chiaros
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After Wesley True was dismissed from The Spence after just some 3 months or so (during which time he was largely away from the restaurant, because he was competing in Top Chef during when it was being filmed) he took up the EC position at The Optimist after just a few days. This Eater article reported on this issue as follows:
QuoteA tipster in tune with the situation tells Eater Atlanta that True's dismissal from The Spence was related to his potential move to The Optimist. Concentrics Restaurants, parent company of The Spence, responded to that possibility by saying, "We don't want to comment further on a previous employee."
Well, he then fell out with Ford Fry (the owner/restaurateur of the group that owned The Optimist) who, it was said, relieved True of his duties after just over a year. See this article. Quote from there:
Quote“Wesley True has moved on from The Optimist; he is an incredibly talented chef and we wish him well in his future endeavors,” a representative for Ford Fry Restaurants tells Eater Atlanta. Further details surrounding True’s departure were unavailable, but multiple tipsters indicated Fry relieved the chef of his duties.
That same article also contained this:
QuoteTrue first came to Atlanta in March 2015, when he was hired by Concentrics Restaurants to take over the kitchen at The Spence. That gig didn’t list long, and Concentrics “decided to part ways” with the chef the following July. He was officially announced as The Optimist’s replacement for chef Adam Evans a few days later.
A Zagat article dated 11-29-2016 reported that he then headed down to Fort Lauderdale to join Geoffrey Zakarian's new restaurant Point Royal, but a look at the website for this place does not show his name*** as EC or as part of the senior staff...and neither the corresponding FB page nor a recent local write-up of the place from a few days ago mentions True's name. In the meanwhile, Wesley True's own FB page still lists him as EC at The Optimist so it has not been updated. Hmm.
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*** ETA: Either I missed it or they just revised the Point Royal webpage - but today I saw their "Meet our EC" link on their page, which shows True as their EC; with a Concentrics photo of him, heh.
ETA2: In thinking about it again, I have a recollection that when I first looked at the Port Royal website it did NOT have the link to their EC, only the link to Chef Zakarian; which was why I said they did not mention Chef True.
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Concentrics Restaurants (see here too) operated The Spence and apparently enjoyed their relationship with Blais. Quote from the Eater article I posted previously:
Quote"We couldn't be more excited to have Chef True at The Spence," Concentrics founder Bob Amick said in a prepared statement. "His talent, his accolades and his ease with running a restaurant is going to prove to be the perfect match. We are all very excited to enjoy his work. We have enjoyed our long term relationship with Chef Blais and look forward to working with him in the future."
When The Spence closed down it seems Concentrics were made an offer they couldn't refuse so they SOLD it - see here - so it would seem they owned The Spence.
Quote“The Spence proved to be an exciting concept just as we had hoped. We weren’t actively looking for buyers but when we were approached the deal made a lot of sense. We are not at liberty to discuss who the buyers are at this time as it’s still confidential. However, we wish the new owners all the best as we look toward focusing on three new Atlanta concepts (NEXTO and two hotel properties with details to be announced soon) as well as several concepts across the country opening in 2016-2018.”
Blais opened Juniper & Ivy after being wooed by Mike Rosen, both of whom discussed in a Feb 2014 article the whys and wherefores of the place. However, Concentrics Restaurants is also involved in Juniper & Ivy and would seem to also be a "partner", as reported in the same Restaurant Hospitality article I linked to above, in the "Upcoming projects" section:
QuoteUpcoming projects:
Another partnership with Richard Blais, and Michael Rosen of Juniper Hospitality, will bring a yet-to-be-named restaurant to a warehouse outside Little Italy in San Diego later this year....and Juniper & Ivy is certainly currently listed on the Concentrics Restaurant website.
So it would seem that Blais and Concentrics Restaurants have enjoyed good relations for years.
However, Blais' replacement at The Spence, chef Wesley True (see again the Eater article above) ran afoul of Concentrics Restaurants and was dismissed after just a few months - see here. Quote from this link:
Quote“Concentrics has decided to part ways with Chef Wesley True of The Spence. Unfortunately, it was not a great fit and we had to make the hard decision to move forward. We were huge fans and very supportive of Wesley from day one but, unfortunately, we did not get the same in return.”
I wonder if it was Wesley True that was the subject of the "falling out" reports, rather than Blais? One of the "discussion points" was how he was ABSENT from his duties as the new chef at The Spence so as to compete on Top Chef...
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15 minutes ago, pennben said:
I think the overall point was likely "suck it Richard, Stephanie is still winning", but I could be wrong:) As to the specifics of the point, I don't know.
