PADMA: Previously on Top Chef World All Stars.
It's time for...
- ALL: Restaurant Wars! - All right.
I was front of the house last time.
I think you can be a great manager.
I love Nicole.
We work together since the beginning.
GABRI: I need to make the sorbet.
Are you yelling at me? My God.
TOM G: Guys, I'm going on the chefs' table now.
Not the most properly refined tortellinis I've ever seen.
ALL: One, two, three. United!
Feel, like, happy with this team, ah?
We're all from different parts of the world,
so, we're gonna try and put our own spin on the food.
This is that punch that we were looking for in the last meal.
CLARE: They executed what they set out to do.
United Kitchen, your team is the winner of Restaurant Wars!
We obviously have an individual winner.
- Buddha. - [all applauding]
Nicole, please, pack your knives and go.
PADMA: Seven chefs remain to compete
in the ultimate culinary showdown.
At stake for the winner,
a feature in Food & Wine magazine,
an appearance at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen,
$250,000,
furnished by Saratoga Spring Water.
And the title of Top Chef World All Star.
♪
SARA: Hey. Don't be sad.
AMAR: Ah, Victoire. It's okay.
VICTOIRE: It's the competition, I know, but--
she was the first chef I meet the first day.
Yeah, yeah.
VICTOIRE: I'm sad,
but I'm one of the seven chefs left,
and I'm here to win.
With money, I can make a culinary school in Africa.
It's not for me to buy a lip gloss, no,
I-- I really want to help my people.
What we've accomplished, and that we're still here,
we should be very proud.
AMAR: Thinking back, so many ups and down.
- I've been on a ride, like-- - Tell me.
[all laughing]
- AMAR: Buddha for president. - GABRI: That's right.
- VICTOIRE: Good job, Buddha. - Thank you.
I'm absolutely ready for it, the calm I feel like
after Restaurant Wars, it really kicks in.
You got a one out of seven chance to now win.
The title of World All Star will solidify you
as a GOAT of Top Chef.
[chuckles] That's crazy.
[upbeat music playing]
- ALI: Feeling good? - AMAR: It's crazy.
This season is, like, so many different person--
you know, countries, and,
you know, like, different style of cooking.
I'm competing against all this international chefs
from around the world,
and I don't think I'm good enough.
I always underestimate myself and I don't know why.
I have two restaurants, I'm opening a third one.
I competed on Top Chef before.
I guess that's the humble side of me
that make me push to be a better chef every day.
I can't wait to get to the finale.
- You never know. - I just want to go to Paris
for a ham and cheese sandwich, and French butter.
And a baguette. That's all I want.
[upbeat music playing]
Good morning, good people!
Hello.
I can smell the challenge before I see it.
What? There's a lot of smoke, fish.
Some people may be turned off by it,
but to me, it smells like an art form.
Centuries old.
PADMA: Don't be scared.
[Amar chuckles]
I'd like to introduce you to your guest judge today.
- Tom Brown. - [all applauding]
He is the chef and owner of the Michelin starred restaurant,
Cornerstone, right here in London.
- Thanks for having me. - As you can tell,
there's something fishy going on here today.
♪
During the Victorian and Edwardian eras,
kippers were a staple breakfast item.
But during the 20th century, they fell out of favor.
They were seen as kind of your grandparents' food.
So a kipper is a whole herring
that's been split down the middle, gutted,
and then heavily salted and smoked to preserve it.
Kippering is not the only way to preserve fish.
There are many types of preserved fish
from around the world.
For today's challenge, we want you to create
something new and inventive
with these often-smelly and polarizing delicacies.
I know how difficult they are to work with.
Some of them need rehydrating,
and obviously, they're huge on their flavor
so it's gonna take work to make something with these today.
And chefs, we are down to the final seven,
which means there's no more immunity.
I'm so happy that there's no more immunity.
It's everybody's game right now.
I will give you an advantage
in the Elimination Challenge for whomever wins.
You have 30 minutes on the clock.
Good luck. Your time starts now.
Oh, [indistinct].
Okay, I'll get one of these bad boys,
and I'll take one of these bad boys.
- Can I-- - Go for it.
I grabbed the Scottish kipper.
I'm pretty much in love with the smoky flavor.
I've got some prawn, whoo!
Smoked, cured, salted--
I never worked with these things before.
Whoa! No, thank you.
I see this beautiful scallop. Soft, smoky.
I'm gonna use a little bit of this.
The technicality of cooking with this type of fish,
I mean, you have to taste the ingredient, right?
If it's too salty,
you know you have to follow the saltiness.
If it's too smoky, you need to balance that as well.
Good!
AMAR: I don't even know what I grabbed.
- Do you have salt? - No, I didn't get salt.
We have smoked fish.
I will not use salt.
I like big, huge flavor.
Mmm!
AMAR: Okay, what you got in the blender, brother?
- GABRI: I got some prawns. - Okay.
- And tuna patilla. - AMAR: Uh-oh.
Coming in strong.
...to cut through this richness of the fish.
You can make a tuile out of everything,
you just need to make it very, very crispy.
Done!
♪
When cooking the fish, it can be little bit tricky,
'cause it's very potent, you have to get a good balance.
I'm doing something little bit unorthodox.
I'm pairing it with cheese.
I know I'm breaking a couple of rules with Italians.
Cheese, cheese, cheese, ch--
Golden rule for them is seafood and cheese don't go together.
I'm gonna do a smoked fish carbonara.
But the carbonara's not gonna be made of pasta,
it's gonna actually be made with onion.
'Cause I'm gonna watch my weight here.
GABRI: What fish did you grab, buddy?
I got smoked haddock and bottarga.
I have no idea what I'm doing yet.
I'll let you know two minutes before.
