Past Seasons Talk: The Stew Room

[Rai]

With Restaurant Wars on the horizon, I'm interested to discuss RW episodes from the past. They always tweak the format somewhat, so I'm wondering which season do you think got the easiest version? Or the hardest? Season 13 with the lunch AND dinner set up was pretty brutal. Seasons 5-7 had the spaces provided for them already (although one team in season 6 may have had equipment malfunctions, it turned out), so in comparison to others, I feel like that's an easy set-up.

What role do you think is the hardest to fill?

[CrazyInAlabama]

My opinion is Front of House is tougher, because the chef not only has to do a dish and hope the other team members get it done, but they have to do what is often an unfamiliar role of FOH, and have to rely on a wait staff they just met.      There's a reason a lot of new restaurants do a soft opening, to get everyone trained, and get a system in place for delivering the right food, and service for the customers.   

[BlackberryJam]

I rewatched S3 RW episodes last week and since both had so many problems, they had them do it all again for the next challenge after hearing feedback. I liked that, because it was a situation where neither team was a clear winner, and if they’d chosen a winning team, someone was going to skate for a crappy dish.

[BlackberryJam]

Watching Jackson dole out his own rope and then finish it offer was so, so painful, that I rewatched most of S6, Las Vegas this weekend.

Those were some incredibly difficult challenges, and wow were Kevin, Michael and Bryan way ahead of the pack. I think they won something like 13 of 14 ECs. The only other competitor to win an EC was Jennifer. Sure, they had a hokey cookout challenge and, but they had Joël Robuchon in for one of the dinners.

Just rewatching that season makes me realize how much location matters. While Houston has some great restaurants, local ingredients and food, Las Vegas is where chefs and celebrities make real money. 

I've been to Vegas a couple of times and the best part has always been the food. Well that, and the 8 hours I spend in a spa getting creams rubbed into my skin. 

 

[snarktini]

On 7/6/2019 at 8:22 PM, Ashforth said:

Over the past few days I re-watched Season One on HULU. WOW. I had kind of forgotten how much of a total arrogant aggressive jerk Stephen was. I mean, crazily self-centered and asshole-ish.

Tiffani was a jerk at times, but I guess I had more sympathy for her all these years later once it got past her cringeworthy arrogant moments (the kid challenge - jesus, suck it up Tiff).

On 5/18/2020 at 10:36 AM, lovinbob said:

I binge-watched season 1 this weekend and it was so funny to see the origins of this show. Some truly mediocre chefs, some very nice people (Andrea, Lisa, Candice), some creepy to crazy people (Bryan Hill, Miguel, Ken Lee), an utter douchebag (Stephen), and the stars (Harold, Lee Anne, Tiffani, Dave). I completely forgot about Cynthia Sestivo, who was annoying to me but knowing that her father was dying I give her a pass. I agree that Tiffani was not as bad as I remembered her, and it is really surprising to me that she was so hated. I really enjoyed and appreciated Dave (and also dined at Crave back in the day and loved it), but he definitely had his share of issues. It SUCKED that he got eliminated from the Vegas final right off the bat. It is interesting that he hasn't been back in the Top Chef family all that much—at least from what I can recall.

I'm rewatching S1 right now and WOW. Many chefs are not up to par, their first dishes were awful. Katie Lee is so wooden and sounds like she's shouting. Tom has a soul patch lol. Too many stunt challenges. But working the line at Fleur de Lys...what an amazing challenge.

Stephen is so much worse than I remember, mostly because my brain can't compute how anyone could be THAT delusional and arrogant. Defending slow service in Restaurant Wars as an "educational experience". What a glass bowl. Looking back Tiffani has said she has regrets and has changed. Has Stephen even acknowledged anything similar?

I lived in San Francisco at this time. Shout out to shopping at the Berkeley Bowl! A couple of moments, notably the street food and Junior League challenges, it seemed like the show/chefs thought San Francisco was Hicksville. This is a high end food town and has been for a long time. Seared ahi was a bad choice because the dish wasn't good street food (hard to eat and who trusts rare street cart fish) not because the Mission is filled with limited palates. (I was thankful the guest judge pointed out how trite tuna and avocado was at that point on the west coast.) The women of the Junior League did not need Stephen to explain banana leaves FFS. Glad we got some reaction shots to that.

