‘Top Chef: New Orleans’ review: Lea Michele and a scary amount of cheese
Personally, we never thought that there was any way that we could get enough of cheese. After tonight’s new episode of “Top Chef: New Orleans,” we may be questioning that to a certain degree. Did it look mostly delicious? Sure, but tonight suffered from something a themed challenge like this should never suffer from: A relative lack of creativity.
We’re going to start here by saying that we want to skip over that Quickfire, mostly because the product placement for it was so aggressive and unnecessary that it blew even the standard “Top Chef” product placement out of the water. Usually, they are better than this, and we don’t mind the cards or the brand-named products in the kitchen so much.
The Halloween-themed challenge (which was ironically filmed probably in the summertime) was led by Lea Michele, who probably made everyone groan the moment that she said that she wanted something that was mostly vegan, with the exception of maybe cheese and a few other little things that we didn’t see. For whatever reason, three people decided to do risotto balls, and you would think that since there were teams of two, they would have tried something to stand out more.
The best moment of this entire hour came courtesy of Carlos Gaytan, who basically spent the entire episode trying to get Lea’s attention. She wanted cheese, and he gave her a whole pot of it! We actually don’t remember that much about his dish, and it’s funnier to say that he basically won for making a spicy bowl of cheese. This is one of those challenges were you have to pay attention to what the client wants, and if you deliberately go away from that, you’re in trouble.
On the bottom end of the spectrum, Michael Sichel and Nina Compton struggled mostly because they couldn’t stand each other, and to be fair, we don’t blame Nina considering how many times he used the word “boo-boo.” Yuck. The only thing just as condescending was Bene Bartolotta (a guy who was on “Battle of the Sous Chefs” and should know better) and Brian Huskey deciding that they were going to make of all things salads with some sort of “spa” theme. Who wants to go to a spa at a Halloween party! It was almost like they were sticking their noses up at Lea and thinking that salads are all vegans eat.
When we think of great creative challenges, we’re reminded of the “Snow White and the Huntsman” one, and we only feel like half of the chefs got the bill. This still was a fun challenge with even an Andy Cohen cameo to boot, but it’s not what it could have otherwise been. Seeing Michael go home was, basically, something we’re not going to lose any sleep over. Grade: B-.
Did you find that tonight’s episode was a little too … cheesy, and did the right contestant go home? Share below! Meanwhile, click here if you want to read some more news related to the show.
Photo: Bravo