Last night's premiere of Top Chef Masters season 3 brought us new faces, new challenges and a very smokin' new host.
They're doing things a little differently for this go round: Letting the 12 master chef'testants compete throughout the season until they're whittled down to one Top Chef Master. Gael Greene has been replaced with food critic Ruth Reichl this season and Kelly Choi got the boot to make way for the hottie Aussie TV chef, Curtis Stone (no complaining here). Luckily, we've still got James Oseland and his fabulous Mr. Rogers sweaters.
For the Quickfire, the chefs had to get into teams of two and grab mystery boxes filled with two different ingredients that even a stoner would never combine (i.e.: dragonfruit and sardines, cockles and Marmite, etc.). Each pair had to create their own dish utilizing said ingredients and go head-to-head in front of the judges. Most of the chefs came up with some very creative dishes, while a few couldn't even plate up on time. Could some of the Masters be a little rusty?
The Elimination Challenge teams were chosen by who won and lost during the Quickfire. Then the bomb was dropped on them: Restaurant Wars! Yes, they pulled this out for the first episode. It should have been no sweat off of their backs, as they've all opened more than a few restaurants in their day, but this challenge proved to be about both prowess in the kitchen and their ability to work together as equals — instead of being the head chef and getting staff to do all of the dirty work.
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2011.
