[Editor’s note: The A.V. Club will be back to recap next week’s episode,”Restaurant Wars.”]
With episode seven—punnily titled “You Wanna Pizza Me?”—we’ve officially made it halfway through Top Chef: Destination Canada, leaving us with nine contestants still fighting it out for that $250,000, as well as a feature in Food & Wine magazine, a trip to the prestigious Food & Wine Classic in Aspen and, in a franchise first, their own headlining dinner at the historic James Beard House in New York and the opportunity to present at the starry James Beard Awards in Chicago.
And as the title suggests, Thursday’s installment moves on from last week’s pickle palooza to a full-blown pizza fest, with the remaining chefs being asked to let their culinary freak flags fly with unexpected and unconventional pizza combinations. But before we can get to the main ’za event, we’ve got the Quickfire Challenge—and a kitchen full of filthy pots and pans. That’s on purpose, announces Kristen Kish, alongside this week’s guest judge, Top Chef: Canada host Eden Grinshpan. After choosing from the dirty cookware, the chefs have to use their selected stain as inspiration for their Quickfire dish. You’ll want to win this one, Kristen announces: The victor will take home a cool ten grand.
Henry Lu, who very much thought he was a goner after last week’s garbage-pickle fiasco, has renewed focus and fire. He reinterprets his chosen food stain, oatmeal, as sweet rice balls but made with oat flour and filled with maple and butter, harking back to a dish his mom used to make him as a kid. Elsewhere, Massimo Piedimonte, fittingly, gets tomato sauce, so he’s doing a purist gnocchi alla Sorrentina, whereas Paula Endara Larrea is going against tradition with her vegetarian lasagna, swapping out the usual flat noodles for sliced butternut squash layered with cashew ricotta and mushroom-tomato sauce. However, pulling off a lasagna during a Quickfire is “virtually impossible,” she worries, saying that her layers “are a mess.” Even more inventive is Cesar Augusto Murillo’s smoked salmon “cappuccino” with coffee mustard and coffee crumbles. Lana Lagomarsini wonders openly about the oddball combination but given Cesar’s standout pickle plate last episode, she notes, “Who am I to question him?”
After calling out Paula’s shaggy lasagna, Cesar’s coffee-and-salmon combo, and Bailey’s guacamole-inspired salad as this week’s bottom three, Kristen and Eden announce that Henry has redeemed himself from last week’s low point to become the new Quickfire victor, taking home $10,000 for his glutinous rice balls. “I’m in shock; I’m so excited,” Henry proclaims “I needed this.”
And that confidence boost couldn’t come at a better time. Not only will the Elimination Challenge feature the final immunity win of the season, Kristen tells our competitors, but it will also involve firing up fiercely creative pizza pies for a crowd of 70 hungry eaters, including judges Tom Collichio and Gail Simmons as well as two special guests: molecular gastronomy giant Wylie Dufresne (who owns Stretch Pizza in New York) and We, The Pizza chef-owner Spike Mendelsohn (who was “a beast” on his season of Top Chef: Chicago, per Tristen).
Taking inspiration from the controversial Canadian-born concoction known as Hawaiian pizza (more on that in a bit), the chefs will have to create pies that push the limits of ’za tradition. “There’s a lot of opportunity to have some fun,” Dufresne says. They’ll have 30 minutes and $250 at Whole Foods along with an hour of prep that evening in the Top Chef kitchen—capped off with a sopping private excursion to Niagara Falls—and another 90 minutes the next day to finish cooking before service at the Ravine Vineyard Estate Winery.
There are some shopping snafus during their Whole Foods trip: Paula nearly mixes up her cart with Vinny Loseto’s, and Bailey is worried that the $250 budget isn’t feasible to feed the crowd. But Henry makes the worst blunder, accidentally forgetting a sack of flour in his cart during checkout. He tries to salvage what he has but the next morning, he nixes the dough entirely for his pho-inspired pie and instead pivots to a sushi-rice base.
Risktaker Cesar also runs into some dough trouble, after adding cocoa powder to his mix for his mole-inspired rounds. His tester ends up sticking to the pizza peel: “Adding cocoa powder might not be so great,” he worries. (Meanwhile, Massimo is nearby living his best dough-tossing pizzaiolo life.)
Following service, the judges spotlight their favorites of the pizza bunch. They love Shua’s scallion-pancake pizza with cumin Szechuan lamb, mozzarella, and tiger salad, which Wylie called “bright and fresh.” Tristen’s kebab-inspired Armenian lahmajoun with lamb, anchovy ranch and pickled grapes is also a standout, with Spike demanding he bottle that ranch and sell it. And Vinny letting loose with a Rueben pie topped with pickles, sauerkraut, and Thousand Island whipped ricotta is also praised. “We don’t often see Vinny having a lot of fun!” Gail cheers. Tristen, however, ultimately takes the final immunity win of the season, marking his third Elimination victory. “Pizza!” he exclaims, adding of Massimo and Vinny: “I beat the two Italian guys!”
Far less successful was Henry’s crumbly rice pizza with pho-marinated brisket, herb pesto, and hoisin sriracha aioli, which made it into the bottom three alongside Cesar’s mole negro pizza—the addition of cocoa powder in the dough might’ve been creative on paper, but tasted burnt in execution, per the judges—and Paula’s overly floppy fugazza (Argentine pizza) with pineapple-braised pork, caramelized onions, and chimichurri. Despite Cesar and Paula’s kitchen misfires, serving what is emphatically not pizza (“It was a bowl of rice!” Tom cried) during a pizza challenge is a fast ticket home, and Henry was sent packing.
“I’m going home because I didn’t make what I wanted to make and I was cooking to survive,” Henry says before his departure for Last Chance Kitchen. “Top Chef pushed me to my absolute limit, but just because something’s hard doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop.”
Stray observations
- • Why the heck are they making pizza during a Canada-set season, you wonder? Apparently, the polarizing Hawaiian pizza—blasphemously topped with pineapple, tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and either ham or bacon—was born in the Great White North by a Greek immigrant in 1962. Unsurprisingly, that announcement was met with some groans (Vinny, Lana), some cheers (Shuai, Paula), and one perfect facepalm (Massimo) from our chefs.
- • The Niagara Falls excursion was cute (“It’s giving natural!”) but we think it was a missed opportunity to not have the chefs cook directly on board that sightseeing boat, waterproof ponchos and all.
- • It’s finally here: Restaurant Wars returns next week. Let the culinary chaos begin.
