PADMA: Previously on Top Chef World All-Stars...
I didn't think I'd ever get this emotional on TV.
Are you crying?
I just won Last Chance Kitchen, and I'm back to the competition.
PADMA: We want you to work in teams to create a picnic basket.
- I'm gonna kill it! - What are you doing with it?
- I'm doing a niçoise. - Oh.
- Lovely! - I didn't wanna like it
because I don't like the idea of salmon in niçoise,
- but I liked it anyway. - ALI: What's going on with Tom?
Just [bleep] it. I'm already behind.
I actually lost the seafood completely.
What's that?
SYLWIA: A lemon posset with borek,
and a chicken and 'nduja terrine.
It was not a good dish. Sorry to say.
PADMA: We did have an overall favorite team.
- The Blue Team. - Yes!
PADMA: Sylwia and Tom,
you had our least favorite dishes of the day.
Come with me.
This will determine who will be staying in the competition,
and who will be heading to Last Chance Kitchen.
We wanna give you one more chance
with a classic picnic item.
- The sandwich! - TOM C: That's your pantry.
It's a spicy tomato marmalade with beef filet.
Brioche with crab meat.
Tom, you cooked your steak nicely.
It was really well-seasoned. Sylwia, flavor was good,
but it was all one texture, it was all very soft.
Sylwia, please pack your knives and go.
PADMA: Ten chefs remain
to compete in the ultimate culinary showdown.
At stake for the winner,
a feature in Food & Wine magazine
and appearing at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen.
$250,000, furnished by Saratoga Spring Water.
And the title of Top Chef World All-Star.
♪
- What's up, guys? - Morning!
- CHEFS: Morning. - ALI: What's up, boys?
How crazy was that challenge, huh?
Picnic challenge? I loved it.
[chefs laughing]
TOM G: I did the worst dish of the day.
They hated it. [laughs] They really did.
Having something in my head
and then it turned out completely wrong
and getting so many punches in front of the judges,
that was ten times worse than ten Quickfire in a row.
You can win and the very next time you can go home,
or you can be in the bottom,
and the next two challenges you can win, you know?
Or you could be three times in the bottom.
[chefs laughing]
- Good morning! - Morning.
AMAR: Look at that smile, baby.
How'd you sleep with that $10,000?
Winning the last Elimination Challenge was awesome.
I've been coasting in the middle,
and finally I could hear some feedback about my dish.
And so hopefully I can keep that goin'.
- Ten G's. - Honestly, it's gonna pay for
a quarter of the adoption, so that was a nice surprise.
- Okay, let's go. - Let's do this!
- Come on. - Here we go.
How do you feel about today's cook?
I feel good. I think it'll be tits out.
Beautiful day in London.
♪
- Morning. - Good morning.
Emoji.
GABRI: Chef Anand Gaggan.
- AMAR: Oh, geez. - Uh-oh.
- TOM: Aye, aye, aye. - Gaggan.
- Is that Gaggan? - Yeah.
CHARBEL: I love Gaggan. I love crazy chefs.
I've watched Chef's Table
and he's very unique in his cooking.
He's not traditional.
He's one of the chefs
who inspire me to think outside the box.
I'm ready to impress him.
I think some of you may recognize
this chef standing next to me.
- Oh, yes. - Of course.
- PADMA: Food rebel. - The one and only.
- Gaggan Anand. - [applause]
He is chef at one of the world's best restaurants, Gaggan.
Hi, chefs. I'm so excited to be here.
Chefs, are you ready to express yourselves?
Way back in 2016,
I was typing my menu on an iPad,
and a suggested emoji came up, and I thought,
"Let me get to a global language of emoji
that'll express emotions of my dish,"
and that's how I covered the menu with emojis.
PADMA: For your Quickfire Challenge today,
you'll each choose one of these emojis
and create a dish inspired by it.
Yes, you can share Africa now!
I want to create a fire, or heart, or a sun.
I really want you all to think about the dish,
and the emotion behind the dish, and have fun with it!
The one emoji that's kind of looking at me
is the banana emoji.
PADMA: The winner of this Quickfire
will receive immunity in the Elimination Challenge.
Chefs, you have 30 minutes on the clock.
Your time starts now! Good luck.
- TOM: Oh, Jesus. - NICOLE: Oh, my Lord.
Take it easy!
I grabbed the emoji that I wanted, the flame.
Because the Latino flavor is like fire.
TOM G: That's good.
VICTOIRE: Mmm.
...in the running challenge.
I just grabbed the sushi emoji,
but sushi, it's not my comfort zone.
I'm very worried.
DALE: Anyone seen carrots?
Water with the liquid nitrogen, baby!
What'd you get?
SARA: The sun. I'm gonna serve all nightshades.
I'm sticking with my Dominican ingredient.
Plantains, baby.
I grew up eating plantains,
so I should be able to do something
that represents the banana emoji.
- Smell good. - Plantains, baby.
Bacon plantains.
I do love showing my heritage.
I was born in the Dominican Republic.
I grew up very poor.
There was not a lot of things in abundance.
My grandfather used to give me sugar water
and tell me, "It's gonna make you go to sleep better."
I mean, that's why I like sweets so much these days.
Childhood memory.
♪
Okay, I only need three meatballs. What am I doing?
I grabbed the disguise emoji.
Now I actually have to cook related to the emoji.
How do you do that?
I'm doing a clion meat and rice.
I'm gonna disguise a plain old meat and rice dish
into a crispy meatball,
but I'm gonna coat the meatball in herbs and com dep.
How would I quick-grind meat right now?
Dale, are you an emoji guy?
I throw a few out there, you know?
- Yeah? - Depends on the vibe.
NICOLE: A lot of eggplants? [chuckles]
DALE: I'm more of a-- more of a medium zucchini.
- You know? - [Nicole laughs]
DALE: Just trying to be honest with y'all.