[both chuckling]
AMAR: This Quickfire Challenge is kind of tricky.
Now I just start prepping stuff,
you know, roasting the peppers,
cooking the potatoes, see what happens.
- That's what I'm talking about. - ALI: How do you feel
- that there's no more immunity? - Well, honestly,
after I had immunity, I was the worst cook.
Your grandmas in Germany always made cake
- this dense? - Uh, yeah.
I'm making a fish velouté,
with smoked trout.
I have never worked with dried fish in my life.
...and saltiness into it, but still very sweet.
I'm doing something inspired from the taramasalata.
So, I'm doing, like, a spread from onions,
Scandinavian fish, as a base of the plate.
Then tomato and potato salad.
Sara, do you like your fish smoked?
What do you think?
What do I cook with something on every challenge,
something smoked, I love it.
I'm gonna do a play on a Southern classic
- called smak. - Nice.
Smak, it's served a lot down,
like, in the Florida Panhandle.
Smoked mackerel, albacore and king fish.
- Smak. - AMAR: Sound funky.
For my version, I'm using smoked haddock,
baccala and I grabbed Scottish kippers.
They have, like, a really smoky flavor,
and I love the flake of meat down by the tail.
- Fourteen minutes! - AMAR: How you doing, Papi?
Yo, yo, I'm doing good, what about you?
I still don't know what I'm making.
But something will come out of this, for sure.
Good.
In Africa...
In our country, we smoke always the fish.
We have to use the smoke way to preserve the fish,
so I love to cook with the smoked fish.
It's light, but elegant.
BUDDHA: I'm making a little stock.
For this version of carbonara,
the texture of the onion will mimic pasta.
Obviously I'm not gonna make pasta in 30 minutes.
Ten minutes!
And I'll come back for you.
My shrimp tuile seems a little bit brown.
A little bit soggy as well.
But I don't want to burn it,
so I'm hoping that when it gets cold,
it gets a little bit harder and crispier.
AMAR: Da, da-da-da-da, what do I need, what do I need?
SARA: Has it come together yet, Amar?
I think so. I mean, who knows?
Oh, my...
- Yes. - PADMA: Two minutes left!
Hot, hot, hot.
I'm slicing my haddock to finish up my dish.
If I ever finish it.
I'm taking everything to the last minute.
I think I have great balance.
[indistinct] with the potato,
there's smoke coming out from the scallops.
But you never know.
- PADMA: Twenty seconds. - VICTOIRE: Oh, my God.
For my bruschetta.
TOM G: Ah, playful.
PADMA: Time's up! Hands up, utensils down.
[Sara blowing raspberry]
PADMA: Previously on Top Chef World All Stars.
Ali, please come up.
Thank you.
Ali, what's your dish and what's the fish you used?
I used two kinds of fish, I used the dried scallops
and the Scandinavian fish.
I have made a taramasalata purée,
tomato salad with pickled onions,
potatoes with red scallops and the fish.
- Very nice balance. - Thank you.
Victoire?
- VICTOIRE: Hi. - Hi, thank you.
It's a buckling fish
and salad with squash, with bread.
Okay, so, it's like this, I should eat it?
VICTOIRE: Yes, like a bruschetta, Italian.
TOM B: What was the nut?
- PADMA: Thank you, Victoire. - Thank you.
Tom?
TOM G: Just pour the sauce all over.
- PADMA: All of it? - Yeah. Just all in.
I used smoked trout to make a smoked lemon milk
with chopped potato, fish salt
and sweet smoked scallops.
It seemed like you were quite comfortable with this.
Fish is just something really fun to work with.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
I made for you today warm endive salad
with smoked fish hollandaise and prawn tuile.
It's not something that you use a lot, right?
- This smoked fish, no? - Not a lot.
Yeah.
PADMA: Amar, come up.
I made a smoked haddock salad
with cucumber, potato, smoked scallop
with honey mustard vinaigrette,
and on the bottom, it's roasted pepper emulsion.
I love that you've not cooked the smoked haddock, actually.
- It's nice, interesting. - Thank you.
- Pretty. - TOM B: Yeah, really pretty.
So, I made a smoked fish dip
with a celery seed toast and sweet hot sauce.
It has Scottish kipper,
baccala and smoked haddock in it.
PADMA: Did you make the hot sauce?
Yes, ma'am.
PADMA: Buddha, come on up.
BUDDHA: It's an onion carbonara.
So, instead of using smoked bacon, using fish
and 'cause I know Italians won't be happy about it, but--
so, I did onion instead.
The sauce is made from kipper, smoked haddock
and it's infused with a little parmesan.
It's a hard sell, cheese and fish.
- Thank you very much. - Thank you.
Do you know what, I was so impressed today
with the level of cooking, and I think
you should all be amazingly proud.
It really was impressive. Well done. Thank you.
PADMA: But you know how this works.
There were a couple that were less successful than the others.
- Sara, sadly. - It's all right.
It was just slightly too salty.
The balance was off.
Who else had one of our least favorite dishes?
TOM B: Gabri.
Fair play to you, trying to make a cracker in half an hour,
but I felt like it was a little bit soft,
not quite crispy enough for me.
And now, for some good news.
Who had one of our favorite dishes today?
Buddha, I liked that kind of comfort food,
and I loved what you were doing with the onion.
- It was delicious. - Thank you.
I really enjoyed your dish. You swayed me.
Who else had one of our favorites?
So, Amar, the balance of flavors was really good.
I thought it was really nice to actually have
something raw served to us today.
- Thank you. - PADMA: Who else?
Ali, I thought your dish was delicious.
Very fresh with the tomatoes.
I loved the brightness in your dish,
and you really understood the balance.
Thank you.
But of course, there can only be one winner.
The chef that wins today,
they utilized the fish
and really let those ingredients sing the best.
