South Florida's own Michelle Bernstein made an appearance as guest judge on Top Chef last night in what turned out to be an interesting episode. The program may have also revealed a little bit of a chef rivalry between Miami-based chef-testant Andrea Curto Randazzo and Bernstein herself.
It all started with a quickfire challenge that saw the chefs cooking with unusual proteins like yak, emu eggs, lama, and duck testicles. Curto Randazzo, who feared she might end up in Bernstein's sights, ended up among the bottom three with her chewy wild boar. Was it predisposition, or was the boar really that bad? Only the chefs know for sure.
Regardless, it's kind of appropriate that our interview with Chef Bernstein coincided with her appearance on the show (we didn't plan it, we swear). Read part one here and part two here.
Later in the episode, the chefs were split into teams and created a
series of cold dishes. The catch is each team is tasked with judging
the other's food. As you can imagine, the critique got heated and
personal. The other chefs chose Kenny Gilbert, one of the stronger competitors, as
a candidate for elimination. We interviewed Kenny earlier this week as
well, who just accepted a job at PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens.
Check out part one of that interview here and part two here.
Bernstein announced the winner of the competition as Kevin. Kenny, who was up for elimination with his gummy, overcomplicated lamb dish, managed to avoid going home. But it was a close one. Since we're rooting for the big guy, let's hope his competitors don't get to choose the elimination candidates again.
