Welcome back to Top Chef Masters, another node of the Bravo culinary empire that gets freshened up, redressed, and trotted out every once in a while when people are so saturated with singing competitions and reruns of Cops that they’ll tune in eagerly to see Curtis Stone and his teensy, tiny, soul patch. Like Myles McNutt, my esteemed Top Chef Masters reviews predecessor, I confess that I had grown a bit weary by the end of last season. Floyd has his charms, sure, but the problem with all that celebration and camaraderie is that it had all the friction of an oiled up slip’n’slide. But season four has promise. Sharp-tongued food writing legend Ruth Reichl in back in the ranks of the judges, not to mention the lovely LA Times contributor Krista Simmons. Then there’s Cooking Channel commenter and all-around cool dude Francis Lam, who promises to appear later in the season. Plus, the premiere had the key thing that Top Chef Masters promises—high-caliber chefs in situations that would make most culinary professionals break down into tears.
The contestants already have more drama brewing than the last couple seasons combined. Though they bleed together a bit at this point, there are a few standouts. Art Smith, who’s lost an astonishing amount of weight since his hey day as Oprah’s personal chef, is prone to making exclamations like “I cook for billionaires! I don’t have a budget.” Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier, an adorable couple, have coordinating bleached hair and rhyming-ish names that would put The Sprockets to shame. Lorena Garcia I’m interested in for the possibilities of using her Taco Bell commercial fame alone. Thierry Rautereau seems both good-natured and like a never nude, only for hats. And Chris Cosentino is the young firecracker with an expertise in offal cookery, apparently.
Quickfire Challenge
For the introductory Quickfire, Curtis Stone, or “the thunder from Down Under” as Art prefers, would like to remind all the chefs that they’re in Las Vegas. Short of forcing everyone to carve a bust of Celine Dion out of butter, the best way of making it clear that you’re in the world of airless casinos and sparkly fountains is games of chance, right? And that’s sort of what the first Quickfire entails. The chefs pair up and sit around a table in a Blackjack-like situation, where Curtis deals out cards with the two mystery ingredients that the chefs have to combine into a dish. What actually is going into the dishes isn’t as much of a problem as the combination. Pork tenderloin and bologna don’t seem like a great match no matter how much you fancy it up. In 15 minutes, each of the pairs whip up something that looks palatable, if a tad bizarre. Chris Cosentino and Patricia Yeo take the first win—and a cool $10,000—for a beef and catfish dish that dazzled the card dealers who judged the plates.