: Oui, chef!
Dale, what are you doing today?
Sweet and sour eggplant with some lamb.
Lamb? How are you gonna build the lamb
into a vegetarian dish?
Well, it's not a vegetarian dish.
[laughs]
It's a vegetable dish with some lamb.
WOMAN: It looks very colorful, the leaves.
Yeah. I'm doing mextlapique, which is like a tamale.
I'm gonna make black truffle beans puree
with confit avocado, rainbow chard
and a chicken emulsion.
All right, now the chicken.
It's a lot of work.
Whole chicken.
That in my season of Top Chef Mexico--
Coming. Coming. Thank you.
I'm known for going crazy in the kitchen.
I mean, I'm really, really fast.
Perfect.
And hopefully, not that messy.
Oh, [bleep]. [bleep].
MAN: 30 minutes, chefs.
Sh--.
TOM G: I want to make that mousse into a carrot shape,
but the kitchen was way too hot.
Not working.
I put it in the freezer and just pray that it works.
DAWN: It's me.
Move it so I can move this.
-All right. -All right, thank you.
[bleep], ----ing [bleep].
-You okay? -GABRI: No.
Oh, my God. I spill water in Dawn's dish.
What's wrong?
-Oh, my-- What the [bleep]! -Sorry.
Sorry. So sorry.
No! [bleep]
-DAWN: Oh, my-- -GABRI: Sorry. So sorry.
No, [bleep].
GABRI: It was my fault.
I'm pissed off.
I'm drying the vegetables out.
Dude, and you put out my fire too. Everything.
Yeah, I have it, I'll turn it right off.
DAWN: And then adding coconut milk in hopes
to bring back up some sort of flavor.
Sorry, Dawn. Sorry.
I have to make this happen.
I didn't come all this way to be sent home.
BUDDHA: Oh, I'll keep an eye on this, all right?
DAWN: Thank you. Oh, sh--.
♪♪♪
PADMA: Wow!
Thank you for allowing us to be here.
It's beautiful.
It's a really inspiring place to work.
TOM C: It's very zen-like.
-GAIL: Yeah. I'll move in. -[laughs]
Welcome to the first meal of season 20.
We have 16 winners and finalists
from all over the world
who are super excited to cook for us today.
-MAN: Two minutes, guys. -WOMAN: Oui!
SARA: First challenge, what? All-stars.
Ah!
TOM G: I put everything on my plate
and I just have the mousse left in the freezer.
It actually bloody set.
It doesn't look like a carrot, but it actually tastes amazing.
I make a canal, I put it on my dish and hope it's enough.
MAN: Everything tastes exactly the way I want it.
[alarm beeps]
SARA: Whoo!
Sara, let's go!
TOM C: Nice.
-PADMA: Hi, everybody. -ALL: Hello.
Let's start with you, Sara.
What did you make for us?
SARA: Cover crops with pot liquor,
smoked pork and cornbread.
There's a little bacon fat
in the cornbread and the pot liquor.
-PADMA: Sylwia? -I made like a sandwich
with the beetroot and goat cheese
with kohlrabi reduction and bacon to make a sauce.
PADMA: Amar, what did you make?
AMAR: I did an assortment of different vegetables,
so glazed and pickle,
romesco sauce, seared scallop, and an herb oil.
PADMA: Tom, tell us what you made.
TOM G: I made all kind of variations of carrots.
Blistered carrot, carrot chutney,
carrot glaze and carrot mousse.
Then, I made bone marrow dust.
For me as an Indian, I think your green chutney is very good.
Thank you so much.
PADMA: Thank you very much, chefs.
TOM G: Oh, it's not bad. It's a good start.
SARA: Well done, you guys.
Mm. I wish we had this challenge every challenge.
-[laughs] -GAIL: I know.
GAIL: Tom's dish, my first bite was a little sweet
and then my next bite was quite bitter
-and I loved that. -Yeah.