I wasn't asking about the overall state of "competition" between Blais and Izard. I was asking why The Spence was specifically mentioned.
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1 hour ago, AriAu said:
how's The Spence doing Richard?
Richard Blais has not had anything to do with The Spence for two years now. He left completely back in March 2015. And that after having reduced his presence there significantly after having moved full-time to San Diego a couple years before.
http://atlanta.eater.com/2015/3/9/8177251/wesley-true-the-spence-executive-chef-richard-blais
When The Spence closed down in June 2016, Richard Blais had been long gone and had nothing to do with the place for quite a while.
I'm not sure what the point (or insinuation) is of your question......?
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There was a lengthy discussion involving and relating to the closing of Kwame's restaurant (Shaw-Bijou) in another thread starting from this post: http://forums.previously.tv/topic/3438-taste-testing-dining-at-the-restaurants-of-cheftestantsjudges/?do=findComment&comment=2906294
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Nick Elmi is doing well and his food is much liked by his customers and the Philly restaurant critics. I read of no complaints about "underseasoning" for that matter.
Some info and articles, reaching from the present back a couple years:
http://philly.eater.com/2014/11/7/7167997/interview-laurel-restaurant-one-year-in-nicholas-elmi
http://philly.eater.com/2016/6/16/11955008/itv-nick-elmi-wine-bar-restaurant-east-passyunk-philly
http://howtofeedaloon.com/chef-nicholas-elmi-philadelphia/
http://howtofeedaloon.com/laurel-philadelphia/
http://www.phillymag.com/tag/nick-elmi/
http://www.passyunkpost.com/tag/nicholas-elmi/
Lots more out there.
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A Pete Wells article in the NYT on the revival of hotel restaurants in NYC helmed by big-name chefs (like Top Chef associated people – e.g. Tom Colicchio, April Bloomfield, Dale Talde, Jonathan Waxman, and so on).
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/dining/hotels-restaurants-big-name-chefs.html
Wells describes how it is financially attractive to the chefs (VERY!) but also points out that one practical effect in a general sense is to revert the food offered back to decades ago with a far narrower focus:
QuoteThe cuisines that have flourished in the newer hotels are ones that New Yorkers were very familiar with 30 years ago: Italian, French and what used to be called New American. True, we have Indian Accent in Le Parker Meridien, but other large countries — for that matter, entire continents — have been left behind.
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21 hours ago, Peper81 said:
I went a few months ago to Girl & the Goat and it was wonderful and so affordable for the area. I wish I lived closer (I'm not even in the same state) because I would go all.the.time.
G&TG is a very nice place but I hope you would explore the MANY MANY other places in Chicagoland where you can get great food.
Best.
On 3/5/2017 at 8:59 PM, chiaros said:And I haven't even touched on other forms from around Asia (Regional Indian/Pakistani, for example)
As an appetizer to folks curious about this, try starting from this: https://www.google.com/search?q=chicken+65
...as something other than "tandoori chicken"...
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2 hours ago, ProudMary said:
What I loved about this slideshow is that while you linked to the slide that highlighted Richard Blais' Crack Shack on this list of best fried chicken in the US, if you scroll through a few slides, you'll find Little Goat Diner also showing up on the list. Although not mentioned in the caption, that's Stephanie Izard's place! Love that irony. :)
But of course. I expect folks WOULD scroll through the slideshow...and notice Izard's place on the list as well. :-)
I posted the link with Blais' place as the "placeholder" partly because of his, um, unfriendly reception on this board, if not anything else to show that at least some of his food is liked by some folks out there. :-D. (I believe his other restaurants have also been favorably viewed by decent numbers of diners :-) )
In any case I would also note that the article places emphasis on, basically, US-Southern-style fried chicken and derivatives and variations thereof, including chicken & waffles. IIRC there was one example given of KFC (no, not that one - here, KFC = Korean Fried Chicken), in Chicago; as well as David Chang's "Korean-influenced-style" chicken as half of what needs to be specially-ordered. But there are other highly regarded KFC places too, as a style of "fried chicken", in other places - including in NYC. Here's an old article on KFC, with emphasis on NYC places. There is one place on that F&W list with curry-inflected fried chicken, but non-"standard-'Murcan" ways with fried chicken are not the premise of the article by-and-large.