And the winner is...
Amar.
[all applauding]
- Papi! - Papi for the win!
Congratulations, Amar! How does it feel?
This is the first Quickfire Challenge
that I win between the two seasons.
- You've never won a Quickfire? - Not solo.
I won it as a team at the beginning.
- Wow! - Yup, I win.
Finally, to win this one is freakin' amazing.
As I said, you don't get immunity,
but you will get an advantage that'll be very helpful
in the next Elimination Challenge.
- And Tom, thank you so much. - Thanks so much for having me.
- Thank you, Chef. - Thank you, Chef.
[all applauding]
I'm really excited about what's going to happen now.
[all laugh]
[upbeat music playing]
With only seven of you left in the kitchen,
I'm still a little hungry right now,
believe it or not.
I would like to take you guys
on a little field trip.
- Oh, here we go. - Yes.
Pop into your BMW X3s
and meet me at Flora Indica.
- AMAR: All right. - PADMA: Come on, join me.
You won't need your knife kits.
- AMAR: Need our mouth to eat. - PADMA: Yup!
♪
Come on, let's make a Gabri sandwich, baby!
[all chuckling]
Hey, BMW, take us to Flora Indica.
- SYSTEM: Let's go. - Now this is cool.
Let's go see Padma.
SARA: Flora Indica?
Reckon it's an Indian restaurant.
If we're eating with Padma, all signs are Indian.
Being in London, we have to do Indian food.
I think we're, like, Little India, no?
Masala Zone.
TOM G: Here we go. Flora Indica.
- PADMA: Hi! - AMAR: Hello, hello!
So nice to see you guys out of your chef coats.
Please follow me.
I hope you brought your appetite.
GABRI: Yes.
Wow.
- TOM G: Lovely. - AMAR: This is special.
It's good to be top seven, if you ask me.
You spend so much time and heart cooking for me,
I have brought you to a meal
that I'd like to treat you to.
- Thank you. - BUDDHA: Looking forward to it.
Obviously, we're going to have an Indian meal.
We're at an Indian restaurant. Are you ready to eat?
- BUDDHA: Yeah, yeah way. - SARA: Yes.
[Indian music playing]
- Hello! - Oh, my God.
- ASMA: Welcome to London. - PADMA: Hi, Asma!
- Hello. - PADMA: Please meet Asma Khan.
I am so excited to be here. This is...
really a big day for me, because my restaurant closed in summer.
I'm doing a temporary pop-up, and this allows me to cook,
and I'm so happy to feed all of you.
And here, thalis, yes.
I'll just keep passing them down.
So, one is for a person,
it's not for sharing.
AMAR: Wait, one per person?
ASMA: Yes, it's per person.
VICTOIRE: This is a big surprise.
Asma, she's a great woman, a great chef.
She's making a good job
for Indian women in the kitchen.
I see her for the first time in Italy.
And she was cooking in an Italian kitchen,
and I watched her cook pasta.
- Oh! - Yes.
Asma's prepared this beautiful thali.
We don't eat in the Western tradition
of having a first course, a second course.
We like it all at once.
And thali offers all six different flavor profiles.
Salty, sweet, bitter,
sour, pungent and hot.
Unlike Western food, where things are complementary,
here everything is contradictory.
And it's like an orchestra.
Each instrument is playing a piece,
but together, it becomes a full experience.
Has everyone tried the chicken?
ALL: Yeah.
ASMA: The chicken has got fenugreek dried leaves,
and that has a bitter profile,
but mixed with tomato, it's got balanced out.
So, the prawns is very Bengali in its flavoring.
How do you make it so dusty?
ASMA: We don't blitz it. We chop it heavily with a knife.
VICTOIRE: The leaves on the top was--
ASMA: Curry leaves. On the dal.
VICTOIRE: Sorry, what does the dal mean?
- The dal is the lentil. - The lentil, ah!
Um, this really is an experience for all of your senses.
I love how the red onion is just very lightly pickled.
It seems very Southern to me.
ASMA: The kachumber salad,
it's gonna cut through the spice and heat.
Even though Padma has brought us out to a nice lunch,
we all know that this is a challenge.
What's the one-- asf--
The kind of flavor profile, I would say,
is close to garlic.
So, I didn't do dessert, the beetroot raita,
the pink bubblegum-looking thing,
this is the sweet element to it.
And also, chutney is sweet and has a bit of heat as well.
And in a thali, you should have rice.
Rice is given.
PADMA: Well, what do you think of the food?
You didn't eat a lot of it.
No, because I don't eat a lot of spicy.
For me-- I can cry.
For me, the chili one is too much.
You can't taste very well another ingredients,
but I have to try it.
PADMA: I want to know, Asma, how you got into cooking.
ASMA: My mother had a catering business.
I would sit in the kitchen and watch her cook.
That was when I learnt.
I just never physically cooked myself.
After I got married, when I realized
my husband was such a terrible cook,
I started cooking.
It was also my only way to go home.
When a hing hit the oil,
I almost felt the presence of my mother next to me.
And so, I basically cooked to root myself
as an immigrant.
All of you come from different places.
But every time that you feel down,
it's the food that heals you.
So this is why I cooked.
Beautiful. It's beautiful.
PADMA: Are you okay?
When people start talking about, you know--
I know, I-- I'm sorry.
SARA: I can, like, feel her words.
Especially right now, being away from our families,
like, now I'm the mother,
and I want to create
those very specific food memories for my children.
PADMA: When I was a little girl, one of my first taste memories
is the smell and sound of curry leaves
and mustard seeds frying in oil.
Food is much more than just filling your stomach.
It's comfort, it's personality,
what brings people together, it heals people.
PADMA: So, cheers! Before we get into business.
- ALL: Cheers. - To health, happiness.