BRETT: Tom's carrot fit the brief perfectly
about using vegetable forward and--
and meat as a supporting actor.
They said a good things, so I'm not sure what that means.
PADMA: What did you think of the beetroot dish?
Sylwia, I thought really cooked all the vegetables perfectly.
MAN: I liked the sauce.
Wasn't truly a fan of the little sandwiching.
MAN: This is so red.
My face is red too, yeah?
PADMA: Vineet, what did you think of Sara's dish?
VINEET: Nice balance of flavors on it.
Had a little sweetness.
Visually, I think it was a little unappetizing.
It's just that the sauce is a little murky looking.
The pot liquor is something you'd find in the south.
GAIL: It's lovely, but it is not known to be pretty.
Very delicately put there.
I'm ready for wine, maybe?
TOM C: I thought everyone really focused
on the challenge except the Amar.
We actually told them to put veg on the center plate
and the scallop comes out in the center plate.
That said, these vegetables are probably
cooked better than anybody else's.
-It's done. It's done. -Good start.
-MAN: Very good start. -GAIL: Very nice.
BUDDHA: All right, Dawn, we're evaporated.
-DAWN: Thank you. -GABRI: I'm so sorry.
DAWN: I'm not mad at you.
I'm just very bad with time.
I'm moving forward.
Anyone seen a pastry brush?
But, it's so hot in here,
when I'm closing my patties,
the dough is like melting in my hands.
I hate this so much.
MAN: Chefs, five minutes.
I'm just making the puree flat so I can put the onion on.
I see Ali plating his dishes.
"Oh, my God! This dish look good."
I want to have elements of surprise
so I'm stuffing each layer of the onion
with some onion puree.
BUDDHA: 30 seconds.
[alarm beeps]
ANGELA: And what happens when they grow so high?
In some of our other houses, the guys that go to the top
have actually broken through the glass into the free world.
-ANGELA: Go! -Exactly.
WOMAN: Oh, wow. Very pretty.
PADMA: Hello, gentlemen. Let's start with you, Ali.
ALI: Today, I have made pan-seared sea bass.
Different textures of cauliflower and techniques.
Cauliflower puree with licorice,
pickled cauliflower and cauliflower couscous.
-PADMA: Charbel? -CHARBEL: I wanted to use
the onion as a star of the dish.
I roasted and then I also did onion puree in the bottom,
chicken jus on the side and sumac tuile.
PADMA: Dale, what did you make for us?
Roasted and pureed eggplant with a little tomato relish,
stewed peppers with [indistinct] lamb.
-PADMA: Buddha? -BUDDHA: I did a eggplant
with shrimp and shiitake,
silken tofu, pickled purple kohlrabi.
I wanted to keep it more Japanese.
-PADMA: Thank you, chefs. -ALL: Thank you.
-MAN: Good job, guys. -BUDDHA: Well done, guys.
Mm.
What did you think about Ali's dish?
ADAM: The little roasted piece
of cauliflower was just delicious.
It didn't really need the fish two-for.
What is that there for?
HELENA: It's scary to take meat off the plate
if you are used to cooking with it.
ANGELA: I felt it was a safe dish.
Charbel's dish was much braver.
VINEET: Simple ingredients done technically perfectly.
TOM: I also love the fact that he took a humble onion
and just, you know, raised it up to-- to that level.
MAN: I quite like that he had a budget of £250
and-- and spent £2.50.
[laughs]
ALI: Yeah?
VINEET: Dale was good. Aubergine was cooked perfectly.
Nice and fleshy.
I don't think that Dale needed the lamb.
Yeah, I think it went pretty good.
You know, it's hard to read their faces.
I appreciate how subtle
the flavors of Buddha's dish are.
It's poached in dashi
and so it sucks in the flavor of the broth.
-Yeah. -BUDDHA: Brett Graham's
out there, an Australian
with two Michelin stars in London.
One of my idols. Makes me realize why I did it again.