Still, it's useful to keep in mind other forms of fried chicken. Like Vietnamese-style fried chicken. Or fried whole chicken, Cantonese-style. Or Ayam Ungkep/Ayam Goreng Jawa. Or Nyonya-style Inchi Kabin. And so on and so forth. And I haven't even touched on other forms from around Asia (Regional Indian/Pakistani, for example) and the rest of the world. Here in the US this article by Jonathan Gold might also be of interest to food aficionados in the LA area... http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-fo-jonathan-gold-asian-fried-chicken-20160629-snap-story.html
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1 hour ago, dleighg said:
I have *so missed* ICA since it disappeared a couple of years ago. Totally psyched! Are all of the challengers TC alum? I don't recognize Shota and Jonathon and Jason (I recognize Nyesha but not sure she was ever on TC; I know her certainly from some other things)
ETA Michael Gulotta from NO is not who I thought he was, either :)
No, just three are Top Chef alums – Nyesha Arrington (Season 9; TC Texas), Sarah Grueneberg (Season 9; TC Texas) and Stephanie Izard (Season 4; TC Chicago).
Here's a list of all Top Chef contestants through Season 12: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Top_Chef_contestants
Season 13 contestants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Chef_(season_13)#Contestants
Season 14 contestants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Chef_(season_14)#Contestants
I myself have not been *that* keen on ICA. I much preferred the original IC Japan. Bobby Flay, in particular, was such an a**hole in the beginning of ICA although he became less so with time. IMO Morimoto really underpinned ICA†† and Symon was also a worthy later addition to the roster,†† again IMO, although many folks hated him.
†† Although the stats show that Morimoto lost quite a number of contests but IMO was nevertheless still the person who underpinned the sensibilities of the show. Symon was the best-performing ICA. See here. Wolfgang Puck doesn't count - he was a flash in the pan, there for just 1 episode in the very beginning and then he bailed out.
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A few Top Chef alums have been announced to be part of the new Iron Chef America – Top Chef mashup.
http://www.eater.com/2017/3/2/14791028/iron-chef-america-returns-gauntlet
Chefs competing to face the ICs:
• Nyesha Arrington, Los Angeles
• Jason Dady, of Tre Trattoria in San Antonio
• Sarah Grueneberg, of Monteverde in Chicago
• Michael Gulotta, of MOFO in New Orleans
• Stephanie Izard, of Girl & the Goat in Chicago
• Shota Nakajima, of Adana in Seattle
• Jonathon Sawyer, of the Greenhouse Tavern in ClevelandThe "returning" ICs will be:
Masaharu Morimoto, Michael Symon, and Bobby Flay.
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50 minutes ago, Village said:
I must say I loathe Tom. Maybe it's just my personal bias but I can always tell who's going to go home based on his reactions and it always seems like who he wants to win is the the person that becomes Top Chef. Just call this show Tom's Chef and call it a day.
35 minutes ago, lololol said:I CAN'T stand Tom. He's a pompous a hole. I agree that who he wants to win ALWAYS does. Since I'm sure he's such a fan of Brooke, I'm sure she'll be TC. She doesn't deserve it. She has a WAY too high opinion of herself. She's NOT creative. I REALLY hope she loses. I also dislike Padma. She's WAY too full of herself.
I've mentioned before here that this show ought to be called "Who Wants to Cook for Tom Colicchio & Friends". ;-) And that's what it amounts to, really.
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4 hours ago, RealReality said:
While 9 is more, i wouldn't say it was "only 5" that Kristen had to win. How many did Brooke have to win? At most 2. 5 is double that number + 1.
Well, FWIW Jason Stratton (Season 13) also won 5 challenges before losing out to Amar Santana & Carl Dooley.
I don't doubt that Brooke W waltzed through LCK - two challenges, in which it is not clear she won both times. For that matter, Amar Santana also did the same two-challenge thing without necessarily winning both challenges.** The point was that it wasn't something that Kristen Kish did that was so, so utterly remarkable and mindblowing.
** ETA: He also demonstrated that Tom C needs a lot of salt - when he tossed an extra dose of salt onto his dish (while saying to Carl D - "Watch this") AFTER they had both plated their dishes --- and Tom C then blathered on about how a bit more salt made Amar's dish the winner. (Carl, on tasting Amar's dish, said "Wow, salty" IIRC)
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^^^What dleighg said.
Additionally, with regards to:
4 hours ago, RealReality said:Kristen was the first person to do LCK, IIRC so it feels like there was much less of an ability to use it as a tool. She was also booted about mid game right, because she was kicked out during RW. So she had to beat a lot of people to come back into the competition. That means she had to come up with dishes that could beat progressively better competitors.
