Top Chef
EP. TITLE AIR/PUB'L GRADE AUTHOR 4-5Recaplet
The Elements
The Elements - Don't forget the salt! A contestant is forced to pack their knives after forgetting to season.
2008.04.092008.04.10 N/A
Chuck
4-4Recap
Eat Drink Man Woman
Film Food - The cheftestants divide into teams along gender lines and imagine dishes based on their favorite films for a movie-themed dinner party.
2008.04.022008.04.07 B
Chuck
4-3Recap
Blockage
Block Party - OK, we get it. If you're transporting food to serve later, choose your menu items carefully. Can we move on, please?
2008.03.262008.04.02 C
Chuck
4-2Recap
Lions And Penguins And Bears, Oh Why?
Zoo Food - After grazing at a farmer's market for the Quickfire, a high concept Elimination turns the cheftestants into animals and goes to the birds. Blame-resistant Valerie gets axed for some bad-idea blinis.
2008.03.192008.03.24 D
Chuck
4-1Salt For Your Wounds?
Anything You Can Cook I Can Cook Better - In which that most elemental of seasonings proves to be the undoing of our first reject, twice in a row.
2008.03.112008.03.17 D+
Chuck
3-16It Came Upon A Sniff And Sneer
Top Chef Holiday Special - The only chestnuts roasting in this episode are CJ's! ...Okay, not really, but any chance to make a nut joke, right? The ghosts of cheftestants past arrive in Chicago to duke it out for twenty grand, and Tiffani is the one screeching, "God bless me and only me!" (Bonus: Ripert dresses up as Santa Claus.)
2007.12.052007.12.12 C+
Keckler
3-15Relive The Boredom All Over Again
Season 3 Reunion - As if this season didn't drag on for enough eons, we have now have a reunion to remind us of everything we just saw. It's the Alzheimer's Special!
2007.10.092007.10.15 F
Keckler
3-14The Huynh Of A Lifetime
Season 3 Finale, Part II - Hung -- the guy who "grew up eating," the self-proclaimed Certified Professional Asshole, the documented lover of monkey metaphors -- wins Top Chef.
2007.10.022007.10.06 B+
Keckler
3-13Rocky Mountain High
Season 3 Finale, Part I - Trout and elk get the better of the Brians and their cowboy hat.
2007.09.252007.09.30 C+
Keckler
3-12Sara's Told To Cheese Off
Manhattan Project - After chafing herself raw across two dishes, Sara the Jamaican cheesemaker is sent home. To make cheese, presumably.
2007.09.182007.09.23 C
Keckler
3-11Chopping Broccolini
Snacks On A Plane - Breakfast in bed with Padma leads to the cheftestants cooking for the mile-high club (except they're on the ground and not having sex), and CJ is sent home for serving blackened broccolini.
2007.09.112007.09.18 C+
Keckler
3-10Hung's 300 Years War
Chef Overboard - Hung trips out during the Quickfire and makes an edible diorama using Fruit Loops, but after catering a booze cruise for a new fashion designer, Howie's muddy flavors and grey presentation gets him sent home.
2007.09.042007.09.09 A
Keckler
3-9Draining The Tre
Second Helping - After the second installment of "Restaurant Wars," The Garage changes their name to "Quatre" and wins. Sadly, Tre is sent home after executive cheffing his team to a loss.
2007.08.212007.08.27 D
Keckler
3-8Restaurant Stalemate
Season 3 Restaurant Wars - After making burgers in an Immunity-less Quickfire, the remaining cheftestants do the fake restaurant thing, and no one gets sent home.
2007.08.142007.08.20 B+
Keckler
3-7Cold Stone Chillin'
Guilty Pleasures - While working to feed drunk clubbers, Howie proves that he still doesn't know how to spell "team," but it's Sara N. who goes home.
2007.08.072007.08.13 B-
Keckler
3-8Rocco's Got a Brand New Bag: Taste-Testing Bertolli's Skillet Meals for Two
Rocco's Got A Brand New Bag: Taste-Testing Bertolli's Skillet Meals For Two - Two coasts, two brands, and two fairly opinionated mouths. Whose Lean Cuisine will reign supreme?