ADAM: Everything is really good.
Just trying to pick faults of one...
Tiny, tiny faults. That's the issue.
PADMA: Usually it starts a couple of weeks in.
This time, it's starting right off the bat.
Coming through.
LUCIANA: Oh, you used the flour, the cassava flour?
-Yes. -Oh, lovely.
I'm using cassava also.
VICTOIRE: When I was younger, I eat it always times.
It's our national vegetable.
Which is fantastic.
Jesus Christ! I'm sweating like hell.
This dish is a representation of what I am
like a chef, but also what I am like a person.
-DAWN: One minute. -BEGOÑA: One minute, yeah.
You like it or you hate it.
There's nothing in the middle.
Just need to finish.
♪♪♪
[alarm beeps]
PADMA: This looks lovely.
MAN: Mm. Very colorful.
-Yes. -[laughs]
-MAN: Thank you. -WOMAN: Thank you.
Hi, everybody. Begoña, what did you make for us?
...with duxelles and cream made from raw milk.
-PADMA: May? -So, I call it garden salad.
Under the bottom is cured England sea bass
and then Thai spicy emulsion on the side.
Samuel, what did you make for us?
Tiger prawn carpaccio,
prawn head emulsion sauce.
There is different vegetables.
Vegetable vinegarette, and a prawn cracker on the top.
Beautiful. Dawn?
DAWN: I made a patty with onion squash
with West Indian flavors.
Coconut broth on the outside and salad
of lobster and mushrooms at the bottom.
-PADMA: Thank you. -ALL: Thank you.
DAWN: I'm always ready to cry afterwards. It's like--
HELENA: Mm. Amazing
TOM C: Begoña's dish, this is crazy.
You eat it, you go, "Okay. It's interesting."
You go for another bite and it's like,
you taste something else, you go for another bite,
-you taste something else. -HELENA: Begoña also got
the texture of what you can do with pumpkin
because quite often we overcook them.
Yeah.
PADMA: What did you think of May's dish?
GAIL: It was vibrant.
I thought she cooked each individual
-vegetable beautifully. -ANGELA: It's got that heat.
The heat does bring it together in the end.
GAIL: Samuel's carrots are cooked nicely.
TOM: The-- the vegetable work was actually pretty good.
PADMA: But the fish just ate so slimy.
MAN: I sort of picked it up and--
-MAN: Yeah. -WOMAN: Ohh!
MAN: There is a poop pipe,
if that's the professional word for it.
WOMAN: He didn't devein the shrimp?
-I got the same thing. -MAN: Not very refined.
TOM: I mean, you gotta clean it.
Yeah.
They didn't say much things, so we'll see.
ANGELA: Dawn's I mean, listen, I'm English.
We love a bit of pastry, what can I say? You know.
PADMA: The pastry is what this dish
is about and not vegetables.
GABRI: All right, time to plate.
-WOMAN: One minute to go. -NICOLE: One minute?
Seriously? [laughs]
VICTOIRE: Beautiful crumbled cassava.
[alarm beeps]
GABRI: That was tough, huh?
NICOLE: [groans] I feel like I just lost
like a hundred pounds.
PADMA: And here's our last course.
-MAN: Thank you. -GAIL: Mm. Stunning.
MAN: We have cassava on two dishes.
Gabri, tell us what you made, please.
I made a interpretation of mextlapique.
I charred vegetables, confit corn,
black truffle beans,
pickled mushrooms and [indistinct].
GALI: Gabri, what was the protein in this dish?
The pro-- [bleep] I--
I forgot my chicken emulsion.
Oh, [bleep].
Gabri, what was the protein in this dish?
The pro-- [bleep] I--
I forgot my...
But wait, also the beans wa-- was cooked with pork fat.
-Oh. -[bleep]!
PADMA: Thank you, Gabri. Nicole?
I made summer bass with garden vegetables
on onion soubise and fondant potato.