 

[snarktini]

Okay, I did Season 3 next because I do not ever need to see S2 or Ilan again. I forgot how much I rooted against Hung! A talented and deserving winner but I just wanted his arrogance checked. He couldn't even hear that his dish might not have been the best regardless what the judges said.

One thing I sided with him on was not helping his competition. There was a moment near the end of the season when CJ asked him "are you finished?" hoping Hung would volunteer to help, but he didn't actually ask. So Hung didn't help. I think he has it right, in a kitchen you're on one team so you jump in but there's 100K on the line here. His overall attitude was not good so I also see why it grated.

[Bastet]

15 minutes ago, snarktini said:

I forgot how much I rooted against Hung!

I remember very few specifics* about that season, as I haven't seen it since it first aired, but I remember he irritated me.  I looked up who was in the finale, and assume I was rooting for Casey since it certainly wasn't him, I don't even remember Dale, and I remember generally liking her cooking and her.

*One thing I do remember about Hung is he had incredible knife skills, but also once spun around with one in his hand while someone was crossing behind him and got admonished (by Tom, maybe?) for failing Kitchen Safety 101.

[emmawoodhouse]

Smurf Village! I love Hung (and I couldn't stand Casey).

Here's Howard's blog on that episode. I forgot Malarkey was also on that season. 

Edited May 22, 2022 by emmawoodhouse

[caitmcg]

35 minutes ago, Bastet said:

I don't even remember Dale

The most memorable thing about Dale to me, all these years later, is his temper. 

[Bastet]

1 minute ago, caitmcg said:

The most memorable thing about Dale to me, all these years later, is his temper. 

That's the other Dale; Dale Talde was the anger ball.  Season 3 Dale, the one I don't remember, was Dale Levitski.

[emmawoodhouse]

1 minute ago, Bastet said:

That's the other Dale; Dale Talde was the anger ball.  Season 3 Dale, the one I don't remember, was Dale Levitski.

Dale L. appeared on an episode of Beat Bobby Flay. It's been a while, but I don't think he got to cook against Bobby. 

[snarktini]

S3 Dale Levitski was a mellow sweetheart! I liked and remembered him. Opposite of S4 Dale.

Started S4 tonight :) Jen Biesty is a friend of a friend, hers is one of the only Top Chef restaurants I've ever eaten at.

[Rai]

Hung was interesting because while he was arrogant, he seemed to be the obvious winner for most of the season. I wasn't at all mad about his win although I did feel bad Casey fell apart so hard.

Something that always bothered me about how Hung was treated on the show though was Tom insisting he had to bring in more of his soul and background, which I took to mean Vietnamese flavors specifically. Hung did a great pivot to address just that in his finale, but honestly, had he said "I'm a classically trained French chef, and I'm drawing on the French influences of my background," I would've cheered for that. I'm really happy Top Chef has shifted its focus away from classic training and euro-centrism, but if that's the way he genuinely cooks and wants to cook, it makes me uncomfortable to force this whole narrative expectation on how he SHOULD be cooking.

Weirdly, season 3 remains one of my favorites, especially of the early seasons. Just enough conflict for fun, not enough to actually get in the way of making good food. Except for that Elks episode. Oof.

[RealityCheck]

I liked Hung and saw him as confident in his own skills, which was confirmed by his performance in the mise en place relay, which was epic. I was happy Hung won the season.

As for Dale L, I didn't feel strongly one way or the other about him until the semi-final quickfire where the chefs had to re-create the La Cirque fish dish. Hung was the first was judged to have done an excellent job. Dale asked Hung for information on how to complete the challenge and Hung declined to provide it so Dale complained about Hung not being a "team player". I immediately thought, "Really? This is a competition and this is not a team challenge. He'd be stupid to help you". So I was not rooting for Dale L.

