Top Chef recap: All’s fair in food and war

“It’s not a challenge. This is the war!” Laura battle-cried during Wednesday’s episode of Top Chef: Wisconsin. Yes, eight episodes in, it’s officially time for our chef-testants to take up arms for the return of Restaurant Wars. The show’s signature challenge is a polarizing one for Top Chef fans, with some loving the added drama that managing waitstaff and choosing napkins can bring to the competition, while others eye-roll their way through watching executive chefs unrealistically having to deal with front-of-house issues.

This recapper exists somewhere in the middle. When Restaurant Wars is cranking on all burners, it’s a vital watch and a good reminder that being a professional chef isn’t just about what’s on the plate. But, admittedly, there are editions of the challenge that fail to spark a flame. Thankfully, this season’s installment was closer to the former than the latter.

With no QuickFire this week, we’re jumping straight onto the battlefield, much to Savannah’s chagrin. (“If I thought it was Restaurant Wars, I would have worn a different outfit!”) Outside Discovery World Science and Technology Museum, Kristen Kish gives our nine remaining players their challenge brief: They divide themselves into two teams of their own choosing—Kaleena, Laura, Manny, and Soo on one, and Amanda, Dan, Danny, and Savannah on the other—and then last week’s Elimination Challenge winner Michelle gets to decide which lineup she wants to join. She opts for the latter crew because “we all lead kitchens. I think that’s gonna be to our benefit here.”

And the production powers that be aren’t getting too highfalutin with the challenge logistics this time around. “This year, we’re going to kick it old-school,” Kish announces, which means a three-hour menu with at least two choices per course. The teams will assign an executive chef, floor manager, and line cooks; everything from the room decor to the reservation book is up to them. They’ll have an hour to plan as a team, plus a grocery budget of $4,500 to spend at Whole Foods and specialty shops, before prepping and cooking for 75 diners and two rotating tables of judges, which include Top Chef: Chicago winner Stephanie Izard and Top Chef: California alum Kwame Onwuachi. Along with Restaurant Wars bragging rights, $40,000 is up for grabs.

“This challenge will push you in ways you’ve never been pushed before,” Kish warns them. “I should know—this was at the point I was eliminated.” She also reminds the cooks that it’s possible that more than one of them could be eliminated this week.

Things seem to go smoothly for Kaleena & Co. off the bat. Having two Mexican chefs and two Korean chefs on one team, they quickly settle on a Mex-meets-Asian fusion concept dubbed ”Dos by Deul” (“two by two,” Laura explains). Delineation of duties also is pretty seamless, with Laura opting to take on FOH, Kaleena stepping up as the food expeditor (or “expo”), and the gentlemen down to cook.

The waters are a little rougher over on Michelle’s team. Although they decide on a seafood concept called “Channel,” a modern American restaurant taking inspiration from what connects their individual cooking, she’s concerned that the dishes aren’t feeling connected enough. “The challenge is to create a restaurant with cohesiveness,” she worries. But she doesn’t have much time to fret. Since she’s doing FOH, she’ll have to basically get all of her cooking done during prep day, with teammate Savannah firing up her recipes the next day for the judges and diners.

The next day, both teams are back at Discovery World for two rounds of service; our first circuit sees Gail Simmons, Stephanie, and their guests dining at Dos by Duel, while Tom Colicchio, Kristen, Kwame, and the rest experience Channel. The judges will then swap restaurants, meaning that the chefs will have to do their multi-course menus all over again. Not gonna lie, we’re not huge fans of the two-part Restaurant Wars episodes, but when the challenge staggers service across two days, it does give the judges fresh eyes—and freed-up bellies—with which to deliberate on both experiences. Splitting the panel into two separate camps can prompt their own lack of group cohesion (not to mention, it can be hard to be as enthusiastic about your second dinner of the night when you’re still full from your first), which clearly seemed to be the case here.

Over at Dos, Gail & Co. love the sauce work of Laura’s gochuchang-spiced beef tartare with a cilantro green goddess; however, the melon in Kaleena’s crag aguachile got “washed out” and needs more acidity. At Channel, when Tom’s crew do finally track Michelle down for service (“My strategy is to have a presence but make sure they have their space, too,” she reasons), they praise Savannah’s “texturally stunning” chawanmushi with scallops, though her mushrooms are chawan-mushy. Better is Dan’s smoked walleye with labneh, which Kwame declares, “I would go somewhere to order this again.” High praise.

Channel’s second course sees Michelle-by-way-of Savannah’s fried catfish with dirty-rice cake, Danny’s New England style clam chowder that subs in carrots, and Amanda’s vegan gumbo with kombu. Kristen is “thoroughly enjoying” Danny’s carrot, and Kwame is a fan of the smoked oyster sauce of Michelle’s dish, though he can’t understand why Amanda would make a vegan gumbo for a seafood restaurant.

There is also major confusion happening at Dos, with servers mistaking table numbers and orders getting backed up. “We’re a little bit in the weeds,” Soo worries. Thankfully, Gail “can’t stop eating” his rice cakes with salsa verde and Chinese sausage, though Manny’s miso butter-poached shrimp with jicama kimchi needed more heat.

By the time Channel serves their duo of desserts—Danny and Amanda’s collab honey custard with citrus gelee, and Dan’s maple crémeux with blueberries—Tom C. proclaims it a good meal but “not a cohesive restaurant. It’s a bunch of ideas.” That lack of cohesion also plagues Dos by Duel’s final course, despite Manny’s “fantastic” mole.

The judges then switch restaurants, and viewers have to watch the courses get trotted out all over again, though it seems plates are considerably slower hitting the tables this time around. And the order in which they tried the menus seemingly has affected the panel’s judgements: Though Gail’s group overall approves of the cohesion of the Dos by Duel concept, Tom’s battalion thinks the concept fell apart as they got deeper and deeper into the menu.

All of that back-and-forth makes it difficult to gauge exactly where the panel is standing as far as which team served up the more favorable Restaurant Wars concept. But, despite “not leaving enough room to be collaborative,” ultimately Channel is deemed the winner, with Milwaukee Dan scoring individual props for that standout smoked walleye.

“Someone has to be held accountable” for what went wrong on Team Dos, Stephanie declares from the judges’ table, and that is sadly Kaleena, who will have to strap on her helmet for combat yet again in Last Chance Kitchen. “I feel like I’ve had so many redemption battles,” she says. “I still feel like we’re going out on a high note.”

Stray observations

• We kind of figured Dos by Duel was doomed the second we saw that awful ombré wall.
• There’s been talk that service hold-up in previous seasons might not be the competitors’ fault at all, but diners wanting to stick around at their table long enough to get a good look at Tom, Gail, et al. We wonder if that was the case with the double dinner reservations.
• Per next week’s preview, “the game is changing,” Kristen announces. Elimination won’t just be judged on their elimination dish. Does this mean QuickFires are going to be taken into account when it comes to sending a chef home?
• We’re not recapping the next few installments, but will be back to cover the last two episodes of this season. See you then and thanks for reading!