2007.08.072007.08.08
Keckler
3-6OMG, IQF! WTF?
Freezer Burn - Man, after this episode, tri-color fusilli will be as popular as an actuary at a conference on the Riemann Hypothesis. Coming out on top of the frozen dinners challenge, Tre and CJ are off to Italy, while poor Joey From New York is back to New York.
2007.07.312007.08.07 D
Keckler
3-5Shit Happens
Top Chef 3: Watch What Happens - With Andy Cohen playing the hostess with the mostest, we delve back into the ugly glory of past and present seasons. Mostly, season two, though.
2007.07.242007.07.29 F
Keckler
3-5'Cuz She's Lia-ving On A Jet Plane
Latin Lunch - Hung strings himself up in a frozen pie crust Quickfire, but due to losing a Latin-loving lunch, it's Lia who packs up her troubles in her old kit bag.
2007.07.172007.07.22 B+
Keckler
3-4Eating On The Dole
Cooking By Numbers - It's the first team challenge of the season, during which powdered gelatin rears its ugly head again, and Camille is sent calmly on her placid way.
2007.07.102007.07.16 C-
Keckler
3-3God Save The Hot Dish
Family Favorites - In an effort to tempt Elks away from high-cholesterol foods, the cheftestants are forced to remake such cafeteria classics as stuffed cabbage rolls, fish sticks, and tuna casserole.
2007.06.262007.07.02 B-
Keckler
3-2Bye, Bye Birdsong
Sunny Delights - Sandee is sent packing, Howie and Joey From New York engage in a Battle of the Bulges, and Hung is turning out to be a pretty sweet guy.
2007.06.192007.06.25 B-
Keckler
3-1Tastes Like Chicken
First Impressions - The season begins anew with fifteen cheftestants competing for all the junk that goes along with being Top Chef. Before we even get to know him, Clay from Mississippi is sent home.
2007.06.122007.06.17 A
Keckler
3-1A Very Special Episode of Top Chef
4-Star All Star - The best of Season One (minus Lee Anne) faces off against the dubious best of Season Two, all in the name of charity.
2007.06.052007.06.10 B+
Keckler
2-13So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish
Season 2 Finale, Part II - Marcel misplaces his fish, and loses. Ted Ilan makes pinworms on toast, and wins.
2007.01.302007.02.01 B-
Keckler
2-12The Poke's On You
Season 2 Finale, Part I - Chef Alan Wong officiates this first half of the Hawaii finale, which throws Sam and Elia back to the sea and keeps Marcel and Ted Ilan for the second half.
2007.01.232007.01.29 C+
Keckler
2-11Scalps and Scallops
Sense And Sensuality - Elia and Ted Ilan shave their heads. Cliff tries to shave Marcel's head but gets sent home for being a brute instead. The food was not even an issue.
2007.01.162007.01.22
Keckler
2-10Foaming at the Mouth
Unhappy Customers - Marcel raps and before being sent home, Mike references Charlotte's Web. Will wonders never cease?
2007.01.092007.01.15 C
Keckler
2-9Hate the Sin, Love the Dinner
Seven - The hating of Marcel reaches a boiling point, and Sam loses it, while Ilan becomes an unhinged bully. But it's petty Betty who cooks up sloppy soup and goes home.
2007.01.022007.01.08 C+
Miss Alli
2-8Mia the Martyr
Holiday Spirit - Mia throws herself on her paring knife to keep Elia in the competition.
2006.12.122006.12.18 B+
Keckler
2-7Surfin' So Sorry
The Raw And The Cooked - Breaking fast for some hungry surfers has Elia riding high and Frank dead in the water.
2006.12.052006.12.10 C+
Keckler
2-6What the Turducken?!
Thanksgiving - It's time for a midsummer night's Thanksgiving, and Carlos' salad-eating days are over.