- AMAR: Thank you so much. - Family and kindness.
♪
Asma has made you this beautiful thali.
And now we want you to do the same.
For your Elimination Challenge,
you'll have to create your own thali.
- AMAR: No pressure. - PADMA: No pressure.
You can keep it traditional,
or you can put your own spin on it.
But we want to taste those six essential flavor profiles.
Sweet, salty, bitter,
sour, heat and pungent.
Friggin' intense, I mean, we need to create several dishes
to create this thali.
Oh, please, help us!
Tomorrow, you'll have two and a half hours
to cook and prep,
and you'll be serving Asma and a couple of other chefs
who know a thing or two about thalis.
So, Amar, since you won the Quickfire,
you get an additional 30 minutes to cook.
ASMA: Cooking is not just looking at notes.
You need to feel it.
You need to cook from your heart.
We were supposed to have you in a different location
to cook and serve in, however...
with the Queen's passing
and all of the funeral processions that are going on,
we're going to be in the Top Chef kitchen.
London is, like, completely now shut down.
You've come at an interesting time in this country.
I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone'll come up with.
- ALI: Thank you. - BUDDHA: Thank you.
- SARA: Thank you so much. - TOM G: Thank you so much.
♪
AMAR: Ah, I got this whole kitchen to myself.
I have to make a thali,
an Indian plate with six different flavor profiles.
This is crazy.
"Amar, you have extra half an hour!
This is all you gave us?"
I decided to go traditional Indian food.
But I never cooked Indian food before,
so I want to take my time to try to taste everything.
What the [bleep] is this?
I'm gonna do my take on raita.
The one we tasted yesterday
was the sweet side with beets.
In this case, I'm gonna do a green mango raita.
It's gonna be kind of sour.
You never, ever, ever cook Indian food for Padma.
And here we are.
I'm also gonna make crab and shrimp coconut curry,
I'm gonna make it spicy and pungent.
Can I say [bleep] my life? [chuckles]
♪
- Hi, Papi! - Victoire!
Oh, look at that.
VICTOIRE: We are in India.
♪
I'm gonna get everything prepped out for my dirty rice,
get my cumin chili chicken working.
Asma says that food crosses borders,
and there are dishes in Indian cuisine
that have a lot of the same flavors as Southern food.
So, I will make it taste Southern but Indian.
I actually use tamarind paste in the restaurant a lot,
but not with lentils and jaggery.
AMAR: Buddha, what are you making?
- BUDDHA: Mango lassi pudding. - Nice.
You were waiting for this challenge all season.
No, no. By no means.
My last time that I cooked Indian food
for Padma didn't go too well.
Frying the puff pastry just made it this greaseball.
So, I'm feeling a little bit nervous about it,
but hopefully this time, I could redeem myself.
I'm gonna do something a little South Indian, chicken korai.
I'm gonna cook the chicken inside the wok.
Chicken korai's got pungent.
The shrimp, I'm hoping, is a salty component.
I'm gonna add some chili powder, turmeric,
garlic and ginger paste.
It's almost like baking a cake.
If you don't get that spice level correct,
you're gonna have to start all over again.
GABRI: Oh, hello, Buddha buddy!
BUDDHA: Hey, Gabri. How you doin'?
I'm doing Mexican over here.
The flavors that Indian cuisine got
definitely remind me of my heritage.
...it remind me a lot of...
I am going to make it with foie gras...
Foie gras, lemon gras, huh?
For sweet and salty,
I'm going to recreate this tiny salad.
For me, it's a pico de gallo.
I also make black truffle beans with curry leaves.
I just go with my gut.
♪
AMAR: You probably think it's the hardest challenge yet?
It's-- harder challenge. It's like...
I want to make a cream soup with cauliflower
and moringa, because it's very bitter.
In Africa, we use a lot of moringa
and I discovered that, in India,
they use moringa, too.
For the heat, I'm going to make
a gravy with lamb,
using cinnamon, cardamom, cloves.
All of spices. [chuckles]
It's very important to give a balance
in the recipe of the flavor.
Smells like Amar's cooking Indian food for the first time.
[chuckles]
Having way too much fun in the kitchen.
Did I just make that?
I discovered this thing called jaggery,
which is Indian, like, palm sugar.
I just made that! Woo!
Things are coming together better than expected.
My curry sauce tastes amazing.
It's spicy and sweet.
Ali, so, you cook a lot of Indian food?
I don't, but I have eaten a lot of Indian,
so, let's see what happens today.
It's not really popular to be a chef in our region.
It's not considered as a decent profession.
But my parents and family were very supportive
from the first minute I decided to become a chef,
and that's why it's really important for me to win.
...and not only in Jordan, but in the whole world.
I'm making beef tandoori.
Indian food has a lot of flavors,
and what's most important is the balance.
[singsongy] And the time is flying!
Hello, hello!
- Ah, this is scary. - It smells good in here.
- Hi, Victoire. - Hello.
- VICTOIRE: Hi, Padma. Hi, Chef. - How are you doing?
A little bit stressed.
PADMA: Yeah. Don't be stressed.
Just don't be afraid of flavor.
Remember, even if you don't like heat,
all of us do, and you're cooking for us.
So, have fun.
The job you are making me, for real, man, is just--
I want to cry, because the women that we are--
that are cooking in my country...
I found my way in this job.
You can't imagine
how it's very important for me to be here.
- ASMA: Best of luck. - Thank you.
- PADMA: Hola, Gabri. - Hello, Padma. Hola, hola.
- [chuckling] - PADMA: What are you doin'?
I'm grinding some spices.
I think when you do the things with your hands,
that's more-- more loving in.
- I agree. - GABRI: Thank you.
- Hi, Tom, how are you doing? - TOM G: Hi.