- I got the heart emoji. - NICOLE: Aww.
Thinking about my mom. She makes really, really good
chicken noodle soup.
I'm a huge, huge mama's boy.
Whenever my mom would make chicken,
I was always looking for it the next day
when she would make broth.
This is a dish that comes from the heart.
- So I'm, uh, doin' that. - NICOLE: Nice.
- With some pulled noodles. - NICOLE: Love it.
What you doing with all those green, Ali?
So I'm doing, like, a salad with spring greens,
gazpacho, and some charred broccoli.
CHARBEL: I got duck,
so I'm gonna make fancier duck breast,
and I'm gonna serve it with fennel and orange.
- AMAR: What's your emoji? - Fish and rice, so...
It's not my cup of tea, but-- [laughs]
AMAR: Hey, make it a cup of tea.
- Right? - Ah, yes.
I'm making rice with poached scallops,
but I know that it's not good.
I'm cooking, but like a machine,
without any kind of inspiration.
It's not enough.
Okay. Let's go to try this.
Little sauerkraut today?
TOM G: Sauerkraut, as a proper German would do.
- Sara, sorry about that. - SARA: It's okay!
- Exploded all over you. - Coconuts happen, man.
I feel like taking an emoji
that already relates to a food puts you in a box.
I'm gonna do something that represents, like, snow.
But when I see that freezing face,
I actually think about, "When would you feel it?"
And it's like, "Well, when you're super cold, of course."
I'm gonna make coconut, white chocolate,
- like, a snow sorbet. - SARA: I'm into it.
- ALI: Nineteen minutes. - SARA: Nineteen.
Beautiful, beautiful.
I'm immediately thinking chileatole,
which is a typical dish from Tlaxcala, Mexico.
[spits, grunts] Oh! Ooh! God, this is spicy.
- ALI: Gabri, what did you pick? - GABRI: I picked the fire.
Oh, because you're always on fire, my man.
Exactly, man.
I was three years old when I get my legs burnt.
Both of my tendons are exposed.
I was playing by the electric kettle.
The water was boiling.
I throw that boiling water on myself.
But that scars, it make me who I am right now.
The fire touch me, and now I control the fire.
Thirteen minutes!
DALE: This is, like, a pulled noodle.
Pulled noodles are pretty straightforward,
and normally I would tear the noodles
and cook them in the broth
so they'd take on some of that flavor,
but I'm reducing the broth separately
to try to concentrate the flavor.
That's cool. I like that.
AMAR: So we have a miso butterscotch--
sweet, sour, little salty, with a Stilton.
Stilton? What?
You know me and Stilton. We go way back.
- [Nicole grunts] - Sorry.
♪
I thought I could do something a little bit quirky.
Gaggan Anand, he's a very quirky sort of a person.
My coconut sorbet tastes delicious.
It's the right texture that I want,
and then I put that into a mold that's got a skull on it.
That's gonna represent the freezing to death element.
You have one minute left, chefs.
[indistinct]
TOM: Wow.
Get it.
ALI: Ooh, that's spicy.
AMAR: You make rice that fast?
Damn, girl!
I know that this is not good.
NICOLE: Sweating emoji.
Time's up! Hands up.
Utensils down, please.
Whoo!
That was----ed up.
PADMA: Previously on Top Chef World All-Stars...
Buddha, please come up.
Ooh. What was your emoji and what did you make?
BUDDHA: It's the freezing emoji.
I call it "Freezing Myself to Death."
You got young coconut water that's been frozen to snow,
coconut cream, coconut sorbet, which is the skull,
with damson and candied ginger.
PADMA: And what is the purée underneath, raspberry?
BUDDHA: There's raspberry and damson, and there's supposed to
be the fear, little bit of gore to it.
I love the way you thought about the emotion,
- and how you present it. - Thank you.
I got kind of a goofball disguised emoji.
I made you a crispy meatball
covered in a flat rice called com dep
that's been stained with pandan leaf.
I like the crunch.
Wow, that's spicy. But good. I love spicy.
I have chosen the green leaf emoji.
- PADMA: The four leaf clover. - Sorry?
- It's-- it's about good luck. - For good luck.
There's hundreds of emojis.
Like, I can't know every emoji, you know?
Anyway, what did you make?
I made a salad with a mix of herbs and cucumber gazpacho.
- That's very herbaceous. - Thank you.
I made a creamy sauerkraut
with a smoked fish and some amaranth puffs.
PADMA: And what emoji did you choose?
The queen. When I was young,
we had a "King's Day" once a week
where my father took us fishing.
We figured out after a while,
that was actually the "Queen's Days,"
- so we gave our mom a break. - Yeah.
Super flavorful.
Thank you.
- What emoji did you have? - Sushi.
I made fish and rice, and I poached the scallop.
Is coconut in there?
- Thank you. - GAGGAN: Thank you so much.
I chose the sun emoji,
and today I've made for you nightshades.
There's a burnt eggplant purée on the bottom.
Gold bar squash, green zucchini.
I didn't realize zucchini was in the nightshade family.
I think so.
They're not? Well, [bleep]. [laughs]
It's interesting. Thank you.
I made, uh, some chicken noodle soup.
I had the heart emoji.
GAGGAN: Are these doughs handmade, or--
Yeah, I just made it in the mixer.
Chicken soup in half an hour is tough.
GABRI: Remove the prawn from the shell first.
- PADMA: Thank you. - GABRI: Yes.
This is a red shrimp chileatole
with gooseberries.
- It's good. - I like the heat.
- Thank you. - PADMA: Thank you.
Gabri's so cute.
I picked the duck, or bird emoji,
because my dad used to take me with him hunting.
It brings so much memory for me.
I made slow cooked duck
and I serve it with some fennel, braised with orange juice.
You cooked it quite well.
I had the banana emoji,
so, I made a roasted yellow plantain
with miso butterscotch,
Stilton blue cheese and crispy bacon.