-Victoire. -I'm so--
I'm so emotional because to be here,
it's amazing.
...we was so poor.
You know? We eat every day cassava.
I tried to give some flavor in cassava with cocoa butter.
Protein, I used scallop.
Confit with carrots and gazpacho.
PADMA: Lovely.
It's actually the coincidence we are next
to each other because we love cassava.
It's a Brazilian root vegetable.
It was brought to Africa
by the Portuguese to help with the hunger.
So, I made cassava in four different ways.
The bisque [indistinct], little pieces of cassava
and tapioca, which is the cassava starch.
The protein is prawns. Oh, my God, I'm gonna cry.
-[laughs] -You and me.
-Thank you all. -TOM C: Thank you.
NICOLE: The queens of cassava.
WOMAN: What did you think of Gabri's dish?
ADAM: It looked like a lot of dried things,
but as soon as I tasted that puree
on the bottom, I thought it was really tasty.
ANGELA: I mean, I'm all for charring,
but that just left this burnt sort of taste in my mouth.
VINEET: It's a shame he forgot to put the [indistinct].
It would actually change the dish a lot.
Take it to a different dimension.
Ah! I'm totally screwed.
PADMA: What did you think of Nicole's dish?
The summer bass?
BRETT: It all felt like an old fashioned dinner, maybe.
Oh yeah. That feels very old European. Yeah.
GAIL: But I found it charming in its quaintness,
but the fish feels completely disconnected.
ANGELA: Yeah.
It is so hard to tell how you did.
GAIL: Victoire's gazpacho was lovely.
HELENA: I really liked the cassava bread.
I did. I liked it.
But I think the scallops kinda,
again, not worked into the dish.
VICTOIRE: It was crazy.
PADMA: Tom, what did you think of Luciana's dish?
The flavor is-- is really good.
I think the cassava is really well seasoned
but the shrimp, I don't know if you need it.
ANGELA: We've tasted some fantastic food today.
20 seasons, thinking about the first episode,
this is by far the best one we've had.
This is gonna be an exciting season.
I wanna thank everybody who ate with us today.
It was great to have you guys.
And what a beautiful setting.
ANGELA: Thanks for having us.
You're coming with us.
But no more food, promise?
PADMA: I promise.
♪♪♪
WOMAN: Oh, wow.
MAN: Whoa.
WOMAN: This is nice.
MAN: Look at the bar.
AMAR: Let's get some glasses.
We gotta toast it up for season 20.
WOMAN: Ooh. I want those pink bubbles.
ALL: Cheers.
Guys, in Poland, we do like that.
[cheers]
MAN: It all goes down the same way.
[laughs]
AMAR: How do you guys feel about the format?
'Cause it's different in your country?
GABRI: Totally different.
In my season, most of the challenge were--
were in the Top Chef kitchen. Cooking outside make it harder.
You can forget a sauce in-- in a dish, you know. And I did.
The sifon, it was for serve it on table
and I was totally forgotten.
We'd like to see Charbel, Begoña and Tom.
♪♪♪
Congratulations. The three of you
had our favorite dishes of the day.
-CHARBEL: Good. -PADMA: You can exhale now.
-CHARBEL: Thank you. -TOM: That's it.
PADMA: Tom, how did today go for you?
It was a great challenge. I really liked it.
Carrot and bone marrow, both is not very intense,
but can be so great together.
I really appreciate that you took a vegetable
that is very humble, but you showed us
how it could do many different things.
Thank you.
I particularly liked your peanut chutney
and I loved your green chutney.
Overall, it was a great dish, Tom.
-So well done. -Thank you.
Yeah. Nice job.
PADMA: Charbel, how did today go for you?
It was pretty good.
While I was working, I'm like, "This onion is gonna
"make me cry or it's gonna make me happy."
So I, now I'm happy. [laughs]
I gotta say, you are exhibiting
a tremendous amount of confidence coming out here
first challenge and serving us an onion.