See you've got a lot of spices,
you've got some lentils soaking.
I'm gonna do a carrot pudding. You know, the ha-- halwa?
- ASMA: Halwa. - PADMA: Halwa. Gajar halwa.
Gajar ka halwa, yes.
My favorite sweet in India.
PADMA: Have you ever done a thali?
We do have something similar on board.
I wouldn't call it a thali, we use the thali plate to serve,
because I love the way of eating it.
I worked with a lot of Indian chefs on ships.
When I started on cruise ships, I hated it.
- Thank you. - PADMA: Good luck.
I realized by travelling around, you learn a lot.
When you go to Antarctica,
you get only local ingredients,
so, you need to be a damn flexible chef.
I would love to have...
That drives me to the bone.
- Hi, Sara. - Hello, ladies.
PADMA: Tell us about your plans.
I'm gonna do a tamarind dal,
but it's gonna kind of be reminiscent of barbecue.
- I mean, not barbecue-- - Barbecue? In flavor?
Not in flavor, but I'm gonna do some stuff
that you would find on my table,
but I'm using all Indian ingredients.
I'm gonna do thunder and lightning, so, instead of,
like, the raw cucumber and onion [indistinct] tomato,
I'm gonna give it to you the way we'd do it--
Well, that's the whole point, you know,
we want you to take ownership of these spices.
Well, I'm excited to cook for you guys.
- Take care. - Thank you.
PADMA: All right, guys, good luck!
We'll see you at mealtime!
- We're excited. - Thank you!
- PADMA: Bye. - BUDDHA: What a way to learn
how to do Indian food, right, Sarah?
Yeah, we'll figure it out.
- Something's burning. - AMAR: Something's burning.
Pressure cooker burning something.
SARA: Yeah. Pressure cooker, I think.
Please don't be me, please don't be me.
Ugh, [bleep], it was me.
All my beans have burned.
♪
GABRI: I burned my frijoles. My beans.
I'm not going to serve burned food to the judges.
TOM G: Take canned chickpeas or something.
- Just change. - Yeah.
I just grabbed some lentils
and substitute the black beans for lentils.
I can't remember any single ingredient.
I'm making salad with red onion and cucumber
for the pungent side.
[speaking Italian]
Yesterday...
I'm going to put the slice of lemon.
Good.
The rice get the salty part...
Sweetbread time, baby!
Let's see how the tandoori oven works.
I remember living in New York City.
My favorite Indian restaurant
used to be called Tabla.
The executive chef was Floyd Cardoz,
who sadly passed away at the beginning of COVID.
My favorite dish there was
these beautiful tandoori sweetbreads.
I'm gonna do the same thing here.
Rest in peace, Chef.
Amar, you only have ten minutes, yeah?
Yes, Papi.
GAIL: It's pretty in here.
ASMA: I love the flowers.
PADMA: Yeah, we do a little decorating.
This is a new experience for us.
We've never had a meal in any sous room.
And most rooms don't look this good.
Also.
I'm opening an Indian restaurant after this, if I win.
[chuckles] Is it Indian food?
Not if you ask me,
but every component of the dish tastes amazing.
If today's the day I'm going to go home,
I'm gonna go home for doing a good dish.
[alarm beeping]
Yesterday, Asma and I treated all the chefs
to a thali meal that she cooked for them.
It was beautiful and I think we're in for a really big treat.
Not intimidating at all.
- [laughter] - Not at all.
Why are you intimidated? You had an extra half an hour.
I'd never cooked Indian food before.
Tell us what you made.
I made some lentils with fenugreek,
so it's kinda more bitter.
So you have a stone fruit chutney,
cooked down, so it's sweet.
Shrimp and Dungeness crab, coconut curry.
It's kind of more, like, spicy. Green mango raita.
Basmati rice, nigella seeds,
cardamom, cinnamon and the rice.
And bitter tandoori sweetbreads.
- Thank you, Amar. - Thank you so much, guys.
- TOM C: Thank you. - ASMA: Thank you.
- SARA: How'd it go? - I'm kidding. [laughing]
Did they say, "Nobody else bring their food in, Amar's won"?
AMAR: They said, "It's over, it's not even worth it."
♪
SUJOY: It's a brilliant job he has done.
PADMA: The crab curry is fantastic.
ASMA: The fact that he never cooked Indian food before.
If I ate this, I would never say that.
And I love the color of the chutney.
TOM C: The sweetbread and chutney together?
PADMA: Yeah, really good.
The raita is pretty banging as well.
- PADMA: The raita is great. - Really good.
Every bite changes,
and I think that's what a successful thali does.
That is spot on, because in a thali,
you have to have hero dishes and you have to have others
that are comfortable enough, you know--
- Like, the base. - Saying, "Go fly, hero.
Just go do your thing."
I'm just glad that is over, baby.
[upbeat music]
Has been a while since I cooked Indian food,
but I know the base, so let's see if I can...
Mango chutney, it's a recipe I have learned
couple of years ago from one of the Indian chefs I have met.
Every time I was eating, his chutney was like,
"Sh--, how are they making it?"
So, they taught me, and I think
this chutney might take me to win this challenge.
Ah, it is so good.
BUDDHA: Last time I did Indian for Padma, I was on the bottom.
My priority overall is to give, like, a nice variety of flavors.
Been nervous making this with so many components to get on,
'cause it'd need to be hard, crispy, fluffy.
- TOM G: Buddha, 20 minutes. - BUDDHA: Yup.
I'm gonna start getting it done early,
'cause I don't want to miss something on the plate.
- SARA: How you doin'? - I'm good.
- SARA: You good? - Yep.
I'm very happy, my beef from the tandoori,
it's really crisp from the outside,
it has these grill marks on it.