[snarktini]

10 hours ago, Rai said:

Something that always bothered me about how Hung was treated on the show though was Tom insisting he had to bring in more of his soul and background, which I took to mean Vietnamese flavors specifically.

I took the talk about "soul" in a different way. (Can't speak to "background"; I don't remember hearing it but many contestants have gotten pigeonholed into their culture/nationality so it may have happened and I missed it.) It was a consistent critique that his food was technically perfect and harmonious but just lacking that little bit of extra spark, including guest judges who knew little about him. Which I found particularly interesting coming from Eric Ripert because that's what I thought of the food at Le Bernardin! Objectively, it was lovely. Good flavors, incredible presentation, well crafted. But it didn't "sing" for me -- no visceral OMG reaction, I didn't crave it or remember it. Whereas eating at one of Daniel Boulud's the very same day I couldn't stop going back for more and talking about it.

In the last couple of episodes we saw him talk more about what food means to him and showing humanity/passion. If I'd seen that footage earlier I might have liked him better. Editing monkeys at work? Again, he totally deserved to win. Just have an allergy to that kind of hard-edged arrogance.

4 hours ago, RealityCheck said:

I liked Hung and saw him as confident in his own skills, which was confirmed by his performance in the mise en place relay, which was epic. I was happy Hung won the season.

As for Dale L, I didn't feel strongly one way or the other about him until the semi-final quickfire where the chefs had to re-create the La Cirque fish dish. Hung was the first was judged to have done an excellent job. Dale asked Hung for information on how to complete the challenge and Hung declined to provide it so Dale complained about Hung not being a "team player". I immediately thought, "Really? This is a competition and this is not a team challenge. He'd be stupid to help you". So I was not rooting for Dale L.

Yeah, I liked Dale a lot but he was 100% out of line there. This wasn't help plating which competitors are not even required to do. The point of the test was to reverse engineer the dish. Sharing would be ridiculous.

[caitmcg]

12 hours ago, Bastet said:

That's the other Dale; Dale Talde was the anger ball.  Season 3 Dale, the one I don't remember, was Dale Levitski.

Well, obviously I didn’t remember him, either. Honestly, I don’t remember much from S3. 

[snarktini]

Okay, made it through S8 All Stars. Some chefs showed laudable growth in their repeat appearance (S1 Tiffani, Dale T) and some did themselves no favors (Jen, Jamie).

I loathe Mike Isabella and while I'm glad he lost I'm deeply disappointed he didn't lose to a woman. His head might have exploded.

I probably have to stop bingeing these seasons because delusional male egos are grating on my nerves.

[marybennet]

I just re-watched season 8 All-Stars, too, and, god, Isabella is awful. There’s a moment when Tiffany Derry describes him as disrespectful, and she was more right than we all knew. I had kind of liked Blais on his original season, but here (and forever after) not so much. He’s a little mean to people, poking at them (women, mostly) when they’ve outlasted his buddies. He does it somewhat passive aggressively, as when he tells Tiffany D she’s “invincible” after Dale Talde goes home; invincible there just means ‘you should have gone home and you injured my guy.’  I like Dale Talde, but undercooked potatoes in a soup do seem like a worse problem than a honey glaze that’s a little too sweet. Seemed like a fair offing. He does it other times, too. 

Edited July 13, 2022 by marybennet

[snarktini]

On 8/13/2014 at 7:23 PM, wallflower75 said:

Nicholas.

He called her his "little sister" and said he couldn't let her go down. (And then said he wouldn't help out Carlos). And as the judges were tasting her dish, where she told them about Nicholas's help, she said, "I don't think he'd do anything to sabotage me. At least, I hope not."

On 10/29/2019 at 9:01 PM, phoenix780 said:

And, I'm dropping out of New Orleans after watching Nicholas choose to keep immunity, sending someone home undeservedly. 

And that someone was his "little sister". He played the game and won fair and square officially and yet...this win gets an asterisk in my mind.

Have we ever seen the judges invite someone to forego their immunity before? Pepin asked him to his face if he thought it was right, and behind his back Colicchio wished he would fall on his sword to avoid that elimination. At least once in the past they've even argued against giving up immunity so there was something different in their minds here. (I think they did accept an immunity resignation once tho?)