Kristen Kish (Season 10) only had to win 5 challenges in LCK to get back in. Louis Maldonado (Season 11) won EIGHT challenges in a row in LCK to get back in. For comparison's sake, Beverly Kim (Season 9) won 3 challenges to get back in, not shabby at all.
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17 minutes ago, MajorWoody said:
When Kristin got bounced, and sent to LCK, it was pretty much accepted that she went because of her teamates failures, not her own. She had been consistently the best chef all season, and even had a great dish in tha episode, but she was the team leader and got blamed for her teamates failure. It was very shocking when she left. Also, if I recall, that might have been the first season to use LCK, and when she did come back, she won based on her exceptional talent.
Incorrect, about the provenance of LCK. Also, Kristen Kish was NOT the best performing person in LCK, even if she got sent there because of that other b**ch.
See here.
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45 minutes ago, Canada said:
Oh, what a surprise, Brooke won something again. Just one more step on the road to a Brooke season win, which most of us have seen from the start.
I'm not bothering to watch Brooke win next week. This really has been the worst season of Top Chef that I've seen. I've been dumping a lot of shows lately, because of how boring and predictable they've become, and Top Chef is likely next on my dump list.
It doesn't really matter if Shirley wins instead, IMO. Neither of them excite me at all as a "Top Chef" and either of them will have an asterisk besides their name. And, yes, Top Chef the Reality TeeVee show has jumped the shark in various ways.
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28 minutes ago, Blonde Gator said:On 2/21/2017 at 1:50 PM, spiderpig said:
Anybody know what the vetting process is for host cities? They must be running out of locations with a distinct regional cuisine/style that the show could market.
I saw on the TC website a few weeks ago (2?) they had the audition sites picked, and were going to be doing them at previous TC cheftestants' restaurants in select citys. Toups' Meatery in NO was one of them. Sorry, I can't seem to find it right now, but it wasn't too long ago.
http://www.bravotv.com/topchefcasting
John Tesar's "Knife" will be one of the hosting restaurants.
He is a worthy chef and a noteworthy part of the dining scene in the USA. And, as he has said, he cooks - as opposed to kissing babies.
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This would have been a great finale for TC S14:
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13 hours ago, weightyghost said:
The one thing that has always bugged me about this show is that the protein outweighs everything. Sheldon had flavour, good sides, good heat, met the challenge but messed up the fish. Brooke cooked her fish right, but had no flavour, bland sides, nothing of the culture. And yet he goes home? Sure. I dont see how that works, if I go out to dinner and the chef screwed up 80% of my plate but my meat happened to taste good, why would I reward that?
Yes. IMO too the wrong chef went home. I would also note that the guest judge stated that Sheldon met the challenge. (I would note that some other folks here are especially keen on this aspect as a judgement parameter for cheftestants ;-) other than Brooke W (so it seems) who has violated that numerous times) FWIW Padma L also stated she favored Sheldon. But Tom C, when he is able to as Head Judge (unless he is clearly outvoted), sways the decision as has been observed many times over the course of Top Chef. Personally, I also don't think much of that person with those ridiculous white-frame glasses. YMMV.
I also wonder if Sheldon could have used something - ok, like one of his big knives (sacrifice the edge for this) to "slice"/"strip" the fish off the grill by pushing the knife at a suitable angle under the fish? THEN do something about either grilling the other side or using what you had of the "lower" side of the fish. Leaving the carcasses of the dismembered and ravaged fishes on the grill was a very bad visual, I agree.
I have no interest in or enthusiasm for who wins TC in this season now. Neither of the two finalists, in my mind, are truly deserving. Either one would have an *asterisk placed against her name, although for different reasons.
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23 hours ago, hatchetgirl said:
I swear to god, if I ever see John again, will personally hunt him down and strangle him. I hate him. He's a total punk. I would have totally sabotaged him. And John, dang it, wear a dang headband so every meal isn't sweat soaked. I saw seat splash in every dish he cooked! Way more disgusting than reusing the spoon. *shudder John sweat
http://dallas.culturemap.com/news/entertainment/02-17-17-top-chef-john-tesar-finale-episode-12/
;-)
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LCK was introduced in Season 9. There was no "extra qualifying barrier" for the winner of LCK to rejoin the main competition. Beverly Kim, the LCK winner, walked right back into the competition in Whistler, BC.
I don't recall any "extra step" for the LCK winner in every other season for them to rejoin the main competition.