I do think that I have nailed every aspect
of the flavors in this thali.
Every component perfectly serves a purpose.
[intense music plays]
[alarm beeping]
[pensive music plays]
- Hi, Ali. - Hi, Padma.
- I prepared thali by Ali today. - [judges laughing]
So, I have prepared a saffron rice.
My dal, I used yellow lentils, it's also pungent.
Eggplant curry has bitterness from fenugreek,
it has the sweetness from coconut.
And then, I have beef tandoori. My sweet is my raita.
And lastly, I have prepared a mango chutney.
- Thank you so much. - ASMA: Thank you, Ali.
Thank you.
ASMA: This kind of chutney?
I mean-- this can be just my meal.
Yes, and this raita-- right texture,
the right tanginess, right sweetness,
and this is what chutney makes in complement to this.
- ASMA: Mm-hmm. - PADMA: This just takes me back
to the school canteen.
It's the most Indian chutney I have had.
His rice is, I think, fantastic.
I think it's fragrant, I think it's flavorful.
I thought Ali did a great job.
GABRI: How did it go, buddy?
- ALI: You never know. - GABRI: Yeah.
BUDDHA: I don't usually cook with basmati rice,
so I put little more extra water than I usually do.
And when I do strain out all that excess water,
it's all cloggy and mushed together.
- TOM G: We got two minutes. - Yup.
It's probably the first time I stuffed up rice
since I was, like, 20 years old.
I put a lot of work into my thali,
but if the rice is just bad,
then the whole thing goes downhill.
[alarm beeping]
♪
Tell us about your thali, Buddha.
Okay, it's inspired by South Indian, mostly.
So, I got a chana dal.
Little bit of tamarind in there,
give it a little bit of sour.
Shrimp koliwada,
snow peas that have been cooked in methi
for the bitterness.
Date and tamarind chutney.
And then we have a chicken korai,
which is more of a South Indian curry.
Am I missing a plate?
Missing korai? Oh. Sorry about that.
Too many things going on. In the middle, it's the sweet.
I've done a take on a mango lassi,
set it into a pudding.
How long have you cooked the rice?
I cooked that, but I also--
tried to strain it, maybe I strained it too long.
- Thank you so much, Buddha. - Thank you.
All right, thank you.
- SARA: How'd it go? - It went all right.
He didn't look confident,
but his plate also is not reading confident.
Completely thrown him off as soon as he realized
- he's left a dish off. - GAIL: Yes.
Rice is not the right expectation
in terms of consistency.
And also, I think the tamarind chutney is used
a bit too much of tamarind.
But I actually really like the pudding,
- it felt very fresh. - I have a sweet tooth.
- I was very happy with it. - But I liked it
- because it wasn't that sweet. - That's good.
TOM G: Guys, something is burning.
Oh, [bleep].
I burn my black beans, I burn my lentils.
I'm just blocked right now.
I decide just to deep-fry the eggplant.
It's going to be a very simple dish.
[bleep].
Oh, my God.
I was focused to make the vegetables, other things.
I don't have time to remake it.
[alarm beeping]
- PADMA: Hi, Victoire! - Hi.
PADMA: Tell us what you made.
VICTOIRE: I made rice with saffron broth.
I made the heat with lamb,
the sweet yogurt with mango.
I made the salad with onion and coriander.
For the bitter, I made okra with moringa
in the cream of cauliflower.
And I made my dal with red lentils.
Did you season your salad?
No, no, I don't season it, I leave it natural...
- Okay. Thank you, Victoire. - Thank you so much.
The moringa and cauliflower
has a lot of sharp bitterness
that I like as a contrast
to a lot of the other things on the plate.
Yeah, that's great, but the rice is overcooked.
Yeah.
I understand she didn't want to season the kachumber at all.
Kachumber is seasoned.
You know, she said that she really has a hard time
tolerating any spice.
When you are not comfortable with spice,
then you don't connect with it.
For example, she's used
too much of saffron in the rice.
And for a small bowl of lamb like this,
I think it's pretty much had every spice thrown at it.
She's kind of made it difficult to get the balance of it all.
- Tom, how you feeling? - TOM G: Living the dream.
I do feel a lot of pressure,
but more about my chefs than the judges today.
I just want to make them proud.
- [alarm beeping] - I need vacation.
- GAIL: Pretty. - TOM C: Hello, Tom.
- PADMA: Hi, Tom. - Hello.
PADMA: Tell us about your thali.
TOM G: I made you rice.
With the rice, you have salty,
a little sweet and pungent.
Coriander mint chutney, it's a little bit of heat
in there and spice.
The dal has a little bit of heat inside,
and a little bit of sourness.
Kakdi Koshimbir.
It's a cucumber spicy salad.
Chicken masala.
Then I made halwa, my favorite dessert from India,
what I ate so far.
- Thank you. - TOM G: Thank you.
- What'd they say? - I don't know.
There were a lot of Indian fellas at the table.
It's a bit intimidating.
He made a huge effort, halwa is good.
And brave to make halwa
in this kind of time pressure.
Masala chicken is good in taste and texture.
The best part is that what he has given
a little bit of twist to his cuisine is that mango.
- The mango is great. - Tom's dal,
to me, I'm getting raw spice.
When you do a thali, each component has a purpose.
So, dal, it should be playing the side role,
but he's trying to pretend to play the main role.
- TOM C: Yup. - He did give us
interesting takes
on various components that he did.
TOM G: Good luck, ja?
For the dirty rice, I'm using lamb fat
and tons of spices.
Victory! It's the most delicious thing.
I'm feeling good. It's happening.
I'm rushing with almost everything.
I didn't got the time to cook the foie gras
to put it in my encacahuatado.
Scallops.
I decide to just pan sear the scallops,
and I just add the encacahuatado sauce on top.