Wow. Very interesting combination.
I-- I love it. It's all BBB.
Blue cheese, bananas and bacon.
- There you go! - Yeah.
Interesting.
Gaggan, how do you think our chefs did
with this emoji Quickfire?
I love it, I was very happy
with how you all cooked with you heart.
PADMA: There were a few
that fell just a little bit short.
Who had one of our least favorite dishes, Gaggan?
Ali, I'm sorry. I expected more.
Everything tasted good, but it was too simple as a dish.
Dale. I'm from Asia. We love chicken soup.
But heart is a very difficult thing to represent in food.
I think in 30 minutes, it's hard to get chicken soup
at the level that you need to for this competition.
- Okay. - Who else?
Hi, Victoire.
And your dish was scallops that were cooked
and just using fish and rice cannot complete an emoji.
And now for some good news.
Who had one of our favorite dishes of the day?
Nicole. I was very surprised.
Sweet little green grinchy-looking thing,
and that meatball was fiercely spiced.
Great disguise.
It was good to get that smack of flavor.
Thank you.
Buddha, that was, like, wow.
That was, like, one of my dishes I would do for that emoji.
- Well done, Buddha. - Thank you. Means a lot.
And we have one more favorite.
Amar. I loved your dish.
It was banana, blue cheese, bacon and bold.
I would like to steal that idea sometime in my life.
The chef that won today
is the one who took the competition to a next level.
Chef Buddha, thank you.
Congratulations, Buddha, you have immunity
in the next Elimination Challenge.
- How does it feel? - Another one of those moments,
I've never got to meet him.
He's the myth, the legend and just
to even win an immunity is an icing on top.
I'm so proud of you.
Chefs, why don't you join
your colleagues over here?
SARA: Good job, buddy.
Gaggan has something in store for your next challenge.
♪
[Buddha laughs]
It's a doppelganger.
Interesting.
Chefs, please, remove your cloches.
Oh, wow.
PADMA: One of the dishes that Gaggan has
on his 25-course menu is rainbow world.
You taste it?
GAGGAN: In COVID times,
there was a lot of hate on social media.
And I felt I would spread a message of love on this plate.
Especially to the LBGT community,
as a rainbow.
Wherever they are from this planet,
they are born to love each other.
GABRI: This is really beautiful.
Not only one of the greatest chefs is here,
trying my food.
Also, I'm gonna try his food. This is amazing.
The idea, please, understand, is not to use your hands to eat.
- [chuckles] - You gotta lick my plate.
- CHARBEL: Oh, no. - GAGGAN: Use your tongue.
Licking plate is nothing new to me.
I want to do this real quick, guys.
- I'm sorry. - [all laughing]
NICOLE: Okay.
GAGGAN: There's a paste here with jasmine cream,
and on top, flowers and fruits from around the world
that were edible to create the rainbow.
It takes days of drying, so it's a very complicated dish.
It's very good.
DALE: I think the concept is interesting,
and I'm obviously tasting and enjoying it and the experience,
but there is definitely some chefs
that are just lappin' it up.
Aww, I love the dish. It's so iconically Gaggan.
This is like the Willy Wonka scene
where every single time you lick the different color,
it was a different flavor.
Blueberry, hibiscus, tropical flavors.
Cranberry? It's in your beard.
You couldn't taste that, it's not like a gimmick.
PADMA: For your Elimination Challenge,
we want you to create a dish that sends a message,
is visually stunning,
and can be eaten without utensils.
Try to represent your emotions.
What you want to present yourself as.
Your beliefs.
ALI: I'm excited for the challenge,
because if you come to my restaurant, Ali,
you would walk just inside
and you will see, like, a very big hashtag
that says "I have a story to tell,"
because I do believe that chefs are storytellers.
I'm so excited to see what you come up with.
PADMA: All right, chefs, good luck.
- We'll see you tomorrow. - CHEFS: Thank you.
♪
All right.
Let's go.
BUDDHA: I'm gonna go all out for this one again.
This is your sh--.
And what I get frustrated about
is that I get put in this sort of category of people like,
"Oh, you're a tweezer chef,
or you're, you know, molecular."
Yeah, but as long as it tastes good,
it doesn't really matter.
NICOLE: I thought it was pretty cool,
what chef Gaggan did today.
DALE: And he was very interesting,
but that dish probably took three days to pull together.
I'm not gonna have, like, powders and gelees and foams.
Like, that's just not my style.
I think it's maybe a mistake
to jump on that just because, you know?
SARA: Yeah. What's your dish, Dale?
I never really thought much of Mexican food,
and then the first time I had a mole,
I felt like a complete fool, basically.
It, like, literally blew my mind.
It's way beyond most French sauces or anything like that.
My message is, "Never judge food,
until you really, really taste the authentic version."
So, I'm doing mole.
The time, it's a little bit tight to make a mole,
especially considering this isn't something
that I do every day.
Gonna see if I can pull it out,
or if they're gonna be like,
"This is a----ing Canadian mole."
Put some maple in it?
CHEF: Hey, guys.
Hey, do you have baby back rib?
- Can I have two of them? - ALI: All right, buddy.
Since you got immunity, the beers is on you.
- BUDDHA: Gettin' the beers. - ALI: Yes.
AMAR: Let me get, like, 200 grams, those prawns,
and also let me get a tail, too.
My approach is to think of the message first.
I like to travel a lot, because through food,
you get to know all the people's culture.
I once travelled to Thailand,
fell in love with Thai papaya salad.
Oh, Thai basil! Perfecto.
But now, I need to reinvent papaya salad
and present it to Gaggan,
who's happened to have his restaurant in Thailand.
That's risky. This is my lucky day, woo-hoo!
- Anyone seen corn? - MAN: What about frozen corn?
Yeah, if you have frozen corn, I'll take a look.
GABRI: I'm gonna make a taco.
