Top Chef Recap: Pizza Pity Party

You have to be a great chef to win Top Chef. However, being bad at Top Chef doesn’t mean you’re a bad chef at all. It probably just means this particular game isn’t for you.

No matter how much prestige this show (rightfully) has in the culinary world, that’s ultimately what Top Chef is: a game. For as many chefs who can express their talents on this show, or while beating Bobby Flay, or in an Iron Chef arena that might as well include a WWE ref on standby, there are countless more who are just quietly good at their jobs. Is it impressive when someone can create a Michelin-star dish in 20 minutes without utensils plus a secret ingredient while blindfolded? Obviously. Do you suck at cooking if you can’t? Absolutely not.

All of this is to say I have no doubt Henry has been an enormous asset in any kitchen lucky enough to have him. He is also not very good at Top Chef. As such, his elimination is probably for the best. However, it was sad to hear him announce it to the rest of the chefs with a resigned “It finally happened.”

After capping off a frustrating run of misses with last week’s trashed mise en place disaster, Henry’s spirits are understandably deflated. It probably doesn’t help that Katianna going home instead shocks the rest of the chefs enough that Massimo (as always) says the quiet part out loud: “I thought she was going to win it all.” Still, Henry’s determined to show the judges what he can do, and good for him! I just wish he got a better Quickfire win than “Make something based on the gross food scum left on these dirty dishes,” but oh well.

With Top Chef Canada host Eden Grinshpan in tow, Kristen asks the chefs to make a delicious new something worth a $10,000 prize (courtesy of the prominently displayed Finish dishwasher pods). It’s a pretty blah challenge, especially since the original items serving as inspiration — including the likes of tomato sauce and guacamole — are so basic. Paula knows her vegan squash “lasagna” is a disaster, but Bailey and César are annoyed when their guacamole-inspired salad and salmon and coffee concoction (respectively) land them in the bottom three with her.

In better news, Massimo conjures up a ricotta gnocchi that dazzles, and Tristen’s hot streak continues with a quick ’n’ dirty jollof rice. But it’s lovely Henry who manages to snag a win with the inventive combo of maple-butter rice balls in oatmeal broth. “I needed this,” he says with an audible sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, the Elimination Challenge delivers a swift reality check that leaves most of the chefs reeling in confusion — and to be fair, despite Kristen’s brief attempt to connect it to Canada, it’s a weird one.

Alongside loudly experimental chef Wylie Dufresne and All-Star Spike Mendelsohn (perhaps lured back to Top Chef by the chaotic spirit of last week’s team challenge), Kristen exclaims that they’re “throwing the first-ever Top Chef pizza party!” The chefs, visibly wincing, could not match her vibe any less. Making pizza maybe isn’t as bad as having to make dessert, but there’s still baking involved. If you fuck it up, there’s no going back.

The challenge’s “twist” is to create a pizza that “pushes the limits” of allegedly good taste, like Hawaiian pizza, which apparently originated in Canada and is named after a variety of pineapple rather than the state. Kristen also cites so-called sushi pizza as a fitting example of flipping pizza on its head, so, really, it seems as though making just about anything is fair game as long as the topping comes on a circular base that you can pick up pretty easily with your hands.

No one seems particularly psyched to dive into this one (except for Massimo, who started his culinary career in front of a pizza oven). Unlike last week — or most others this season, come to think of it — no one totally nails it, nor really expects to (… except for Massimo, who’s clearly perplexed when his mussel-and-clam pie ends up in the safe middle). So between the general lack of enthusiasm and the frankly rancid vibes of the vineyard venue’s impatient crowd of snobs, this challenge isn’t exactly one for the history books.

But it also does allow someone like Vinny to take himself a little less seriously and have some fun. Though Vinny didn’t hear Sara Bradley point out that he has been playing Top Chef like it’s Top Worked for a Bunch of People and Are Redoing Their Dishes, Tristen took it upon himself at the beginning of this episode to deliver what he knows will be “brutal” honesty: “You had this conundrum in your head of like, I’m cooking my food. This is me. No, this is where you worked. Flex you — don’t flex other people’s accomplishments.”

