Wedding Wars on Top Chef

Instead of Restaurant Wars, this year the chefs were given the challenge of Wedding Wars; two teams competing against each other while catering a wedding. There would be no redo, as they have done in previous seasons when competing in Restaurant Wars; since the wedding they were to accommodate was the next day. In fact, they were told they would have to stay up all night cooking.

The quick fire challenge this week, as we have also seen in previous seasons, split the contestants into two teams of four cutting or mixing items in a relay race to see which team triumphed. The important decision of who would team up together was decided by pulling knives. The teams were divided not only for the quick fire but for the elimination challenge as well. The result of the knife pull found Richard, Stephanie, Antonia and Andrew competing against the team of Spike, Dale, Lisa and Nikki. Tom Colicchio judged the quick fire challenge, with immunity a thing of the past, as the competition narrows. The race had the chefs pealing oranges, filleting monkfish, and whipping mayonnaise. Lisa started her team with a bang racing ahead pealing oranges, however, when Andrew used a peeler and whipped through the artichokes he made up valuable time and the teams were even when the artichokes were done. The last chefs to compete were Stephanie and Nikki mixing the mayonnaise and that was when we saw Stephanie outwork Nikki, who grew tired even hesitating to take a breath, and Stephanie pulled in a win for her team. Dale threw a little fit about losing the quick fire hitting a locker, kind of reminiscent of the scene when Zoe was sent home resulting in his getting into a shouting match with Lisa.

The bride and groom were Cory and JP, wedding planners themselves, who each gave a food preference that would be the basis for the elimination challenge. The bride preferring meat and potatoes while her groom chose Italian-style food as his favorite. The quick fire winners; Richard, Andrew, Antonia and Stephanie; were given the choice of bride's table or groom's table to cook for. They decided to cook for the bride's table including the bride's wedding cake, a brave decision! That left the groom's table for the team of Spike, Lisa, Dale, and Nikki.

The banquet was served on two decked out tables, one for the bride and one for the groom, with the chefs as servers and one person on each team left in the kitchen to keep cooking. The chefs were not only responsible for the food (each team cooking for 125 people), but also for the flowers and the decor. This must have been the worlds most trusting bride to leave all that responsibility to the chefs on a reality show. Gale Gand, a top pastry chef was the guest judge. Short ribs and blue cheese served by the bride's team was well liked, along with the pizza served by the bride's team. In fact the flat bread pizza served by the groom's team was not as successful being messy and hard to chew. At the dinner the bride's team outshined the grooms as far as the comments by guests and judges. Both cakes were a succress. They looked good, they were moist, and tasty.

Dale seemed unhappy to be in the kitchen taking on so many responsibilities. I was impressed with Richard as his competitive spirit took the high road more often than not. Stephanie, who made the beautiful bride's cake, is also still a favorite. Immediately, it became obvious that the solidarity on the team of Richard, Antonia, Andrew and Stephanie would be difficult to surpass. Richard and Andrew are both so innovative they are bound to have an advantage.

Spike, Dale, Niki and Lisa had many problems due to the fact that their personalities clash. Dale and Lisa have never gotten along and Spike has had difficulty in the past working on a team. Since Nikki is proficient in Italian cooking and that is the choice of the groom she seemed to leading their team without taking responsibility. She obviously wanted to dodge being blamed for anything that might go wrong. Lisa, to her credit, took on the groom's cake, German Chocolate.

By the time the chefs worked all night, they were all exhausted. Dale was caught out of his comfort zone, his team fumes and complains and Dale's temper flares. Not surprisingly it was Richard's team who won and he graciously said he wanted to give the award to Stephanie who then said "let's split it," but I did hear Richard say no it is yours. Richard was impressed with the cake Stephanie made so he gave her the prize, a $2,000 Crate & Barrel gift certificate. Everyone likes Stephanie and Richard even on all the blogs I have read so I believe they both have a good chance to make it to the finals. Stay likeable Richard, the TV persona may not be the real one but if you want to be a TV personality and go into that end of the business, i.e. televised cooking show, then likeable is what people want for that type of host. Yes, even Anthony Bourdain is likable, or should I say mean in a genial and very amusing way.

The losing team was Dale, Lisa (who was never in trouble on this show since everyone loved the taste of the groom's cake if not the look of it), Spike, and Nikki. Nerves were raw as the least favorite chefs waited for the judges to decide their fate, Tom Colicchio said Nikki's food tasted badly, including her home-made pasta dish, certainly not a good indication of her permanence on the show and she was among the favorites during the "Kid's Week " challenge. I am sure she is an accomplished chef (she does run her own restaurant), a great person, and a good cook. However, her personality as we saw on this show was annoying more than once. It was no bombshell when Padma Lakshmi told her to pack her knives and leave.

I thought I noticed on one of the previews for the next show that Sam Talbot, a Top Chef fan favorite, will be the guest judge, remember Sam from Season 2? Everyone really liked him so that should be fun to watch. Since I only saw ta small bit of that preview once and have not been able to catch it again, I am not sure if it was Sam, we will see. I can say that a former contestant is definitely the guest judge on the next show.