- You know, the-- - [Amar laughs]
- That's what I'm talking about. - GABRI: Yes.
The most popular taco of Mexico, the al pastor taco.
Instead of use pork, I'm gonna use fish
to create a more delicate dish.
I'll be back for the sea bass. Thank you.
TOM G: Hi, Buddha. How are you doing?
BUDDHA: Yeah, medium to well, thank you.
TOM: Medium to well, too, thank you very much.
- Bye-bye. - BUDDHA: Bye-bye.
NICOLE: Ten minutes, you guys!
Charbel, what you looking for?
Phyllo dough!
This challenge speak to me.
My dishes, mixed between
old school Lebanese food and modern cuisine.
EMPLOYEE: In the spice aisle.
CHARBEL: Right now, Lebanese people
are going through hard time.
Not too long ago, we had this explosion.
The whole city got damaged,
and then they are suffering to get bread and electricity,
but Lebanon is kind of forgotten,
so I cannot forget where I came from.
Thank you, ma'am.
- I think I'm done. - Okay.
SARA: That's it.
AMAR: All right, guys, let's make some fancy stuff.
AMAR: We got new blender, boys.
Sh--.
Nicole, what you making with this chicken?
I'm gonna eat it. [laughs]
The message aspect really hits home for me,
because I automatically start thinking
about where I am in my life right now.
Actually, this dish is based on three generations of my family.
In Chinese culture, the number three
is a very good luck number,
and I'm about to endeavor
on a third generation of our family.
I'm adopting a child from Vietnam.
I'm really close with my mom.
I'm business partners with my sister,
so, family is really my message right now.
So, I'm gonna make two pancakes and chicken.
A jianbing pancake, a green onion pancake
that my grandma used to teach me,
and the sesame chicken that I love.
What about utensil-wise, Nicole?
It's a rollup, man! It's a Chinese burrito.
I always thought that you need to travel a lot
to see the best food,
but then I realized you really need to learn first
to understand your own produce from home.
I'm making a pumpkin. It's a vegetarian dish.
There is this one specific dish on the menu of the ship,
which you eat with your hands.
It's pumpkin and carrots,
which gonna look like a little pumpkin in the end, hopefully.
The dish will be two different mousses,
and to eat a mousse without utensils
will be not a big deal if the mousse is stable enough.
It's a very nice dish. Could be a winner.
- BUDDHA: One hour! - Wait!
ALI: I'm doing a vegetarian kubbeh.
...in the Middle East, it's eaten with meat,
so, I'm gonna be doing a vegetarian option from it,
mushroom is a great substitute for meat.
I have been fortunate enough to advocate
for the United Nation for the past three, four years.
Food waste and the waste from animals are very dangerous,
and that's affecting our climate.
DALE: It's pretty common in Jordan
to eat stuff with your hands, isn't it?
In my country, normally, we have couple of items
that we eat with our hands.
Until that, the flavors of food comes for your hands.
Agreed, yeah.
- NICOLE: Let me guess. - CHARBEL: What?
You're doing something with za'atar.
CHARBEL: You guessed it right.
My dish, it's inspires from za'atar man'ouche,
and kinda looks like Lebanese flag.
I'm going to make, like, a crispy phyllo,
za'atar on the side, and they can eat it with it.
Love it.
♪
Gaggan's one of those people
that will go down in our lifetimes
as one of the greatest chefs in history, really.
- Yeah, I would agree on that. - Even though I've got immunity,
I still want to impress one of the greatest judges.
I brought probably $1000 worth of molds.
This hand mold seems perfect for this challenge.
I filled it up with a setting agent called agar agar.
The hand's gonna hold the cheese dip
with Brillat-Savarin, shallot crumble,
just trying to make the cheese shine.
Flavor is number one here,
even though it's a visually stunning dish
and you have to eat with your hands.
Gonna be more like a little take on chips and dip.
This pineapple, I'm going to marinate it
with African chili.
I'm celebrating African gastronomy,
so I want to make akara.
It's, um, famous street food in my Congo.
If you want to discover African culture by the gastronomy,
you should eat with your fingers.
TOM G: Thirty minutes, everybody!
VICTOIRE: Gabri, what is your message?
My message is celebrating sustainable agriculture
and organic corn.
96% of the corn
that is produced and consumed in the world
is organic.
I'd rather use, you know,
organic and Creole corn.
My uncle grows Creole and organic corn.
The corn... corn... corn.
Transgenic corn doesn't work. It's not nutritious.
VICTOIRE: Shut up! My God!
- [Gabri laughs] - I love you, you know.
DALE: Ten minutes, 30 seconds left!
I prefer to eat with my fingers,
so, I think this is a really nice challenge.
Honestly, that's how I enjoy eating food.
Like, it's totally a thing we do in our family.
SARA: Doin' pecan pie pork.
Visually stunning is what it's supposed to be,
so I'm gonna give them something that looks one way,
but completely tastes another.
Seafood sausage. Thai flavors.
Is it like a pickup, or how is it, uh--
AMAR: It's gonna be a pickup, yeah.
I want it to start on one end,
take the seafood sausage, run it over on the plate...
- Yeah. - ...just have one perfect bite.
Four minutes and 20 second, guys!
I'm rolling up my ginger mousse with the pumpkin inside.
I'm gonna freeze it overnight.
If I don't make it today,
there's no way I can freeze the mousse tomorrow on time,
because the kappa glaze needs
to come around the mousse when it's frozen.
The mousse is very soft, you put a kappa around it.
And a kappa will make sure the mousse will stable
just as long, until you eat it.
DALE: This is only the fifth time I've made mole.
It's mole number five!
So, I'm not entirely sure, you know?
SARA: Dale is making mole.
Gabri's already been on the top with a mole.
DALE: Want to taste this?
SARA: It does taste pretty good,
but I think he's taking a big risk.
It's a mole.
