'Top Chef' recap: Lynn Crawford, Natalie Spooner and Sarah Nurse join judges hockey-themed challenge
The remaining 13 chef in the "Destination Canada" season of the show leaned into Canada's favourite sports
Top Chef Season 22 continues with host Kristen Kish, head judge Tom Colicchio, and Canadian judge Gail Simmons guiding the remaining 13 chefs through Canadian culinary challenges. Still in Toronto, the contestants continued to get a sense for the city's local food scene.
Starting with this week's Quickfire Challenge, private chef and recipe developer, Dwight Smith, made a visit to the Top Chef kitchen for "snack time." The challenge was centred around a beloved Toronto staple, the Jamaican patty.
And Dwight introduced the chefs to his favourites in the city, from Fahmee, JunePlum and Kingston 12 Patty Shop.
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As you likely guessed, the chefs had to make their own version of a Jamaican patty. They had 15 minutes to make their own dough, then they got a break for the dough to rest before continuing with their patty development. Dwight also gave the chefs a little tip that most patties are served with pepper sauce on the side.
Up for grabs was a $10,000 in Quickfire Quick Cash.
Katianna won the challenge for her toasted nori and sesame patty with sweet potato, roaster kimchi and bacon. That brings her total winnings to $15,000 so far this season.
For the Elimination Challenge, Natalie Spooner, professional PWHL hockey player and two-time Olympic gold medalist join Kristen, who introduced the challenge that required the chefs to make "a dish best served cold." They can use heat to prepare, but the dishes had to be served cold to the judging panel that included Natalie, professional hockey player Sarah Nurse, Top Chef Master Lynn Crawford, and Hunter Lewis, editor-in chief of Food & Wine magazine.
The chefs also selected a cloche associated with a particular hockey term, which then corresponded to an ingredient each chef had to feature in their dish. This ranged from the term "a punk" that corresponded to a biscuit as the ingredient, to "game ending in zero" meaning the chef had to use eggs.
A fun commitment to the theme, the judges table was set in the middle of a mini ice rink, placed in the centre of the Top Chef kitchen.
While getting flavours and temperatures aligned proved to be tricky for some chefs, but one of the most dramatic moments came when Massimo tripped, getting soap in his butter.
"Sharing a table with Massimo is like being in the middle of an earthquake," Zubair said.
The dish from each chef and the feedback from the judges went as follows:
Vinny — Biscuit infused ice cream, fresh strawberries and strawberry soda "strawberry shortcake' — Lynn said the biscuit element wasn't present enough and Tom wished there was a "surprising flavour" outside of just strawberry and biscuit
Corwin — Scallop and apple aguachile, variations of apple — Tom said the dish was well-balanced and ice cold, Lynn said he really played on all the apple variations and Hunter applauded the heat in the dish from the scotch bonnet, and described it as a "restaurant dish"
Massimo — Banana muffin crémeux, chocolate muffin ganache, speculoos meringue and roasted muffin banana ice cream — Lynn said the muffin was "so camouflaged," Gail said the texture could have been colder, and Hunter said it was a "mess" and the chef should have made it an eton mess
Zubair — King salmon crudo with fennel, jalapeño achar, lemongrass gel, chaas, and muffin crumble — Lynn said the crumble had a good spice and Gail said just putting the muffin in the crumble wasn't the best use of the necessary ingredient
Henry — Grapefruit leche de tigre with salmon, charred avocado and grapefruit — Hunter said the char on the fruit was beautiful, but the other flavours were "muddled" by the spice
Kat — Grapefruit and scallop tartare with "paloma" aguachile and grapefruit snow — Lynn said it was "stunning" like "fireworks" of different flavours and Tom loved that the bitterness came through, while Gail thought the bitterness overpowered other flavours
Katianna — Chilled chicken and liquorice soba with cucumber and daikon — Hunter said it was a "dynamite" dish that was "elegant," and Tom was impressed that so much flavour was developed in the broth in a short time
César — Chilled shrimp salad with liquorice tea and liquorice cream — Gail loved the shrimp noodles and Tom said it was a "really nice" dish
Paula — Ceviche jipijapa with sablefish, cucumber tartare, avocado and fried quinoa — Sarah didn't love the dish and said the peanut didn't come through, Lynn thought there was too much broth, Tom thought the fish needed salt, and Kristen said the broth was the weakest part of the dish
Lana — Chilled peanut soup with pickeled shrimp, suya oil and candied peanuts — Hunter said the peanut was very present in the dishTristen — Beef tartare with garlic toum, shattered benedict aioli, egg yolk jam and shattered deviled egg — Sarah loved the deviled eggs, and Hunter said the flavour really came through at that cold temperature
Shuai — Sweet corn semifreddo with sweet potato mochi, cardamom crème anglaise, ginger graham cracker and meringue — Hunter liked the flavour of the semifreddo, but wanted the texture to be a bit creamier, and Gail praise the playfulness of the dish
Anya — Pine needle ice cream with sea buckthorn cake — Tom highlighted that the ice cream didn't set and the cake had no flavour
Katianna, Tristen and Corwin had the favourite dishes of the day, and Hunter announced that the winning chef was Katianna. All wins for Katianna in this week's episode, and the chef has immunity in next week's Elimination Challenge.
Anya, Paula and Massimo had the least favourite dishes of the challenge.
Massimo was quick to say that he was embarrassed that the ice cream didn't set and the plating lacked "refinement." Anya explained that she had a set ice cream, before she tried to make it more "fluffy," similarly with her attempting the cake a second time. And Paula said that ceviche in Educador has more broth, but Hunter pointed out that with so much emphasis on the liquid, there was more pressure for that to really have depth of flavour.
The final decision was that Anya was eliminated from the competition, moving to Last Chance Kitchen for one more opportunity to prove herself.
'Top Chef' behind-the-scenes secret
While things can certainly go wrong in the Top Chef kitchen, with all the chef working under a lot of pressure, when we visited the set, where the competitors were working on a different episode of the show, it was actually very quiet.
While the music and the voiceovers really amp up the stress level, the chef are quite focused without a lot of speaking, or yelling at all.
