The season premiere of Top Chef: Las Vegas may just go down as one of the best season openers of the show yet. Not only are the 17 chefs battling it out on Top Chef this season more experienced and competitive than ever, the show has also added in a few new twists to up the stakes.
After the usual "intro" of the new competing chefs on the show, the contestants headed to the M Hotel Resort & Casino for their first Quickfire Challenge. Divided off into teams, the chefs were thrown into the classic mise en place relay race. The teams were asked to open clams, strip prawns, clean lobsters and cut two prime rib chops. Pretty standard stuff. But here's where the first twist comes in.
Seattle native Robin Leventhal drew a gold chip during the team sort and was not only given a pass on the challenge, but received immunity. Lucky Las Vegas indeed! The blue team - Mattin Noblia, Bryan Voltaggio, Jennifer Carroll and Jesse Sandlin - raced through the relay race to win with no problems. Some of the other teams, however, foundered badly. The red team was crippled by out lesbian contestant Preeti Mistry's abysmal inability to shuck clams; --insert stereotypical joke here --she was still on the first leg of the relay when the blue team had already finished. The green team's Jennifer Zavala sliced herself to pieces prying open clams and ended up bleeding all over everything.
After the blue team's victory, the Top Chef judges threw in yet another twist. The four blue team members were tasked with a "cook-off" to determine a Quickfire winner. The best chef would be given a $15,000 chip from the casino as a prize. Robin was offered the chance to give up her immunity to compete for the prize, but declined - leading to a few grumbles about her lack of confidence from contestant Michael Isabella, who said it just means "one less old lady I have to worry about." Ouch.
Philadelphia chef "I can be a freakin' bitch in the kitchen" Jennifer Carrol wowed the judges with a simple clam ceviche in the cook-off and pocked the $15,000 prize - after some awkward hugs and kisses with Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio.
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Continuing with the Las Vegas Sin City theme, the Elimination Challenge focused on the vices of the competing chefs. Each chef was asked to create a dish inspired by one of their worst vices. Turns out a lot of the Top Chef competitors seem to have quite a hefty love/hate relationship with alcohol and included lots of it in their 'vice' dishes. The liquor fumes coming out of the kitchen just might have been strong enough to knock over a small elephant.
Iconic master chef and restaurateur Wolfgang Puck served as the guest judge for the Elimination Challenge. Puck may just hold the distinction of being one of the most entertaining, intelligent and well-spoken judges to ever grace the Top Chef panel. Hope he'll be a regular guest in the future as well!
The final Elimination Challenge was a close call between Quickfire winner Jennifer Carroll and Atlanta chef Kevin Gillespie. The judges praised Carroll's perfect Halibut but were won over in the end by Gillespie's "procrastination" Arctic Char and Turnip Salsa Verde.
Ironically enough, the chef who got booted was the same one who refused to unpack her suitcase at the start of the episode because she was too "superstitious". Tattooed self-taught chef Jennifer Zavala was eliminated over her badly cooked Chile Relleno Stuffed with Seitan. No surprise, since everyone thought her idea to use the gummy Seitan wheat gluten substance was a terrible idea.
Zavala complained she was just trying to do something "different" and kind of implied the judges just didn't get her food. To which Tom Colicchio said on his recap blog post: "Doing something 'different' is fine, as long as by 'different' you mean 'more exceptional.'" Instead, the Top Chef head judge said Zavala's dish was underwhelming, "poorly done" and "just a mess".
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Happily, all three members of Bravo's new 'Rainbow Team' made it through the first episode, despite Preeti Mistry's horrible performance in the Quickfire Challenge. Lesbian contestant Ashley Merriman may have finished in the middle of the pack, but her humble and engaging personality made her a star in the kitchen. Gay competitor Ash Fulk didn't get all that much screen time, but often that can be a good thing. The chefs who aren't bad enough to be noticed, but are good enough to stay in the game on Top Chef often seem to make it quite far in the competition.
With a terrific level of skill and experience demonstrated by the chefs during the first episode and plenty more Las Vegas style twists sure to shake things up, this could well be the best season of Top Chef yet. And it doesn't hurt that so far most of the competitors actually seem to get along pretty well and cooperate in the kitchen even when on opposing sides. We wouldn't mind, however, if Michael Isabella gets the boot next. His sexist attitude and whiny trash talking are really the only negative dampers on the show so far.
Watch Bravo's video of clips from Top Chef: Las Vegas' premiere:
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