AMAR: One hour and 30 minutes went super fast, huh?
DALE: Yeah, it did.
♪
- [calling tone ringing] - CHARBEL'S DAD: Hi.
CHARBEL: What's up, Dad?
My mom, my dad, my sibling
are the most important people to me.
- How's my mom? - Good.
It's been-- actually, here, it's 105 degrees,
- I think, now. - Damn.
My brother and I moved to California
when I was 20, and I didn't speak any English.
First six months in LA, me and my brother
used to live in a warehouse,
sleeping on the mattress on the floor.
- I miss you guys. - Almost there!
Yep. Almost there.
I'm very grateful about those days,
because now, it make me appreciate what I have.
We'll kick some ass, don't worry.
[laughing] We are confident in you.
I'm not doing this for only me,
I'm doing this for them, too.
It made me push harder.
CHARBEL'S BROTHER: Love you, bro.
♪
NICOLE: Another day, another dollar.
AMAR: This is a Buddha and Tom winning challenge.
This is what they love to do.
[upbeat instrumental playing]
ALI: I'm a bit stressed.
...I need to stuff my dough...
AMAR: Nice.
The dish needs to be visually stunning,
it needs to be eaten with your hand,
and it needs to have a message behind it.
I have already been in the bottom in the Quickfire,
and I don't want to go home from this challenge.
Time in Top Chef kitchen does not go normally.
It goes so fast.
Where's that little-- how does this work?
Ali, how does this work?
Maybe I should plug it in, right?
[Amar laughs]
Today, I'm gonna make my herb powder,
wrap my seafood sausage.
My take on this dish is to basically deconstruct
all the ingredients you put in papaya salad,
by making an assortment of purées and jellies.
Two gelées, like, four purées.
I have something in my mind that I wanna do,
but sometimes, it's very difficult to translate
that message on a plate,
Go big or go home, right?
I guess, out of everybody, we're the only two
that have been through Last Chance Kitchen.
- Oh, yeah? Is that it? - I won my season.
♪
TOM: Gabri, how is that?
- Are you nervous? - I'm happy.
All the Mexican food, it's eaten with their hands,
that's easy.
More water from this one.
The hard part is, in this, to be a stunning dish,
so it's going to be a multicolored tortilla
to represent all transgenic corn that is consumed and produced
around the world.
Beautiful.
♪
What do you have to do today? What's on your list?
I gotta make all the pancakes, fry the green onion,
julienne like, garnishes,
so, actually, quite a bit.
How did that turn out?
At this point, everything looks really good.
...so I'm quite excited.
You try a bite? Open your mouth.
- It's hot, it's hot. - I don't care.
- Mmm. - That's my utensil,
they just like, pick it up by the rib.
Hey, I don't need a utensil when it tastes that good.
- One hour, Ali! - Yes, boss.
I want to have, like,
a visually forest-looking dish.
- Amar? What do you think? - Huh?
That looks good. That looks like nature.
- ALI: Yeah? - AMAR: Yeah, yeah.
Don't say anything,
but he took a bunch of fake plants
from the stew room to plate his dish. [laughs]
♪
Usually, to make a cannoli,
you should use a normal flour,
but I just make it with cassava.
I cook sweet potato, papa potato, the white potato.
Africa, it's the continent of roots.
AMAR: Fifteen minutes, guys!
Think in three. Three and three and threes.
I gotta get this pineapple going,
test out my chicken, make sure my mole's all good.
And then start constructing things.
I'm not cooking my chicken thighs in the mole.
This way, you can take that chicken,
wipe it through the mole,
the corn crossed with the cilantro,
and pop in your mouth.
It's nice and juicy.
I'm thinking, "Did I make the right choice?"
And I don't know. I don't know.
[tense instrumental playing]
- Ten minutes, Ali. - Yup.
How's it going over there, Buddha?
Medium to well-made.
SARA: Yes, let's go. Come on.
[tense instrumental playing]
- Hi. - PADMA: Hi chefs, hi!
Hi chefs! Welcome.
- Hello. - Hello. How's it going?
Focus, don't see the judge,
but be ready,
make right your dish.
GAIL: I always like eating in this kitchen.
I just like seeing them when they're cooking.
- GAIL: Me too. - So weird having a table
in the kitchen, just freaking out,
and keeping my composure.
TOM G: Pulled my mousse out, and the mousse is frozen.
Looks good to me. Careful.
I have a very tight time schedule in my head,
and it needs to defrost at least 30 minutes
to be in the perfect consistency.
So, I take these beautiful little boxes.
You open the box, you take the pumpkin,
and you just eat it...
AMAR: I'm gonna dream about dots tonight.
Almost 500 dots, and I'm still dotting,
dot, dot, dot, dot.
This is not me. I don't like this sh--. [laughs]
[tense instrumental playing]
[timer ringing]
♪
PADMA: So we're gonna eat
- two dishes at a time. - This is Amar's.
- ALI: Hi, Chef. - Oh, this is yours, Ali.
- ALI: Yeah. - Ali, tell us about your dish.
Today, I have prepared something vegan.
Kubbeh is a traditional dish in Middle East,
and normally, it's eaten with lamb.
But nowadays, the overproduction of livestock
is harming our climate.
Basically, the water, that's the melting iceberg
of the Northern Pole. I have chosen mushrooms,
because mushroom is the best substitute for meat.
- TOM C: Nice. - Thank you.
PADMA: Amar.
- Wow! - Travel is the best way
to get to know other people's culture.
So what I did was a seafood sausage
wrapped in green papaya, and then I did all the flavors
you got in papaya salad, so you got peanut purée,
tomato purée, fish sauce, lime juice.
Grab it in one end, kind of slide that,
- get a little bit of-- - PADMA: Like that?
- PADMA: Very flavorful. - TOM C: Yeah.
- Thank you very much. - GAIL: Thank you.
- I'm all in. - Yeah.
