The roof was most certainly on fire (literally and figuratively speaking) during last night's episode of Top Chef All-Stars. First, they were greeted by their old competitors who beat them out of the title, then they had the pressure of cooking for "royalty".
For the Quickfire, the chefs had to cook head-to-head against the winners from their seasons of Top Chef for a chance at winning $10k each. Mike V., the obvious favorite, had to compete against Jersey Mike and — to everyone's surprise — was beaten. The same shock and surprise came to us viewers as Carla lost to Hosea (I can never be bothered to remember his last name). Needless to say, she wasn't on her 'A' game last night. Meanwhile, Tiffany managed to beat out Kevin Sbraga. The 'Chicago threesome', Antonia, Blais and TC winner Stephanie Izard competed against each other — Stephanie barely managed to beat Antonia and she went on to lose to Richard.
And then we saw the former TC champs no more in the episode (which was kind of a let down). I mean, they flew them all the way out there for that?!
This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2011.