Top Chef: 4-Star All-Star

At long last, Top Chef is back! Well, not quite. Before kicking off season 3 next Wednesday, Bravo had the genius idea of pitting the top 4 from season 1 against the top 4 from season 2 in a $20,000 single episode cook-off for charity. The host, Mrs. Salman Rushdie (AKA Padma Lakshmi), started things off be reintroducing us to season 1 winner Harold Dieterle, runner-up Tiffani Faison, third place finisher Dave Martin, and...the incredibly annoying Stephen Aspirinio, who finished 5th. WTF?! Turns out Lee Anne Wong, who finished fourth, was ineligible since she's now a Bravo employee who helps plan the challenges for Top Chef, which would've given her an unfair advantage.

As soon as Padma brings out season 2 winner Ilan Hall, crazy-haired runner-up Marcel Vigneron, dreamy Sam Talbot, and cute as a button Elia Aboumrad, it becomes clear that theres a major rivalry between the two seasons. A lot of this apparently stems from what a lot of people perceived as a lack of professionalism amongst the season 2 contestants, particularly in regard to Ilan's vendetta against Marcel.

The format of 4-Star All-Star remains exactly the same as the show, starting with a Quickfire Challenge to determine who will be each team's captain. Chef Tom Colicchio explains that all eight chefs are talented enough that they should be able to cook an egg with a hand tied behind their backs...so that's exactly what they're going to do. Each chef has 2 eggs and access to the pantry and only 10 minutes to cook. The whole time, one hand must be kept in an oven mitt and behind their backs. The winner from each team will be declared team captain and the overall winning team will get an additional $100 for groceries in the Elimination Challenge.

I was shocked that all of the dishes actually looked presentable and tasty, considering they were all cooked one-handed. No one seemed to change very much since we last saw them. Stephen is still a pompous ass, Harold's still boring, Dave's still whiny, Marcel's still crazy, and Ilan is still too cool for school. Chef Tom selects Stephen's "perfect omelette" as the S1 winner and Marcel's scrambled eggs with a saffron foam (of course a fucking foam!) as the S2 winner. If S1 wins the Elimination Challenge, $20,000 will go to a breast cancer charity that Stephen selected, and if S2 wins, the money will go to a childhood hunger charity that Marcel chose. Chef Tom then selected S1 as the overall Quickfire winner, meaning that they will have $300 to shop with, as opposed to S2's $200.

Back at the loft, Marcel was his usual cocky self and tried to provoke the S1 contestants. Sam managed to get him to back down.

The Elimination Challenge required each team to cook a four course meal: one scallop dish, one lobster dish, one duck dish, and one kobe beef dish. On the S1 team, Dave chose the scallops, Stephen chose the lobster, Harold chose the duck, and Tiffani chose the beef. On the S2 side, Elia chose scallops, Marcel chose lobster, Ilan got stuck with duck (even though he REALLY didn't want it), and Sam chose the beef. This set things up for a head to head showdown not only between the team captains, but between the S1 and S2 winners.

Shopping went off without a hitch. Stephen decided to spend the extra $100 on wine even though, as Chef Tom later noted, this could work to the other team's advantage since each course would be served side by side.

Cooking time was tight. They only had 2 hours to work, which caused Ilan to lose his shit, especially when his duck didn't cook correctly. He also accidently knocked over Marcel's chopped mangos with only 15 minutes left. They made it seem like it was intentional since Ilan and Marcel have always hated each other, but they were working as a team. Ilan may be immature but he's not stupid.

Turns out the people the chefs were cooking for were not just Padma and Tom, along with judge Gail Simmons and new judge Ted Allen (Queer Eye's food guy), but also all of the new contestants from season 3. Dave and Elia's scallop dishes went first, followed by Stephen and Marcel's lobster dishes, Harold and Ilan's duck dishes, and Tiffani and Sam's kobe beef dishes. All were received with about an equal amount of praise and criticism, which made it hard to figure out which team would end up winning.

I have to give Marcel credit for always staying true to himself no matter how much everyone else makes fun of him for making foams and gelées. He made a lobster foam which he personally sprayed onto each plate at each table. Even so, Stephen's presentation was far superior. The judges seemed to like each scallop dish pretty equally, but didn't feel strongly for either of the duck dishes. Tough to say where they stood on the beef, but it looked like Tiffani had the edge.

Another interesting tidbit to come out of the tasting was the fact that Marcel is friends with S3 contestant Hung Hyunh. This is not good news. Also, there seemed to be a disproportionately large number of S3 contestants from Florida. Odd, considering that S3 taped on Miami Beach.

At judging, Elia's was selected as the best scallop dish, but S2 swept all of the other 3 dishes, meaning that the $20,000 would be going to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. I was kind of bummed because I really liked S2 better, especially Sam and Elia. Nevertheless, it was good to see them all again. Can't wait for the S3 premiere next week!