- Both did a spectacular job. - Both are really good.
So far what I like about what I'm seeing,
is that doing a challenge like this,
it gives the chefs really creative license
- just to go for it. - Yes.
I imagine if Amar's creating dishes in his restaurant,
he'd never do anything that looked like this.
He should do this at his restaurant.
These are both very, very good dishes.
I lived in Thailand for 15 years,
- this is a great Thai dish. - The thing that I like more
than eating with my hands is licking my fingers.
Yeah. Can't stop. Won't stop.
AMAR: Look, they're still licking my plate, bro.
Yeah, it's really tasty. It's really tasty.
I loved how Ali differed in his culture
where meat is essential.
- Yeah. - And for him to come out
and say that meat is not important,
and to be vegan, I think that's a very bold--
- Absolutely. - PADMA: It is.
From where he comes, his culture.
The second thing that I felt,
was this was more edible by hands.
I agree, I love that he actually talked about his culture,
and it gave us everything flavor-wise
that his culture can be associated with.
Very tasty. Really creative.
I mean, where do you go from here?
I hope we go up!
[tense instrumental playing]
- TOM G: You good? - BUDDHA: Yeah, I'm good.
So take your time, Mr. Immunity.
[timer ringing]
This is quite tricky to open.
Buddha, tell us what your message is,
- and what you made. - This is called,
"From the Hands of Mother Nature,"
so you're gonna be taking vegetables to dip
in a caramelized onion and black garlic purée
with a brillat-savarin, and on top we have a shallot
and bread crumble with pickled vegetables.
Did you just happened to bring the hand mold?
Yeah, it was, like, the perfect--
- Moment. - BUDDHA: Yeah.
- GAIL: Tom? - The name of the dish
is "The Mentor, the Pumpkin."
It's a very light ginger and turmeric mousse.
Inside is a pumpkin and carrot chutney.
- You want us to pick it up? - TOM: Yeah. With your hands.
There's a lot of different flavors on the bottom.
- GAGGAN: Mmm. - When you eat it,
your fingers should go different layers of mousse.
So, your intention is to have a dirty hand?
Yeah. You should. I mean...
PADMA: Very interesting.
- [Tom chuckles] - Thank you, chefs.
- Thank you. - PADMA: What did you think
of the pumpkin dish from Tom?
Flavor-wise, I think it's really interesting.
Each layer, you get a hit of ginger, and then,
you get a hit of fruit, only problem I have
is the mousse is not made well, it's broken.
And the gel at the bottom was falling apart.
I loved the way he presented the dish,
but Tom should have a base or something to hold it.
- Mmm. - TOM G: Do you like it? Tasty.
What did you think about Buddha's?
I like he used leaves to eat, which is great idea
to dig into our sauce.
The black garlic, and the onions,
and the little pickled mushrooms,
like, it all was quite subdued, but very elegant.
I enjoyed Buddha's dish, I liked his story,
but he talks about Mother Nature's bounty.
If you're gonna go in that direction,
I wanna see more radishes, I wanna see more vegetables,
more bounty there.
♪
CHARBEL: I'm honestly, very nervous,
making this za'atar phyllo.
I gonna cut it and bake it.
If I don't do this correctly,
it won't be solid, it can mess up the whole dish,
and I don't wanna go home.
SARA: Dale, three and a half minutes.
- DALE: Wait. - The rib is phenomenal.
I think my plated food is beautiful.
Lots of little pretty flowers, not my traditional style,
but I like how it looks.
- Looks good, Dale. - Thank you.
- [timer ringing] - Looks great. Beautiful.
♪
- GAIL: It's nice. - Let's start with you, Sara.
I have the fried rib.
I made you pecan pork with cocoa'd buttermilk.
All of these things are really slow-cooked processes.
This is a message, just like, "Slow down,
enjoy all the sweet things in life."
I'm pickin' up what you're puttin' down.
- It's so delicious. - Thank you.
You could make a fast food chain out of it.
- Dale? - I never really knew much
about Mexican food, and then when I tasted
my first mole, I felt so ignorant,
so my message is, "Don't be ignorant."
It's a one-biter, if you swipe all the way through,
then you'll get the corn custard,
the mole, pineapple on top of the chicken,
pickled jalapeno, and some nuts right at the end there.
TOM C: What'd you thicken the green sauce with?
- It's just cilantro. - Just cilantro? That's it?
DALE: Yup. Yup. Puréed.
Great. Thank you both so much.
- Thank you. Appreciate it. - Thank you.
SARA: Good job.
Sara sort of blew me away.
She turned our idea of dessert
a little bit upside down.
It was sweet, but I got the cocoa
and the nuttiness of the pecans.
Eating with hands was easy.
The rib was falling apart,
and yet, holding the bone.
I like the sauce, I like everything.
I'm loving this buttermilk.
- GAIL: Yeah. - TOM C: It's so good.
I mean, I gave him a deep-fried rib, so...
It was a delicious deep-fried rib, though.
Dale's chicken had a weird,
flabby, like, floppy texture.
It needed some salt as well.
What I find interesting about the dish,
I think the mole was the best part of the dish.
The pineapple, the jalapeno, and then the mole,
those flavors, I thought, were really beautiful.
Just chicken as the vehicle fell short for sure.
Yeah.
I'm pretty happy with it,
but you never really know, and-- yeah.
♪
Ah, okay.
I'm plating cannoli
with the pressed purée of papa potato,
or a sweet potato, and I'm saying, yes...
GABRI: I just need to check out the details.
[timer ringing]
♪
- PADMA: Gabri? - I made the most famous taco
from Tlaxcala, Mexico,
taco al pastor, but instead of pork,
I used fish to make it more elevated.
My message is about the corn.
In Mexico, we have a lot of varieties of corn.
Sadly, it is getting lost, that's why the tortilla
- has those colors. - PADMA: So, to make a taco,
- that's what you want us to do? - Yes, exactly. Mm-hmm.