This was arguably the biggest save in immunity history. He had *terrible* dishes and sent home someone with *great* dishes because they happened to be on his team. Someone he was close to and said he'd look out for. I can't say what I'd have done; I'm not going to claim I would have definitely taken the high road and forfeited my rightfully won advantage in a competition with a big prize. But I would never have felt good about it. He seemed so anxious and miserable much of the time.

Watching this season was such a blast from the past. (And I probably shared the same sentiment on the boards when this first aired!) When I was little, we visited New Orleans a number of times and my parents were foodies. I would have eaten at Commander's Palace during the Paul Prudhomme and Emeril years -- of course I was too young to know or care about big name chefs. I remember waiting in line to go to the restaurant Prudhomme opened after he left, and I had barbecued shrimp so it was fun seeing Emeril serve that to the cheftestants. It's such a special city. That the contestant from Galatoire's was a bit of a jerk was a bummer, that was our favorite restaurant so I wanted him to be awesome.

On 8/27/2017 at 3:46 PM, biakbiak said:

I am also doing a rewatch of all the seasons and I completely forgot how much Padma and Tom absolutely LOATHED Toby Young. Since he was the absolutely worse this pleased me greatly!

Even other guest judges couldn't stand him, I thought Michelle Bernstein was going to jump across the table at him when he made an issue of the pronunciation of paella. 

I can handle his rudeness. Don't like it, but it's a character he plays. What I hated was how every criticism had to be conveyed as a simile. He couldn't just say normal things. Everything was a soundbite.

Edited July 21, 2022 by snarktini

[CrazyInAlabama]

I'm still amazed Nicholas won his season, since he had bland food, that was underseasoned every time.  I really disagreed with his win.     To me the worst part was the immunity, and chopping someone he claimed he was friends with.    I wonder if they were still friends after that?  

With Hung, I don't think he was arrogant.    He knew his food was technically perfect, and he had confidence in what he produced, and stood by what he cooked.    Don't forget the Smurf/ cheetos which will live in Top Chef history, because who could ever top that?   And the mise en place was epic too.       

Edited July 21, 2022 by CrazyInAlabama

[Salacious Kitty]

Mike from S1 had the nasty Cheeto dish in the gas station challenge. It was NOTHING compared to the epic Smurf Village! 😀

[Daisychain]

So . . . I've watched a lot of Top Chef.  It's my favorite.  I love food.  One thing that happened lately is that I've spent hours digitizing my parents' letters, bills, contracts, etc. and in the meantime I let Top Chef roll on in the background.  Season 9 ensued.

A lot of people on this topic thread have asked themselves, what's worse, Season 2 or Season 9?  They're both execrable (i.e. you know what).  I live in Chicago and if Sarah G. ran over to me and offered me a free meal at Spiaggia I would run away.  And I don't even run fast.  I would catch a cab.  Also, the violence Marcel experienced was preceded with interactions with complete nutters threatening him verbally (toothbrushes really?).  

So -- bullying and physical violence (Season 2) v. bullying and racial animosity (Season 9), wow, that's a hard call!  Season 2 has already been explicit that Tom disowned those cooks, and a couple of them have been clawing their way back.  On Season 9, I don't think we've heard an apologetic word from Heather Terhune, Sarah Grueneberg, or even Lindsay from Michelle Bernstein.  If I'm wrong, let me know because it would be good news.

The thing that looks horrible in the rear-view mirror is that now, as Top Chef fans, we would never criticize someone for cooking "Asian," like that is an identifiable cuisine on the biggest continent in the world, right?  Beverly was probably one of the first chefs to introduce kimchee on Top Chef.  I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the Portland season and we would never expect Shota to be less Japanese.  Maria Mazon would never be told to be less Mexican-American. We wouldn't even ask Sara Hauman to cook with less yogurt.

Anyhoo, love of cooking is most normally love of the world.  That's what I love about Top Chef.