Perhaps folks are thinking of Season 5, when the last three chefs who were eliminated before the finale (SIX months later) competed in a separate cookoff, equivalent to a "Quickfire-of-sorts" in front of the "main competition finalists" (who just watched) and the winner of THAT rejoined the "main competition finalists" but ALSO had to WIN the subsequent EC to stay in the main competition i.e. advance to the next stage in the multi-step finale.†† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Chef_(season_5) (scroll down to "Finale: Part I)
Insofar as who performed best in LCK, it was LOUIS MALDONADO, who won 8 straight matches to get back into the finale. Kristen Kish only had to win 5 matches to get back in. It was so disheartening when Louis then got dismissed in the first challenge, part of a double elimination - and it also seemed a little cruel because he had the misfortune to be located in a spot of that al fresco site where the wind kept blowing his efforts to bits. Well, he got PPYKAG, but he was then followed later by Shirley Chung.**
**ETA: Who, I might murmur, made up a song-and-dance story about how being on Maui made her feel sweet and so she made her dish to be sweet (her pork dish) when she was being faulted for, yes, making it so sweet. ;-) :-D
†† ETA2: And to clarify, he did not win the EC (Carla Hall did) so he did not move on and went home again...even though his dish & cocktail was liked by the judges. It was Fabio Viviani who was on the bottom and he got sent packing as well. See here; and here (as one recap) for details.
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1 hour ago, dleighg said:
Here's a screen cap. So it doesn't quite say that final decisions are made by producers. It says "in consultation with" producers. Whatever that means.
Back on Season 2 when Marcel Vigneron was physically attacked with all the remaining cheftestants in various states of complicity Tom Colicchio wanted to throw everyone except Marcel off and award the trophy to Marcel by default. He was overruled by the producers. So even though he and lots of people say "he has the final word" it ain't entirely true.
On Top Chef Just Desserts when Seth Caro had the "meltdown" and was taken off the show it seemed it were the producers who BOTH induced his meltdown AND specified his removal to psychiatric facilities. Seth also gave an interview about this here...
My suspicion is that the producers have much more power than Tom C publicly acknowledges.
BTW, it has been noted (speculated about?) on various forums/BBs that TPTB (i.e. the producers of the show) take note of what is being said on forums (I suppose including this one) as each episode is aired and have made "adjustments" a.k.a. re-editing of the next episode before it is aired. I don't know if this is truly so, but it is "out there".
ETA: It is also not an inconsequential detail in this context that even the judges do not know what any particular segment (which becomes an "episode") will look like until they see it at the same time as we the viewing public does. It seems like the producers decide what they want an episode to portray, and edit it accordingly.
Nevertheless, I would repeat what I said before - even under this rubric, cheftestants say and do what they decide to do. The "editors" cannot edit what they do not have if they do not have the footage of it to start with. And surely the cheftestants KNOW that everything they say and do within a thousand feet (so to speak) of a camera or mike can be recorded.
1 hour ago, xaxat said:The were definite shenanigans with Sylva's talking head(s) in his final. He started out wearing a purple t shirt and had shaved his mustache. During the middle of the same episode, he was wearing the same shirt, but he still had his mustache. In LCK, he also had his mustache.
I have spent far more time than is reasonable trying to figure out that timeline.
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48 minutes ago, JeanneH said:1 hour ago, Merneith said:
I like Shirley but I'm having a hard time understanding how chewy cocktail + vanilla beef didn't go home. VANILLA BEEF! Oh man. Maybe they paired better than John's drink + soup, but the connecting element was shittiness. Everyone seemed to like John's elements overall. No one liked Shirley's food.
I'm not sorry she's still there, I'm just not sure it was the right choice.
I thought she was gone, although they did like her salsa (at least Padma did). Maybe John's food was worse, or they just wanted him gone.
I took a look at the beauty photos for the dishes: http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/photos/episode-12-dishes-patron-margaritas-and-guadalajaran-flavor/item/10870836
Looking at just the EC dishes (not the QF ones) and based on both what I remember from the broadcast of the episode and what the dishes look like in the photoset I think I would have desultorily eaten Brooke's dishes (and be unimpressed by her avocado and coconut cold soup), be underwhelmed by Sheldon's (and raise my eyebrows too at his drink), repulsed by Shirley's cocktail (it's not a cocktail, it's a slushie) and sampled her beef (which looked just chucked together, and then declined to finish it if I were eating it --- vanilla beef!), but have gone back for seconds of John's drink and dish, both of which looked appealing. But, of course, I wasn't there to actually eat or drink any of them, and obviously Tom C & Co are The Deciders on his show.
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The Chefs/Cheftestants of Top Chef
in Top Chef
No, he was told to PPYKAG in episode 6 season 13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Chef_(season_13)