Mmm!
- PADMA: Victoire. - I made akara roots,
so, I make cannoli with the cassava.
I use five different textures of the roots.
We have a great and amazing continent
with an amazing gastronomy, and by this food,
we can change our continent.
When this dish is eaten, normally,
is it sweet or savory?
It's both. In Ghana, savory. In Congo, it's sweet.
GAGGAN: I love your message. Heartwarming, yeah?
That Africa should not just be a safari land,
but rather, we take it seriously with food.
- Thank you. - Thank you, Chef.
Thank you both.
GAIL: Interesting, both of them, I have to say.
GABRI: Well, it's done.
GAIL: What did you think of Gabri's?
For me, it was a fantastic dish,
and the storytelling, I think it met all the points,
and eating with hands from the plate.
I licked it up.
- Absolutely. - TOM C: It's good.
- I liked it! - Turning a taco on its head
is really delicious.
This is an otherworldly, world cook.
Wow. Good.
It works, it tells a great story.
The dish itself wasn't, I think, the most successful.
- Absolutely. - I thought the cream inside
- was just really bland. - Mm-hmm.
I liked the humbleness of it, her message was strong,
but I think her message was not strong enough
in terms of ingredients from Africa.
- Mm-hmm. - It needed a little more sugar,
and a little more salt, both, if she wanted to toe that line
between the two versions that she grew up with.
Everything got a little muddled and lost.
Well...
GABRI: Well, Victoire, how do you feel?
I never know.
For my tongue it's my tongue,
for the judges, is-- their job.
♪
CHARBEL: Nicole, how are you looking?
Hyper-focused. My hands are numb.
I'm feeling okay about this dish.
I keep thinking about my mom,
she's overcome cancer three times.
She's still living with it.
This is emotional. And personal.
- It is what it is. - [timer ringing]
- CHARBEL: Hello. - Hi.
PADMA: Really beautiful food today.
- TOM C: Yeah. - Nicole, tell us
what your message is,
and how that's illustrated on your plate.
- It's called "Three." - PADMA: Three.
It's in regard to three generations.
My mom, she's a single mother of three,
and I'm about to embark on adoption.
There's a child in Vietnam right now
- waiting for me. - Congratulations.
Thank you.
The food is actually in three ways.
A crêpe on the outside, green onion pancake and chicken.
- It's playful, fun. - GAIL: Easy to eat, too.
- Yeah. - Hey, Charbel.
So, I made here a Lebanese flag,
because I want to use this platform
to send a message to the whole world,
because right now, in the history of Lebanon,
this is the worst time the Lebanese people go through.
I wanted to use flavors
inspired from za'atar man'ouche.
This sauce inside, please pour it all over it.
The phyllo, I made it look like a tree,
because on our flag, it's a tree.
So use this phyllo, please, and scrub the whole plate.
I only wish there were two trees on your flag, not one.
[laughing]
- PADMA: Thank you both. - Thanks.
Good job, Nicole.
What did you think about Nicole's roll?
You could taste everything in there.
All those flavors that she talked about
they were there, that said, the dish ate pretty dry.
I felt like the core part is tasty,
and as you go out, it becomes dry.
But it was probably the easiest to eat
out of all the dishes that we had tonight.
- And I loved her story. - TOM C: Yeah.
It's funny how we-- food, we all share it.
- CHARBEL: Yeah. - And there's chicken skin.
- [chuckling] - Mmm.
I love the flavors in Charbel's dish.
Basically, we're just eating sauce with a cracker,
but it packed so much flavor.
- It was really delicious. - GAGGAN: Yeah, delicious.
I like the way he presented the dish.
- His storytelling. - When you do
high-concept food like this,
usually, this is a process.
Being able to produce at this level?
This is exceptional.
This is collectively the best food we've had all season.
Yeah, they were excited you were here!
This challenge allowed them to give us
such a broad variety of dishes.
- AMAR: What a day. - SARA: All right.
TOM G: Did you feel like they understood your message?
ALI: Yeah, I think they did, my message was very sensitive,
it was about climate change.
[all laughing]
SARA: Did anybody get much feedback from the judges?
Padma didn't say much, but she was like,
licking the plate, so I don't know.
If you watch the judges trying to get some feedback,
- it's almost worse, because... - Yes.
...Tom especially, doesn't give anything,
and so then it kind of spins you up.
♪
[tense instrumental playing]
- We ate really well today. - Yeah! We did.
I really believe that this is where
the competition just got really, really serious,
so thank you.
There were three chefs that stood out to us.
Charbel.
Ali.
And Amar.
[Amar laughing]
Everyone else, step to the side, please.
The Middle East boys are kicking some ass.
Congrats.
You guys were very conveniently lined up there.
The brothers.
There were a lot of beautiful dishes today,
it was really hard to choose just three.
Amar, all of those flavors from Thailand
really came to life,
and I just enjoyed the experience so much.
The best way to know a culture and meet new people
- is through their food. - What I loved about is,
you're looking at a presentation completely different
than anything we've ever seen from you.
You never forgot the food needed to taste great.
- It was all there. - Your roulade
was good enough to win it,
it was great, I mean, like, amazing.
Ali, loved the message.
You don't need meat with every single meal,
and I say that as an owner of a steakhouse.
And I serve a lot of meat, but it's a really great message.
- Love the dish. - Thank you, Chef.
It had all of that aromatic flavor,
the crunch, and then the inside was soft
and warm and savory.
It was very simple, yet, very meaningful.
Thank you, Chef.
Charbel, a call to action
is exactly what I felt
like you gave us on the plate.
Every time you swiped through it,
you tasted something different,
and it was all alive and vibrant,
and I'm sure that's also how you want
your country to be known as.
You've been bold enough to put your flag there,
and saying that "I'm from Lebanon,"
- was great. - Thank you.