[estellasmum]

I've been watching all the seasons, also, in the last few months (got Covid twice, so several weeks of being shut in my room), and spent most of that time going through all the seasons of Top Chef. Marcel is such a douchebag every time he comes on. Not that it makes it any better what they did to him, and they should have just booted a ton of them out, but I do NOT like him nearly as much as Beverly.

To me season 9 was downright unwatchable, knowing what eventually Paul did, and I knew Sarah was coming. I somehow managed to totally put Heather and Lindsay out of my mind. I think Sarah stuck because she was so awful to Beverly, AND she was such a graceless winner and loser. It was always about HER when she did well and HER when she did poorly, and talk about HER predicament seemed to dominate the stew room whenever she wasn't in the middle. I totally forgot the rumor that she told Emeril to fuck off when she lost in the finale. They addressed it in the reunion, and Andy denied it, but if you watch the finale, she says something to Emeril, and Tom's face looked startled and horrified, and they half ass went along with denying it when it was brought up. I wouldn't be surprised if it was true. Beverly said at the reunion that Sarah DID apologize to her. 

Heather, OTOH, was asked at the reunion if she would apologize to Beverly, and she doubled down, said she wouldn't and that everything she said was true. and there was nothing to apologize for. Lindsay just kind of skated by in that. Heather didn't just ding Beverly for cooking "Asian", she said Beverly cooked Chinese, when Beverly is actually Korean. I read somewhere that Heather was actually fired from her job because of her conduct on TC, and I certainly hope so, because she was just as bad, if not worse than Sarah. They both look to have landed on their feet and are doing just fine. Season 9 was the last season they ever had a reunion, which kind of sucks, and there is a lot of speculation is was because the mean girls trio were so awful. 

TL:DR  Seasons 2 and 9 are unwatchable unless you hit FF a lot, (or maybe just plain unwatchable) because of thug bullies and a douchebag, or mean  girl bullies that really cross the line of what would be acceptable behavior today.

[Bastet]

3 hours ago, estellasmum said:

Marcel is such a douchebag every time he comes on.

I could barely stand watching 40 minutes of him a week, so I think living and working with him constantly for however many weeks they filmed would have driven me mad. 

But not to the point of dragging him out of bed and pinning him down, encouraging others to shave his head!  They were getting juvenile and petty in their reactions to him prior to that, too, I remember (I haven't seen that season since it aired).  This is from one of Tom's blog entries (I miss the blogs so much!) that season, about the Seven Deadly Sins episode:

Quote

Which leads me to my final thought: Now that we're down to only seven chefs, the tension and stress levels are rising. This is to be expected, but it seems to be playing out especially in the group's growing antagonism towards Marcel.

Marcel is the kind of guy who has probably pissed people off his whole life -- dating back to the playground -- without really understanding why or how. Faced with people's negative reactions he lashes back in even more annoying ways, creating a cycle. Under ordinary circumstances, the others may have been willing to brush off Marcel's irritating behavior, but with little sleep and mounting pressure, they're regressing instead into a group of petty sixth-graders. This reached a head for me when I saw the group decide not to serve his dish during the dinner party (Elia was the lone dissenter in this). I replayed the episode to see what Marcel had done to spark this little mob mentality, and realized he hadn't done much, other than speak forcefully. Obviously, the group was primed to be angry with him over the slightest infraction. I wanted to see some leadership -- someone who would step up and say, "Marcel may be the most annoying guy in the world, but the show must go on. Let's put our heads down and get this meal over with."

[Daisychain]

Wow I forgot how good and frank Tom's blogs were when he still did (or was allowed?) to do it.  Estallasmum and Bastet, I also forgot about that rumour re: what Sarah said to Emeril.  Holy mackerel.  It just makes me want to watch more recent seasons!

In better news, I had a very nice dinner last night at Siena Tavern, one of Fabio's restaurants.  I think we can all remember his FOH performances with enjoyment and respect!  It's funny that very few FOH knew how to handle untrained waitstaff - he definitely could IIRC.  Siena Tavern was a little expensive maybe, but the sauces were especially delish.  I am always looking for something I couldn't make that well and the sauces were that for sure.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Daisychain