I gasped, but Vinny takes it well. In a confessional, he admits that Tristen’s right. He’s had trouble expanding his cooking beyond the greatest hits of his own résumé — and reminds us through tears that James Kent, his friend and former NoMad boss, had only just died before filming began. Is it any wonder he’s been off his game? His Reuben-style pizza is still inspired by someone else’s — this time his “slightly shorter, more jacked” brother’s — but hopefully represents a step forward for Vinny, anyway.

Other top dishes — though again, top is relative for a week this weak — include Shuai’s scallion pancake. Tristen once again embraces an ingredient he doesn’t personally love to come out on top. His anti-ranch-dressing stance immediately divides the judges (Tom agrees; stoner-food enthusiast Kristen vehemently does not), but his inventive pizza nonetheless unites them in appreciation. As a woman of Armenian descent, I was similarly surprised and thrilled to see him embrace the country’s flavors and combine anchovy “ranch” with pickled grapes on lahmajun bread. Tristen has demonstrated an impressively sharp palate and deep knowledge of other cuisines that have served him well time and time again, and in winning this season’s final (!) immunity, he’s clearly the one to beat. This makes me nervous because, as aforementioned, I love him. I don’t need any more heartbreak!

The other chefs struggle with this one. Lana attempts a tamarind-barbecue oxtail pizza that sounds absolutely delicious in theory but apparently ends up too dry. Bailey is extremely lucky that others messed up more, because in my book, being asked to make a pizza that “pushes the limits” and serving up a chicken parm is a fireable offense. But then there’s Paula, whose Argentine milk dough produces a nearly raw pizza that can’t hold her many toppings. César’s willingness to experiment doesn’t exactly end in the glory of his counterintuitive pickle curd — which, lest we forget, probably would’ve earned him immunity for this if he hadn’t been on the losing team. If his mole pizza sent him home now, I would’ve been even more bitter than his burnt cacao crust.

The show avoids that potential disaster when Henry once again stumbles on his own. I would have assumed the chefs didn’t have to factor flour into their meager $250 budget (making them shop at Whole Foods for these things feels very “How much could a banana cost, Michael?”), but they do, and Henry forgets an entire bag in his cart. His dough, therefore, died in its sleep overnight (RIP), forcing him to scramble for another solution to save his pho-inspired pizza.

His idea to make his own version of sushi pizza by crisping up short-grain rice as a base isn’t necessarily a bad one. But as Kristen and Tom in particular can’t forgive, he chooses to only halfway crisp up one side, leaving his “pizza” with zero structural integrity to speak of. (As a woman also of Persian descent, I was screaming “TAHDIG! MAKE TAHDIG!” at my screen, as if I wouldn’t have also panicked and thrown the whole thing in the deep fryer or something.) The judges agree César’s pizza was unpleasant and Paula’s raw pizza dough should maybe be disqualifying. But once Tom sputters, “It’s a pizza challenge and we got a BOWL OF RICE,” Henry’s well and truly cooked.

Leftovers

• Lunchtime poll: Hawaiian pizza, yea or nay? I’m a yea. I love sweet ’n’ salty.

• Why send the chefs on a Niagara cruise without factoring it into a challenge or something? It was really just something to do while their dough rose …? All right then.

• Kristen Kish Suit-Envy Watch: Since she went simple for the actual Elimination Challenge, I’m gonna mix it up this week and spotlight her excellent Quickfire outfit of a breezy, striped blue button-down with matching trousers. 7.5/10.

• Lana revealing that her Sicilian boyfriend explained how and why she can vibe with Massimo when others sometimes can’t. Far be it from me to indulge in cultural stereotypes, but I have a feeling Ohh, he’s Italian explained enough of Massimo’s living-life-out-LOUD personality for her, too.

• As a longtime Spike apologist, I was happy to see him back and all grown up in a way that I … did not anticipate. [Massimo voice] He’s cool, man! I like him a lot!

• With eight chefs left, you know what time it is: Restaurant Wars, baby.