This dish, it was so personal for me
to impress you guys, that means a lot for me.
The winner of this Elimination Challenge
took the message, made it beautiful,
eaten by hands, and delivered
an absolutely tasty dish.
♪
- Chef Ali. - Yes!
I'm proud, hey. [laughs]
You deserve it.
Being in the bottom yesterday,
and winning today.
What a comeback, baby! Whoo!
- Congratulations, Ali. - Thank you so much.
This is my third win, but this is a marathon.
I want to win in the finale.
And that's what's important for me.
Next, we'd like to see...
[tense instrumental playing]
Dale, Victoire and Tom.
♪
Dale, Victoire and Tom,
the three of you had our least favorite dishes
in a day where we had ten extraordinary dishes.
How did the day go for you, Dale?
It really was a revelation for me.
That was, I think, the fifth time I've made a mole.
Making a mole is gotta be one of the most intense
and interesting sauces in the world,
and of any cuisine that I know of.
No, I thought the mole was actually okay.
I had a bigger problem
with the chicken, it had very little flavor,
and one thing had nothing to do with the other.
Chicken had nothing to do with the mole.
Mole had nothing to do with the chicken.
So, Dale, if you could not cook
the mole we wanted or the chicken,
it's one more step closer to make it perfect mole,
and a perfect chicken, ever, in your life.
Look at Ali, yesterday, he didn't do well,
and today, he just came out to be a winner.
And that is what competition is.
Victoire? I love your socks.
[laughs] I can't stop watching the socks.
I like socks, and I loved the story you said.
what you wanted to sell was really heartful to you.
But I did not feel any seasoning in it.
What is the dish? You referenced a street food.
How did you cook these potatoes in this dish?
- I boil it with a skin. - So when you boil it,
you're losing the flavor, and the starch.
I'm hearing you talking
about the dish and you fry them,
and this is not fried.
I think we just ended up with a dish
that was on the bland side,
and I don't think that's what the food's about.
I'm sorry.
Tom, how did the day go for you?
My days were amazing, I was really happy to make that dish.
It's a bit more of my culinary style.
For me, the dish was really beautiful,
but my challenge was to eat with hands,
and it failed in that aspect.
The flavors in your dish, Tom,
were delicious, that's not why you're here.
It was a technical issue.
If the mousse set
and we were able to pick it up,
you would have won this thing.
Oh, wow.
We'll call you back in a minute.
You can exit the kitchen.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
- GABRI: In your pocket. - TOM G: Thank you.
Thanks, everybody. Really good job.
- Habibi! [laughing] - Thank you.
AMAR: I want to be like Ali when I grow up.
Like, this was literally for me, this challenge.
I said it, this is you and Buddha's challenge.
[bleep] my life, I'm so upset.
Yeah, it's tough trying to do things
I haven't necessarily had nearly a good enough handle on.
It's already been a pretty emotional ride.
Dale's chicken, the texture was weird
and also, there was no seasoning.
- Never mind spices. - TOM C: No.
I think Dale gave us a dish
that the chicken was bland,
and the mole clearly didn't have the depth
that we've had before when it comes to moles.
I think it was the mildest Mexican dish
I've had in my life.
GAIL: He was trying something that was really new to him.
Victoire's dish was just a--
I don't know what it was.
Little pile of different potatoes.
For me, the sweet potato had no taste,
because all the water had taken away
all this taste away.
She says that in the real version,
they fry all of these things,
and she fried one component,
but then boiled and mashed others.
If you're gonna make a change,
it needs to be an improvement.
- Yeah. - To hear from the judge,
this could be a winner,
but you still stay on the bottom,
it's like, two punches in the face.
And then, there's Tom.
The mousse gave up halfway.
We couldn't pick the mousse, the mousse had to be,
like, scooped out of it.
It was so delicious, and it was so ambitious.
High, high degree of difficulty.
- It looked beautiful. - GAIL: Yeah.
Very disappointed.
Okay, I think we have our answer.
Let's get them out here.
♪
You know, chefs, we all have our stories to tell.
We tell these stories with food.
And so, one of you will go home tonight,
but it's not the end of your story
by any stretch of the imagination.
♪
Dale.
Please, pack your knives and go.
- Thanks. Appreciate it. - GAIL: Keep fighting.
Least took another shot. You did it before.
I'm so sorry your turn was this short.
DALE: Yeah. Thanks, Chef.
- Nice meeting you. - Thanks.
I'm going home again.
Two-time loser.
[sighs] Thank you all. We'll see you next week.
Feels terrible.
Well, once again, guys, I am goin' home.
- Oh, my God. - Are you serious?
Yeah. Pretty short return.
- NICOLE: Sh--. - It's a very different season,
and I got to do it with some of the best chefs
in the world, so I think you can go home
with your head held high.
Maybe I'll see you guys again!
You were the only person to come back twice!
- NICOLE: You can do it! - So I'm gonna keep fighting
and hopefully, I'll slide my way
into the finale, and ride off with that win.
♪
PADMA: Tonight, Dale returns to Last Chance Kitchen
along with recently eliminated Sylwia.
Can he make it back again, or will Sylwia finally end
his quest for redemption?
Find out now on demand.
Or wherever you stream Top Chef.
PADMA: Next time on Top Chef: World All-Stars.
[engines roaring]
What is this?
Get those knives ready, pop.
You'll compete in three rounds
of the notorious
- Mise En Place race. - Hey, over here.
- Someone's kicking some ass. - That's it.
- [whistle blowing] - Holy sh--.
That's the way I'd do it.
That's not the way I do it.
PADMA: You'll then compete
in the fastest Elimination Challenge
- in Top Chef history. - ALI: Thank you!
TOM C: Now, he's sprinting away.
Wouldn't you be, too?
We thought you'd failed when it came to that.
I do think it was a little boring.
A trio of lamb. Ballsy!
♪