- The chef'testants get the opportunity to cook in one of the best restaurants in the world, three star Michelin winner Le Bernadin. Their final product will be judged by renowned chef, Eric Ripert.
- Stefan feels lucky he got to stay. Fabio didn't like being in the bottom. He calls his wife and speaks cute Italian. Hosea feels pride in being the last American male standing. Carla is feeling her momentum.
Quickfire Challenge
Eric Ripert, the god of French chefs and a seafood expert, is the guest judge. They'll have a three-round fish fileting tournament.
They have to clean and butterfly sardines in five minutes. And les sardines, they are wee.
Carla killed her sardine, and spares Eric having to say so. Leah's is not super either. Stefan's is "pretty nice." Fabio's are pretty good, he spent some time de-boning sardines in Italy. Hosea says he's not pleased with his work. We hear for the 1st of many times that he is a seafood chef and can not fail at this challenge.
The winner is Leah (whose record with seafood isn't good), but Fabio did OK, too. Jamie and Carla did the worst.
Next up is an Arctic Char to filet. At least it's bigger. Leah panics and gives up mid-challenge, just quits. Stefan left some bone in the fish. Fabio left some meat in the head. Hosea's is precise and beautiful.
Leah and Fabio are out.
Stefan and Hosea move on to fresh water eel. Eric says they were killed, but they're still moving. Stefan is gleeful, apparently eels are big in Sweden. Stefan nails the eel through the head to his cutting board and peels the skin off. Hosea copies.
Eric thinks Stefan's eel is "beautiful," and Hosea did OK for his first time. Stefan is the winner.
No more immunity, but he gets an advantage. Eric has a surprise for the chefs: he invites them to lunch in the private room at his Le Bernardin.
At the apartment that night they do a mock quickfire.
The next morning they get dressed for lunch. Everyone does fancy except Jamie who wears a t-shirt and head band. Could you try a little less Jamie? They eat six different dishes. Everyone feels honored but Jamie is "bored" by it. She's not "inspired" by it. She finds one of the sauces "weird." She also says she really hates celery.
Then it's time for the last "course": The knife block. Tom says he hopes they were paying attention. The six entrees they had are their elimination challenge. The ingredients are there and they reproduce one of the dishes they just ate. Stefan gets to pick his and takes lobster, which Hosea thinks is the easiest.
Jamie gets the dish she didn't like.
The chef whose dish is furthest from the mark will be out.
Carla is working on escolar. Fabio is happy to be working on the red snapper. Jamie has never braised celery before.
Eric and his chef observe. Leah is making mahi-mahi with miso lemon with mushroom sauce. Hosea makes monkfish and he is using a spice he's never used before. He figures from the provided eggs and breadcrumbs that it must be a batter. Leah is unsure of what to do with her miso.
Eric tastes their dishes. He tells Stefan their asparagus aren't cooked. Leah's miso broth is too intense. Carla is close on the sauce. Hosea has to turn down his spice and figure out how to cook his fish. He doesn't taste Jamie's because, she says, she didn't have time.
Fabio is first and his bread slice is a little overdone. He has sourdough encrusted red snapper with tomato basil consomme. Padma notices right away that the bread is overdone, but Eric thinks it's "pretty close."
Leah nearly runs out of time and knows her miso isn't done properly. She made baked mahi-mahi with miso and matsutake mushroom sauce. Tom's fish is overcooked.
Stefan is extremely confident in his lobster. It's baked lobster with asparagus and Hollandaise sauce Eric lets on that usually the sauce is made in a blender and Stefan did it by hand. Stefan's sauce is thicker than Eric's original plate. They're all impressed.
Carla worries about the timing with her fryer, everyone helps her plate so she barely makes the time. She had oil-poached escolar with potato crisps in a red wine Bearnaise sauce. Tom thinks this is one of the more difficult dishes and she did a pretty good job.
Hosea, the seafood guy, says he cannot go home on a fish challenge. He knows he missed something on the fish prep. He made za'atar spiced monkfish with black garlic. Tom notices the cooking of the fish is wrong and Eric says there's too much za'atar. Tom can tell the monkfish didn't rest. He says it's the least precise of all the dishes.
Jamie is last. As she's plating she realizes the liquid in her braised celery over-reduced and it's now too salty. She made sauteed black bass and braised celery with serrano ham peppercorn sauce. Eric calls the celery "hard core" and bad faces are made.
Off to judges' table.
The cheftestants toast in the stew room and await their fates. Padma comes for Fabio, Stefan and Carla.
Stefan says he loved the challenge. Eric tells Fabio he thought he might burn the bread, but he didn't. Carla says it was an honor. Eric is impressed that Carla figured out the sauce called a bearnaise was really more a beurre rouge. (Toby, never ceasing to come up with forced puns, says it had swagger and if he had to name it it'd be "Pablo Escolar.")
Tom says it's unfortunate they have to choose a winner because they all did a good job. Eric announces the winner: Stefan. He tells Stefan his prize: a cookbook and...he gets to spend a week with Eric at his three restaurants and then fly with him to the Food & Wine festival at Pebble Beach.
They send out the losers.
Eric tells Hosea the quality of his sauce was good, but the fish was overcooked. Tom appreciates that Hosea knows he should have rested the fish longer.
Leah admits she was stumped by the process and asks Eric how they did it. Tom asks Leah about giving up in the Quickfire and if she wants to give up overall. She says she regrets it and definitely wants to be there.
Jamie knows that her celery was over-salted. Eric agrees. Padma says if she could have, she would have sent it back. It wasn't appetizing to look at or to eat. Toby uses the word "toxic." Jamie says that wasn't her favorite dish at lunch.
They walk back to the stew room and Jamie and Leah argue over which of them is going home.
As the judges discuss, Toby notes that Hosea got a hard sauce right. Tom says Leah's head is not in the game. Jamie did something wrong, but didn't know how to fix it.
On the chopping block.
Tom recaps that each made a mistake in observation or execution.
Padma announces the knife-packer: Jamie.
She thanks them for the opportunity.
"Team rainbow is done," she says, nodding back to the group that lasted one episode. "It's kind of a bummer, but I've formed friendships here that I know I'll continue to have. I've learned a lot here as a chef and as a person...I think that I've learned to respect myself for who I am and have more confidence in myself as a chef." (An interesting message to draw from failure, but whatever.)
Next week: Time to decide the final four! They race around crazy and Tom tells them they're cooking for an incredible group of people and not to embarrass him. Then there's a crash and some swearing in Italian. Someone asks if someone needs to go to the hospital. Then we see Fabio's poor bandaged paw. One of the guest chefs is Wylie Dufresne.
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