Top Chef Season Five - Episode 1
Melting Pot: Bravo's Hit Reality Series Goes to New York City
Dec 13, 2008
Bravo’s hit reality series Top Chef returns for another season with seventeen talented chefs from around the world. Each week, one contestant will be asked to pack their knives and leave the Top Chef kitchen for good. The first episode begins with the contestants meeting and mingling. Old friends Lauren Starling Hope and Patrick Dunlea are reunited while other chefs wonder what their first challenge will be. They do not have to wait long to find out.
Quickfire Challenge
Before the chefs have a chance to settle in or see their apartment, Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio welcome the chefs to this season of Top Chef in New York City with their first Quickfire Challenge. The theme of the first challenge is apples, and it begins with a test of basic skills, consisting of three rounds. The surprise twist to this Quickfire Challenge is that the losing contestant will be sent home immediately.
In Round One, the chefs are challenged to peel fifteen apples with a paring knife. The first nine chefs to finish will be safe while the next eight will have to continue on to Round Two. Stefan Richter finishes first, followed by Fabio Viviani, Hosea Rosenberg, Ariane Duarte, Jeff McInnis, Melissa Harrison, Carla Hall, Richard Sweeney, and Jamie Lauren. The nine chefs step to the side, relieved to have made it safely through the Quickfire Challenge.
The remaining competitors are then challenged to dice the apples into a very fine cut called a brunoise. Danny Gagnon, Alex Eusebio, Eugene Villiatora, and Jill Snyder finish first and join the safe group. Lauren, Patrick, Radhika Desai and Leah Cohen move on to Round Three, where they are challenged to cook something using the apples they have just prepared. They are only given 20 minutes, a burner, a saute pan, and a table of ingredients.
The two judges taste all the dishes, and Tom proclaims Radhika and Leah to be the top two. Lauren and Patrick fall to the bottom, but Patrick has the slight edge. Lauren is asked to pack her knives and go.
Elimination Challenge
The contestants are given the details of their elimination challenge. Each chef pulls a knife from the knife block. The knives pair them up and assign them each a New York neighborhood known for a specific ethnic cuisine. The pairs will be judged head to head, with one chef being eligible to win and the other being at risk for elimination. The chef’s are taken to their New York apartment and get to know each other better before their challenge.
The teams scatter around New York City to explore local specialty markets and choose ethnic ingredients for their dishes. Upon returning to the Top Chef kitchen, they are given two hours to prepare their dishes. When the time expires, the judges enter the kitchen and the chefs are excited to discover that Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten will be the guest judge for this week’s elimination challenge, along with Padma, Tom, and Gail Simmons.
Stefan, Jamie, Jill, Jeff, Hosea, Leah, Danny, and Eugene are chosen as the top competitors from each pair, while the other chefs wait to find out the results of Judge’s Table.
Judge’s Table
Eugene, Leah, Stefan, Ariane, and Patrick are called into the judging room while the other contestants wait in the stew room. The judges begin by speaking to each of the top competitors about their dish. Stefan is declared the winner and he, Lean, and Eugene are allowed to leave.
Ariane is critiqued for the basic cooking mistake of undercooking her farro while Patrick’s commentary is primarily about his conceptual failure. They return to the stew room so the judges can deliberate. Ultimately, Patrick is asked to pack his knives and go.
Stay tuned to find out who is eliminated in Top Chef: New York Episode Two, “Show Your Craft.” New episodes air Wednesday nights at 10 PM on Bravo. Visit the Top Chef: New York Page for more episode summaries, cast profiles, and more!
