Five Reasons to Watch Tonight's Top Chef

Bravo’s foodie survival contest only has seven cheftestants left! Last week, a catatonic Radhika sabotaged her team by fumbling her front-of-house duties and exerting no discernible influence over her kitchen. Wounded that she wasn’t even there to wave goodbye at the end of the meal, the judges retaliated by sending her home. Who will suffer the judges’ wrath this week? We’d like to see revenge exacted on either Leah or Hosea, the cuckolding cheftestants who made out on screen last week despite having significant others back home. But as the judges are fond of saying, this contest is all about the food.

In any case, here are the subplots to look for this week…

5) Super Bowl food

If we understand the trailer for this week’s episode, the remaining chefs from Season Five will cook against a collection of chefs from previous seasons. Everyone seemed to be wearing athletic attire, so we’re guessing that they’re cooking for a Super Bowl party—if that’s right, it’ll be great to see prissy Jeff get his hands dirty frying up some chicken wings or making a big greasy batch of chili. Our man Stefan made a mean Spam soup the other week, so we assume he’s safe.

4) Carla hanging on for dear life

Her Top Chef tenure has been erratic to say the least, and her recent self defense at Judges Table seemed to leave at least one judge physically ill. We suspect that she is not long for this program, despite her occasional ability to produce something edible.  

3) Toby Young’s forked tongue 

When this acerbic Brit joined the show, we were led to believe that he’d spit acid into every chef’s eyes, just before pounding their brittle skulls with a meat cleaver. This is, after all, the man who wrote a book called How To Lose Friends & Alienate People. He delivered on his promise early on, memorably describing one dish as “the bland leading the bland.” Lately, though, he’s softened up. “I have no doubt that Radhika is an excellent chef,” he blogged, “but in last night’s episode she dropped the ball.” And also: “In retrospect, I feel bad about saying Ariane can’t cook, but I was angry about the sacrilegious treatment of the Stone Barns livestock.” Buddy, don’t qualify your put-downs. If we wanted mushy, we’d ask Carla to make us dessert. 

2) Residual tension between Hosea and Leah

One of them will outlast the other (that’s how the show works, after all), which should make for an awkward, tearful goodbye in the stew room. In the meantime, we’re sure to get more anguished hand-wringing about their little tryst.

1) Spike vs. Stefan

In our house, the subject of Stefan is a source of major disagreement. We think he’s a supertalented bad-ass who justifies his ego with his food. Our better half thinks he’s a pompous jerk. We had a virtually identical disagreement last season over Spike, though I seem to recall being less-impressed by Spike’s food than I am by Stefan’s. Anyway! It should be great fun to watch these two monumentally egotistical chefs butt heads when the Season Four and Five chefs do battle. To paraphrase the great English chef Thom Yorke, it’s gonna be knives out.