Ain't nobody got time for that.
I want it to be smoother,
but all the focus right now is just
putting some food on the thali plates.
[alarm beeping]
- GABRI: Hello, judges. - Hi, Gabri.
I made for you a Mexican thali.
The chutney is tamarind orange chutney.
The greens are green mango, cucumber and passion fruit.
The scallop with encacahuatado, which is the bitter.
For the sweet, I make a coconut tamale.
The rice got turmeric, cinnamon and cardamom.
Fried aubergine, which is the salty part.
- Thank you. - GABRI: Thank you.
ASMA: Thank you.
GAIL: There were some things I loved on Gabri's thali.
I loved his pico de gallo.
The best kachumber so far,
I think it was beautifully balanced.
I can't figure out the scallop,
I don't feel like it was the best sauce
to coat a scallop with.
There's too much conflict of spices.
The tamarind chutney,
we never would have this in India, ever.
It was a little hard to eat.
His intentions were so great,
but when we make the tamarind chutney,
we strain it through fine mesh.
Tamarind is an ingredient in Mexican cooking.
- I was surprised by that. - ASMA: Yeah, I don't know why--
Everything tells me he ran out of time.
That's why it's not strained. He ran out of time.
♪
It's pretty delicious for a girl from Paducah, Kentucky.
This isn't a traditional thali,
but I really feel like I'm putting
my heart and soul into this dish.
It's true to myself, and, hopefully,
they will love me for me.
♪
[alarm beeping]
[upbeat music plays]
- Thank you. - ASMA: Hello.
- Hi, Sara. - SARA: Hey, you guys.
I took flavors that I would
traditionally kind of see on a Southern American table,
but reworked them using ingredients that are Indian.
So I'll start with the dirty rice.
I just used a little bit of lamb in the stock,
so you're not gonna have chunks of dirty in there,
but still the same flavors.
Tamarind dal, I used the yellow lentils.
Cauliflower, spiced with a little mustard seed.
I have a little thunder and lightning,
but I just did it with a little jaggery
which might be my new favorite ingredient.
I made a buttermilk raita,
and I made a persimmon chutney.
- Thank you, Sara. - SARA: Thanks, you guys.
Sara's cauliflower is by far the best we have tasted.
- TOM C: Yes. - It's well-cooked rice,
it's fluffy, it's separate.
I loved her kachumber as well.
This was her version of her own Southern dish,
- thunder and lightning. - ASMA: The flavors were great.
It tastes exactly as it should be.
She's taken her food, her culture.
She did a good job of bringing some of these flavors in,
and giving us a good balanced thali.
I want to thank you all for dining with us.
This was great fun, and I know that
the chefs enjoyed every minute
of hearing everything you had to say.
We have to get back to judges' table
and hash this all out.
Thank you. Thank you for a wonderful meal.
- SRIRAM: Thank you. - VIVEK: Thank you.
AMAR: And that was the Indian challenge.
- BUDDHA: Yup. - Oy, yoy yoy.
- How was it, guys? - ALI: What a challenge.
- Was it tough for you guys? - BUDDHA: Yeah, it was tough.
There was a lot of components.
Yeah, a lot of things to do.
I wasn't happy with my rice. I didn't check on it.
I really feel like my name
will definitely be on the chopping block today.
I am thinking about LCK,
and fighting my way back into the competition,
because there's no way that I'm letting this define
my time at Top Chef.
♪
Chefs, for many of you,
the cuisine you tasted,
and all the flavors may have been new.
I think you all rose to the occasion.
You actually took on board an entire culinary tradition,
and you made it your own, and I'm very proud of all of you.
Sara, Ali, Amar,
please stay here.
The rest of you can step to the side, please.
Oh, no.
What did we do?
- Congratulations. - Yes!
PADMA: The three of you are on the top.
No way. No, no. I don't believe it.
Sara, I think you had a lot of sense of play.
You were willing to say "I don't know this cuisine,
but I'm gonna embrace it and do my best."
It was really interesting, because there were
so many flavors that I thought, "Oh, that'd work perfect
with, like, a dish that I know."
I really felt excited
because I just thought that this is someone
who actually is cooking from her roots.
I really loved that dirty rice.
The flavors were very beautiful, and were very personal.
Ali, I loved the chutney.
It reminded both of us
of school canteen, which is a huge compliment.
Your chutney beautifully exemplifies
contrasting flavors, sweet and tart and hot.
I tried my best to respect the tradition
and the heritage of the Indian cuisine.
The beef, the chutney together, and then the rice,
from my understanding of what thali does--
when it's the sum of all its parts that make this great bite,
and that was a terrific bite.
Thank you, Chef.
Amar, you know, obviously,
you had a half an hour more,
but I don't think you're standing there,
because of that extra half an hour.
That's the first day that I used all my tasting spoons,
'cause I kept going back and forth
and I would say "Okay, I put a little bit
of jaggery here, maybe this needs a little salt."
It was fun. I had a lot of fun doing it.
Not only was the crab perfect,
the shrimp in there, perfectly cooked.
It is a dish that I will remember for a long time.
- Wow. - You said you had fun with it.
And usually when you're having fun cooking,
- you know you're nailing it. - Well done.
Good job, boys.
All of you were amazing,
but one of you managed to really
hit it out of the park.
The winner is Amar.
- Good job. - Papi for the win!
[cheering]
- SARA: Good job, buddy. - ALI: Good job.
Wait a minute, did I just win this?
- ALI: Yeah. - PADMA: Yes, you did.
I'm Dominican, for Christ's sake.
We eat plantains and beans, and here I am,
cooking Indian food for Padma and winning the challenge.
It's crazy.
The whole episode, a grand slam.
- PADMA: Thank you all. - Thank you so much.