2006.11.212006.11.27 B+
Keckler
2-5Ain't it Offal, Mabel?
Social Service - After playing around with pancreas, organ meat, and Social Hollywood's leftovers, Josie and Marisa are sacrificed on the altar of pig's blood.
2006.11.142006.11.19 C-
Keckler
2-4Cheaters Seem to Prosper
Less Is More - With a vending machine Quickfire and a sticky children-based Elimination, it's almost as if we never left season one! No one is sent home, but Betty should have been.
2006.11.072006.11.10 C
Keckler
2-3TGI Top Chef
Food For The People - After she reads him the quiet riot act, Marcel turns Blazing Eyes on Betty and tries to freak her out during the Sell Bravo's Soul to TGI Friday's Elimination Challenge. Also, Padmadala hikes up her shorts a little more and shows her world to us. But first, Marcel grosses LA kids out with his Cobb Salad ice cream.
2006.10.312006.11.04 B-
Keckler
2-2Lycheegate
Eastern Promise - Sushi, Ming Tsai, team challenges, and "shoplifted" lychees. Marisa unwittingly challenges Tiffani to a bitchface-off, and Otto is sent home.
2006.10.242006.10.28 A
Keckler
2-1Food, Fire, and Frog Legs
Into The Fire - Marcel has ridiculous hair, Suyai is sent home, and we all learn how to flambe
2006.10.172006.10.23 C
Keckler
1-11Leggo My Ego
Vegas Finale, Part II - Harold wins, and Tiffani LOSES!
2006.05.232006.10.16 A
Keckler
1-10A Minor Exclusion
Vegas Finale, Part I - The toques come off in Vegas as Harold, Tiffani, and Dave put it all on the lineâ¦for room service! They cook for high rollers, poker players, and acrobats, and Dave, by virtue of forgetting a dish, is sent home. Amazingly, he doesn't even cry.
2006.05.162006.10.10 B+
Keckler
1-10Scenes From A Top Chef Reunion
Season 1 Reunion - The cheftestants gather to drink, cry, apologize, fart, and rhyme.
2006.05.092006.10.08 B+
Keckler
1-9Truffle Pigs
Napa's Finest - Using expensive wine and expensive fungal growths, the cheftestants prepare dishes for the chefs of Napa Valley.
2006.05.012006.10.04 B
Keckler
1-8The Cake Mix Controversy
Wedding Bell Blues - Stephen is decanted and found to be corked.
2006.04.242006.09.25 B-
Keckler
1-7I'm Not Your Bitch, Bitch
Season 1 Restaurant Wars - After the cheftestants team up for dueling restaurant "concepts," Dave gets off his famous quote, and Miguel is sent home.
2006.04.182006.09.19 B-
Keckler
1-6Snake Eyes
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? - Ted Allen shows up for dinner and tasks the cheftestants with a dinner party in celebration of him. Andrea and her colon are sent home. Again.
2006.04.112006.09.06 B-
Keckler
1-5Jicama Dickama Dock
Blind Confusion - The cheftestants sell street food in the Mission, but when Lisa forgets some seriously important jicama, she is sent home.
2006.04.042006.08.20 C+
Keckler
1-4Nuke it Up A Notch
Food On The Fly - Nine TV dinners go into the microwave and one chef gets fried.
2006.03.282006.08.13 B+
Keckler
1-3Gone Fishhookin'
Nasty Delights - Dividing into two teams, the cheftestants come up with a way to make children eat and enjoy monkfish.
2006.03.212006.08.02 C+
Keckler
1-2Bye Bye, Turdie
Food Of Love - Stephen's fruity pretentiousness gets him immunity in the Quickfire, Miguel wins the sexy desserts Elimination Challenge, and Andrea gets flushed.
2006.03.142006.07.30 D+
Keckler
1-1Who Deserves To Be Here?
Who Deserves To Be Here - Ken sticks his long, dirty finger in Hubert Keller's sauce and even in San Francisco, that's not a good thing.
2006.03.072006.07.12 D+
Keckler