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Top Chef California Episode 5: Big Gay Wedding

This is a big Jason episode, everybody. Are whipped cream potatoes the new pea puree?

Allecia Vermillion
Author: Allecia Vermillion
6 min.read
Each week we’ll watch chef Jason Stratton display his mad skills and sartorial flair in the show’s 13th season.
 
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Photo by: Dale Berman/Bravo

Previously, on Top Chef: Bro overload! Comically impractical golfing attire!

 
And then there were 13. And then those 13 piled in some mini vans and headed to a date farm, then on to the Top Chef kitchen, where they find Padma and Chrissy Teigen. There is so much giggling and hair tossing and eye makeup happening right now.
 
Chrissy pouts that dates are “sweet and succulent and sticky.” Padma joins in: “Like you.” Jesus, why don’t you two just oil up and have a pillow fight already. They pause amidst their sex kitten shenanigans to instruct the chefs on their quickfire challenge: Use dates (the food kind) to prepare a dish that reminds you of the best date (the romantic kind) you ever had.
 
Jason recalls one night early in his relationship with Harry, his partner of 17 years, where the two went to a fancy restaurant “that was courting me to work there.” The simplicity of those roasted carrots, says Jason, convinced him he wanted to cook that type of food. It was also apparently pretty convincing for Padma and Chrissy Teigen. After pursing their lips around everyone’s date dishes, they declare Jason’s charred carrots with with cumin, brown butter, lime, and Deglet Nour dates the winner.
 
Let’s take a moment to fist pump. Jason had his first win! Off a dish inspired by Cafe Juanita.
 
This date-driven victory helps Jason relax a bit, he explains to the camera, “especially after not feeling comfortable in this environment.” That’s presumably a reference to his irritation with the general bro-ings on (sorry) he mentioned in the last episode.
 
Did you think Padma was done spouting tortured date wordplay? Silly. “You haven’t sealed the deal yet,” she purrs to the group. “First comes love, then comes marriage.” Specifically the marriage of 25 couples. Padma brings out “acclaimed chef, restaurateur, and all-around teddy bear” Art Smith to lay out the logistics of what he terms a big, fat, gay wedding. Padma, of course, will be officiating. Bravo knows its demographic.
 
The chefs must cater this grand affair. Padma sashays out of the room with some parting words: “My outfit is going to be insane.”
 
The chefs circle up to plan their menu. Phillip and his man bun offer to do steak and potatoes, uttering what will prove to be crucial words: “It’s going to taste like mashed potatoes.” Jason ends up working with Angelina, who is young, consistently on the bottom, and cooks Latin-driven food that’s pretty, er, free spirited. Jason’s fairly fastidious. This can only go well. But off they go to execute Jason’s vision of caponet: chicken braised with pancetta and stuffed in leaves of swiss chard. “It’s a really beautiful, precise dish,” he tells the camera. “I don’t think Angelina understands the process has to be exact.” Angelina, ya burnt.
 
Pretty much all the footage of the two chefs’ working relationship consists of him wanting to take his time and be exacting, and her wanting to just bang this shiz out, already.
 
“I am going to win for this dish,” Jason tells the camera. “If you are along for the win, that’s great…but I’m not going to let you fuck it up.”

Legit drama based on competition and actual culinary aptitude with a dash of personality clash? Now this is the Top Chef I came to watch.

Meanwhile, Phillip and his man bun have inserted their own twist in the proceedings. Tom Colicchio would be proud…except I bet he finds this guy as annoying as I do. Sure, he’s making buttery mashed potatoes like he promised, but then he runs them through a whipping siphon so they have a texture akin to whipped cream. Kwame, who’s making the sauce for these potatoes (which now have the consistency of sauce themselves) has a taste and deems them notsogreat.

The next morning, the betrothed gather before Padma. Her outfit is indeed fierce, but her hair is even fiercer. While she ushers 25 couples into lawful matrimony (you may now kiss your bride–and your grooms!), the chefs are busy setting up their chafing dishes.

Angelina tells some diners that their chard-wrapped chicken is “almost like a dolma.” Jason finds this a wee bit aggravating. He (rightfully I think) reminds her that if they promise a dolma and deliver something totally different, the chefs will call them out on it.

When speaking directly to the camera, he’s a little more unvarnished:  “Don’t say that. It’s completely different. This is my dish. I know how it’s supposed to be. Don’t fucking tell me what you don’t know.” Tom and Gail and Art and Padma praise the dish to the high heavens.

At judges table, Tom and Padma take a moment to acknowledge that marriage equality is an even bigger deal than a cooking competition show, and cite Jason’s dish as one of their favorites.

Karen, Giselle, Phillip, and his man bun land on the bottom. The judges try to suss out why Phillip’s potatoes were so stupid. He recalls his exact words when describing his potato dish to his fellow chefs: “Think of it as a sauce.”

Jason interjects from the sidelines: “I don’t think that’s how the dish was described to the team.” Marjorie chimes in: “You described them as mashed potatoes.” Phillip’s all “Yeah, in the form of whipped cream.” Buddy…you do know a camera recorded your every word, right? The editors helpfully splice in some footage of Phillip (and his man bun) saying no such thing.

As the judges deliberate, Jason and Phillip’s whipped cream potato dispute continues in the stew room. “You don’t have to believe me,” Phillip tells Jason. Oh my god. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.

The winner: Kwame made sauces for two separate dishes and takes the win for gussying up Wesley’s shrimp with his own tangerine and ginger nuoc cham.

The loser: The judges table sniping between Phillip and scatterbrain Giselle and Karen is painful to watch. Eventually Giselle gets sent home for being too wishy washy and not doing much in her dish with Karen. Kwame’s excellent eggplant relish redeems Phillip’s sucky potatoes and he and his man bun will stick around to say ridiculous things for at least another week.

Next, on Top Chef: The chefs journey to San Diego and cook with beer. Isaac makes mayonnaise out of…bananas? Oh and we get an unnecessary close-up of someone’s butt crack. That’s all it takes to guarantee I’ll be tuning in.

Minutiae:

  • I dig the giant silver hummingbird boutonniere Art Smith was rocking on his green linen jacket.
  • You have to wonder, did anyone consider sending Kwame home, just for the drama factor of having a guy win, then lose…all in the same episode?
  • Tom’s story of why he wears two wedding rings was particularly sweet. Especially since he’s not a guy naturally prone to wearing excess jewelry.
  • Classy move: Art Smith struggled with making a wedding cake on Top Chef Masters, so he provided an awesome (rainbow-layered) cake for this wedding, thus sparing the contestants from that particular form of torture…and sparing the couples from eating crappy, crooked cake on their wedding day.
  • Even through the filter of Bravo’s heightened drama and cheese, these couples being able to get married (by Padma, no less) got me all misty eyed.
  • Between Isaac coveting that date-harvesting device (basically a machete that’s attached to a giant leather cuff) and Chad and Amar celebrating the end of a challenge with a chest bump, I am definitely picking up on the fratty stuff Jason mentioned.
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




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Allecia Vermillion
Allecia Vermillion
Allecia Vermillion has spent a decade at Seattle Met, arriving as food and drink editor, and expanding her role over the years. She served as the magazine’s editor in chief until moving into a newly created executive editor role in 2021. She spearheads Seattle Met’s food and drink coverage and oversees home design content. Allecia’s writing has earned her multiple journalism awards and two James Beard Award nominations over the years. A native of Portland, Oregon, Allecia began her writing life as a newspaper reporter in the Chicago suburbs before making a grateful return to the Pacific Northwest. She has an English degree from Washington University (no, the one in St. Louis) and a masters in journalism from Northwestern University. She lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.