I told you, they said, "[bleep], it's great."
I'm at a point now in this competition
that I feel like I belong here.
I got what it takes to get to the top,
and I'm having fun.
Buddha, Gabri, Victoire.
The three of you had our least favorite thalis
and one of you will be going home.
It's pretty delicious for a girl from Paducah, Kentucky.
I want to know how the day went for you, Buddha.
I think the rice got me.
Overthought it.
You're not surprised to be here.
No, no. I stuffed up the rice.
And what happened to my chicken?
- You forgot a dish on my thali. - Oh.
There were so many things,
and out of all the people as well.
I own that one for sure.
That's not Buddha.
The chutney was more like a date tamarind puree
with not a lot of background flavors at all.
Yeah.
- PADMA: Gabri. - I start to crumble
because my beans get burned.
- What beans? - Black beans.
Oh.
And then, I tried to make lentils.
And the lentils got burned again.
It's unfortunate that so much went wrong,
and we could sense it, you know.
The scallop felt like as if you just
dumped it there last-minute.
I was planning to use a foie gras,
but I didn't got the time.
I saw the scallops and well,
the scallops were the easiest thing to cook.
My biggest problem is the tamarind chutney.
We never serve tamarind in any form
without cleaning it.
Yeah. Yeah, I know. I was-- I was rushing.
Victoire, do you think that you got those
different flavors into the dish
the way you wanted them?
I think, for me, was a lesson today,
to make the balance in the right way
with the spice, you know?
The lamb ate a little dry and tough...
and the rice, for me, was a little bit broken.
The rice texture was a problem.
Overcooked, all of that, but you overkilled on saffron.
And it becomes medicinal, almost.
Very sorry for that.
Your onion and cucumber, no seasoning at all.
It was bland as bland could be.
Thank you so much. We will call you back.
- Congrats. - Thank you. Thank you.
- BUDDHA: Congrats, Amar. - I wasn't sure--
- Congrats. - AMAR: I know.
I was in shock when she called my name.
- I admired. It's nice. - Thank you.
- GABRI: Amazing, seriously. - I didn't get
much done in the half an hour, I didn't even know
what those ingredients were.
I even-- last night, I started packing my clothes.
The rice, I know that in the last one I--
I grabbed the pot, and I see the timer,
I have just 15 minute when I start to plate,
to say, "Oh, my God."
Victoire's rice was clumpy and broken--
- TOM C: Broken up. - It was badly cooked
and just killed it with so much saffron.
The lamb was not cooked properly,
and the kachumber, no salt and no acid.
I've got an Indian curse. Second time on the bottom.
But in the scheme of things, it was a very hard challenge too
because there were so many components.
Usually I say to myself, whenever I go into a challenge,
I don't want to go home by tripping,
and I tripped today.
- Let's talk about Buddha. - TOM C: Yes.
Can I just say how much I loved the dessert?
- Yes, same here. - It was lovely.
So Buddha, we think, had the best dessert of the day,
even though there were many flaws with the other dishes.
Including not giving me chicken curry, hello.
Buddha also gave us overcooked rice.
His chutney was okay.
I would never say that's a chutney.
It was, like, a ketchup.
Gabri, what happened?
One thing after another,
and it was like, "Oh, my," I just start to crumble.
Gabri had some major problems of time management,
and he also missed the bean.
He at least gave us something that we could
point to and say, "That was the best version."
- That was kachumber. - GAIL: Kachumber was so good.
It is the simplest of salads.
But we've seen how it can go wrong.
Buddha gave us one dish that was undeniably delicious,
and Gabri gave us the best kachumber today.
- Yup. - Undeniably delicious.
Just curious, was there something that Victoire gave us
that was undeniably delicious today?
- GABRI: All right, guys. - All right.
Let's see what happens.
♪
It is always exciting to learn somebody else's cuisine,
somebody else's culture.
It's the fun part of what we do.
This is difficult, because you're learning something new,
but a lot of the mistakes made today
are just basic cooking mistakes,
and one thali just was not as good as the rest.
[tense music plays]
Victoire...
please pack your knives and go.
I want to thank you.
First day until today
was just a great experience.
But you're not done yet, we'll see you in Last Chance Kitchen.
- I'll see you very soon. - Ah, yes.
- Thank you, all. - TOM C: Thank you.
I'm happy, because I think it's just a moment to start.
Yeah, I got it!
[laughs] I'm going home.
- SARA: Aww. - It's not the end for me.
It's the beginning.
- [laughter] - Thank you, Buddha.
Now I'm leaving, but as a Black woman,
African chef, a mother,
- 41 years old... - Go kick some ass.
AMAR: Love you, girl. All right.
To be here, was the proud moment
in my life.
♪
TOM C: Tonight, Victoire enters Last Chance Kitchen.
I'm so happy to see you.
Her thali plate lacked flavor.
Can she taste victory
and return to the competition?
Watch now on Peacock.
Or wherever you stream Top Chef.
PADMA: Next time, on Top Chef World All Stars.
We're having a battle of the Wellingtons.
Hey! Welly.
PADMA: And one final thing--
this is also a double elimination.
- Hey, what the [bleep]? - Not cooking well.
I think we're just gonna scrap 'em.
I cannot remember a more difficult challenge.
TOM G: Why's my life so complicated?
Feel a little bit like...
...when she runs and then there's lava everywhere,
and she's one step away of falling down to it.
- I'm trying, bro. - TOM C: The Wellington
itself is done really well.
Nice work putting the basket weave around.
Gabri, you're 15 minutes behind.
Oh, [bleep], no sh--.
- It's under, and it eats under. - JUDGE: Yes.
And it's very raw.
I think a lot of Top Chef greats
would have struggled with this one.
SARA: Top six, down to top four.
♪