The detail of putting the soubise between
each layer of onion and building
it back together, I thought was great.
-You nailed it. -Thank you.
You understood that an onion needs to cook
all the way through to get that sweetness
and to cook slowly. You know, it was great.
Thank you.
PADMA: Begoña, I think you probably
had the most beautiful plate.
You gave us such intense flavor.
GAIL: The pumpkin, the cheese, the mushrooms, the smokiness.
The more I ate, the more I loved every bite.
-Thank you. -Have you done this dish before?
Yeah. Well, I did with another kind of vegetables.
TOM C: Ate together really, really well.
I thought it was a great way to start this competition.
-Thank you. -Angela, as our guest judge,
you have the pleasure of announcing our first winner.
ANGELA: The winning chef today really understood the brief.
They made vegetables the forefront of that dish.
So the winning chef today is...
Charbel. Congratulations.
[applause]
-TOM C: Nice job. -Thank you.
-PADMA: Lovely. -Hell yeah.
That's what I'm talking about.
Wow.
What made the dish really work is the attention of detail.
Six months ago, I won Top Chef Middle East.
Wait until I win Top Chef: World All Star at 25.
Oh, my God.
Now, we need you to send in Samuel, Gabri and Dawn.
Congratulations to all of you.
BEGOÑA: You're making an onion, huh?
Ay yai yai.
-[applause] -MAN: Who got it?
BUDDHA: Oh, congratulations, Charbel.
Thank you, guys. Thank you.
WOMAN: Congratulations.
BUDDHA: Did I tell you who the next people to go through?
TOM: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Padma said she wanna see Samuel, Gabri, and Dawn.
-SAMUEL: Good luck, guys. -I knew it.
Thank you.
♪♪♪
PADMA: The three of you had our least favorite dishes
and one of you will be going home.
What was the day like for you, Samuel?
Of course, it didn't end up the way
I imagine it and I should have cooked more with my heart
instead of trying to show too many techniques.
The vegetables were fine. You did show the technique.
They were all different textures.
The big problem was the cleaning of the shellfish.
Some of us got the intestinal track.
They weren't cleaned properly.
When I arrived, it's true that straight away I was in the rush,
so I just took out the head of the prawn.
I was in my head, "Okay, I need to do this, this--"
So definitely I went too fast.
GAIL: Well, there was also so much of it.
It shifted the balance
from being about the vegetables to the prawn.
-For sure. -It sounds like your nerves
got the better of you today.
Yeah. Yeah.
Gabri, how was the day for you today?
It was really tough also.
When I get to the market,
I didn't found the ingredients
for the actual mextlapique.
Could you have pivoted?
GABRI: I was so in that thought that--
-PADMA: You couldn't get out. -Yeah.
For me, I felt mine was far too charred
and then it overpowered the rest of the dish.
I do think a salsa or an emulsion
would've really brought the dish together.
Yeah. I left my sauce on the table.
Interesting dish, but it-- it just didn't work.
Dawn, how did the day go for you?
Today was very difficult.
-Yeah. I'm sorry. -But--
but it's-- but it's okay, you know.
Wait, what happened?
So I was sautéing my vegetables for my--
for my filling and he's spilled like
a quarter and a half of water inside of my sauté pan.
-I had a tough day. -It was.
-Yeah. -You've got a good pallet
'cause everything was seasoned really well,
but I think you just missed the point slightly.
Dawn, I think you gave us the right dish at the wrong time.
Pastry was fine, problem was that
you couldn't really discern the vegetables.
They weren't distinct anymore.
That's it. It was really about a pastry.
Okay.
Thank you. We'll call you back in a bit.
-GABRI: Thank you. -Thank you. Thank you.
GABRI: I make a big mistake.
SAMUEL: We all messed up. We all messed up.
On my season, it took me about three
or four challenges before I got my footing.
Oh!
No, no. We don't know.
We don't know yet.
