Top Chef recap: Don’t worry, be hoppy

Cheers, Top Chef-ers! For our second episode of season 21, the chef-testants tackled one of Wisconsin’s most beloved exports—no, not cheese. (Per previews, all those curds and whey will be happening next week.) We’re talking about beer, with Milwaukee-bred breweries like Pabst, Joseph Schlitz, and Miller (more on them in a bit) famously giving the suds-loving city its nickname of “The Beer Capital of the World.” And this week’s Quickfire Challenge—the first of the season—went back to beer basics by focusing on hops, those funky little flowers that give a good brewski all of its bitterness, aroma, and flavor.

The Top Chef kitchen was filled with enough greenery to rival a Bushwick two-bedroom. To impress guest judge Joe Flamm, the Chicago-based toque you might remember from winning Top Chef season 15, host Kristen Kish tasked the chef-testants with composing a dish centered around the bitter blooms. “Hops are like oregano on steroids, very soapy and very bitter if you use too much of it,” warned Amanda. (“And they smell like weed!” she gleefully added.) As a reminder, there would be no immunity for winning the 30-minute cook, but $5,000 from Well Fargo would sweeten any bitterness over that.

Monsieur Kévin decided to do a dessert—roasted blackfruits with a crumble and hops-infused oil, specifically—to combat the hops’, well, hoppiness, a move shared by Laura, who infused a rice pudding with the buds. Kristen and Joe praised both plates, but Laura came out the winner, pocketing that five grand and the bragging rights that came with it. In the bottom, however, was Danny, which wasn’t much of a surprise to the Brooklyn chef, who had to do a last-minute retcon of the “unpalatable” hops au poivre he made to sauce a grilled rack of lamb. (“That black pepper was wild, bro!” proclaimed Flamm.) Similarly disappointing was the overly smoked duck from Valentine and the undercooked farro in Kenny’s hops-and-kombu broth, though the latter cook at least got the biggest laugh of the Quickfire with his twerk-tweak confusion.

The lager-sloshed theme continues with this week’s Elimination, sponsored by Miller Brewing Company, the oldest large-scale operating brewery in the U.S. A freshly poured pint is only as good as the bar snacks it’s enjoyed alongside, thus the chefs had to split into two teams and transform booze-soaking bites like pretzels, popcorn, and pickles into a progressive, seven-course fine-dining experience. “Bar snacks but fine dining? What does that even mean?!” Kaleena worried. Alisha herself was concerned, but more so about how those knife draws split up the group, with fine-dining heavy-hitters like Kévin, Laura, and Danny on the opposite team: “This definitely feels like Team Rustic Food versus Team Fine Dining.”

But before the two factions went to foodie war, they had to settle some tensions within their own ranks. On the yellow team, Rasika and Milwaukee Dan both wanted the dessert course, but Dan gave in because he’s a sweet Midwestern mensch. (Also, movingly, he shared that he is living with Kennedy’s disease, a degenerative muscular disease similar to ALS. Though he was initially scared to share with the cast his loss of basic muscle functions, the cooks rallying around him later in the episode was a genuinely sweet kumbaya moment.)

Faced with a similar dessert dilemma, the red team opted to do something far more risky and have both a beer-and-pretzel “pre-dessert” from Amanda and a popcorn-caramel budino (Italian custard) from Kaleena. The second we heard this double-dessert plan, we could viscerally feel Tom Colicchio’s eyes rolling upward in annoyance.

Inside the historic Miller beer caves, the chefs serve a table of ten including our judging trio, Flamm, some Miller High Life reps, local restaurant talent (Birch chef-owner Kyle Knall, Ahan’s Jamie Brown-Soukaseume), and, oddly, comic Charlie Berens, a.k.a. “The Champagne of Comedians,” whatever that means. (Among his many sparkling culinary critiques: “Lemme tell ya, Kenny brings that to the potluck…he will get an invite back. Those are my thoughts.” Ooo-kay.)

Despite the yellow team initially feeling intimidated by Team Red’s high-minded plating, the diners overall were more keen for Team Yellow’s plate progression, from Savannah’s pickled cucumber-melon salad to Kenny’s potato-chip pavé to Manny’s chicken mole thickened with mixed nuts. But it’s Rasika’s “huge risk” dessert of pretzel-barley cake with honey mustard sabayon and a pretzel granita—rescued last-minute by a rookie blast of liquid nitrogen—that earned Team Yellow the overall victory and Rasika specifically immunity next episode and a cool $10,000 to take home. “Unless you threw someone a challenge like this, this would just never come out of somebody’s head,” Tom commended her oddball thinking.

The red team was plagued from the start, with Monsieur Kévin making a mess out of his overly salty olive canapés, a brininess that Charly’s potato chip-crusted Spanish mackerel was sorely missing. And though Colicchio didn’t disappoint with his annoyance over that double-dessert situation (“I hate that,” he immediately grumped), once the judges’ table stopped “crapping” on the concept, they actually enjoyed Amanda’s flavorful pretzel foam and Kaleena’s “elegant and simple” budino.

Less loved, however, was Valentine’s too thick beer-and-corn soup with toasted corn kernels, with the stodgy bowl sadly sending the Dorchester chef back to Massachusetts. Like competitors Kristen Kish and Joe Flamm before him, Valentine has the opportunity to return via Last Chance Kitchen, however, which itself is shaking things up for the season: For the first time ever, the digital spinoff is introducing a brand-new chef-testant who can break into the main game late. The competition is really brewing now!

Stray observations

• We’ve only just gone through the departure of Padma Lakshmi, so we don’t want more judges’ table change-ups anytime soon, but if Colicchio were to say goodbye to Top Chef one day, Joe Flamm would make a good replacement. He’s got gravitas when needed (“There’s no bad chefs in this room. There might be bad days and bad dishes, but there are no bad chefs,” he assured the evening’s bottom three) balanced with a good deal of humor. (“How dare you?” he jokingly barked at Kish when she wanted less cheese in one of the night’s starters.)
• We’ll admit, when Amanda shared that her dish was inspired by her “dungeon master,” wizards and rogues were not what we were picturing.
• Five delightful words: Carla Hall on a tractor!