Improv in the Kitchen for Top Chef Masters
It's the final elimination round, as the remaining four chefs square off.
The remaining chefs share a common trait-each is a published cookbook author.
For the Quick Fire, each had to cook a recipe from one of their competitors' cookbooks. Chef Jonathan Waxman and Chef Marcus Samuelsson were cooking from one-another's books. The same swap for Chefs Rick Moonen and Suser Lee.
Halfway into the competition, hostest Kelly Choi announced that all of the dishes would be presented as a soup. This twist was a throwback to Season Five of Top Chef when tuna tar-tar became a basil soup.
After a big win for Chef Samuelsson, the chefs took some downtime and went to LA's The Groundlings. The day off turned into a working session though as the improve troop had its audience come up with themes for the chefs to make based on a color, an ingredient and an emotion.
Chef Samuelsson chose violet, pleasure and salmon. Samuelsson uses a low heat for his salmon, and worries about it being fragile when he goes to plate it.
Chef Lee chose chocolate, lust and peanut butter. Lee is going for a desert, and in keeping with The Groundling theme, going for something humorous.
Chef Moonen went with red, anger, and bacon. Moonen will use a dish from his restaurant as the base for his presentation. He hits a snag though when his pork bellies are floating in the warm bath circulator.
Chef Waxman ended up with burnt sienna, depression and avocado. In creating his improve dish, Waxman channels his background as a trombone player.
With 17.5 stars from the judges and The Groundlings cast, Samuelsson swept the night and along with Chef Lee coasted into the Top Chef Masters final.
In a moment of foreboding while shopping for the elimination challenge, Chef Moonen hoped to go head to head with Chef Waxman-who he learned from early in his career. Moonen was hoping the showdown would be in the finals. Tonight the head to head battle was for the final spot in finals.
Chef Moonen prevailed-the judges marked Waxman down for the simplicity of his dish. Gail Simmons commented that he was the best chicken roaster in the competition, but he needed to show more.