I'm hoping that I'm afforded that on this stage.
I forgot to take the intestine of the prawn.
That was a big mistake.
I don't know. In the hurry, I forgot.
Nice to meet--
Don't do this. It's not over yet.
Good vibes, good vibes.
DAWN: Shimmy those shoulders.
[laughs]
Dawn's vegetables were the most invisible.
TOM C: It didn't really fit the briefing well.
I still think it was a better dish than the other two dishes.
And we all enjoyed it.
I knew that I was...
I'm freaking out for now.
No one's want to be the first chef to be eliminated, you know?
I think because you worried because what happened with her.
-It made your mind switched off. -Yeah.
Gabri's dish was completely disjointed.
It really needed a lot of work to make it one cohesive dish.
But as a overall dish, you can forgive him more
than you can forgive those prawns, in my mind.
TOM C: I still can't get-- get past
like, not deveining your prawn.
It was a vegetable challenge
and Samuel gave us beautiful vegetables.
Not one vegetable on Gabri's plate
was flavorful or seasoned well, you guys.
Yeah, that's a very good point actually.
AMAR: That-- that kitchen was tough today.
If we were in our kitchen cooking,
-you will not make that mistake. -Yeah, of course.
GABRI: But even in the-- In this situation,
we also can excel like Charbel, right?
There's no excuses.
Okay. I think we have our answer.
Let's get them out here.
♪♪♪
TOM C: Based on food that we received,
both in the Elimination Challenge
and the Quickfire, it's clear
that there are a lot of talented chefs here.
Every single challenge is gonna come down to just those details.
This is gonna be a tough journey for anyone to get through.
There was just one particular mistake
that we couldn't overlook.
Samuel, please pack your knives and go.
We'll see you in Last Chance Kitchen.
You have a chance to get back in.
Okay.
-SAMUEL: Thank you. -PADMA: Thank you.
SAMUEL: Congratulations. Congratulations.
I did a mistake to forget the intestine
and I completely accept the consequences.
Bye bye, la France.
AMAR: What the--
SAMUEL: I came here to represent my country
and definitely Top Chef competition
from all around the world are really completely different.
AMAR: Any little thing can send you home this season.
Bye-bye. Vive la France.
In the Last Chance Kitchen, I will give my best.
If I have to start this competition
by the bottom to finish on the top at the end.
If it's the way, it's the way.
PADMA: This season, on Top Chef World All Stars.
The competition just got really serious.
[tense music]
The judges are pushing us far from our comfort zone.
-MAN: You got it! -That's the way I'd do it.
It's not the way I do it.
TOM C: We're gonna take you on a little pub crawl.
-WOMAN: Whoo! -TOM C: We started early.
MAN: Sylwia's happy today.
-All the potatoes. -My day.
-[laughs] -I'm dizzy.
-ALL: Cheers. -GAIL: To London.
No matter what part of the world
you are from, food put everyone together.
This is the dessert I never knew I was missing.
TOM G: May you serve me some tea?
Absolutely may.
PADMA: Please meet Asma Khan.
Oh, my God.
PADMA: Gaggan Anand.
I'm shocked. That's what I'm looking for.
The sauce is beautiful. Delicious.
The way you combined flavors created something new for me
that I haven't had this before.
-GAIL: He made a risotto. -The spell has been broken.
The food all season has really been beyond our expectations.
-MAN: Taking risks. -DAWN: I live on the edge.
MAN: I remember judging you.
I'm ready to do what needs to be done to win.
PADMA: We are giving you a restaurant
with an existing infrastructure.
I think that's a bad idea.
We are here to fight, to be the best chef of the world.
[dishes clattering]
Only one of you will be leaving Paris
with the title of Top Chef World All Star.
French cuisine is sauce. You are in Paris.
Somebody took my two pans from here.
Are you yelling at me?
-Let's go, let's go. -Hot.
[bowl thudding]
And it's not over yet. There's still a whole lot more.