All stories about "Zoi"

Eater Preview: SF Top Cheffers Miss Zoi, Do Stretches Episode 6 of Top Chef airs tomorrow night and we've got a sneak preview of the first minute of the show. Taking place the morning after Zoi's departure, the clip shows the cheftestants as a whole getting serious about the competition. Spike shows off three of his pretty hats in a 15-second span, a somber Jennifer misses Zoi, Dale and Lisa still have issues, and ladies, Ryan does morning stretches. Chicago chef Paul Kahan is the guest judge, and the challenge puts our heroes in another situation only tangentially related to being a chef: tailgating for a football game. · Complete Top Chef Coverage [~ESF~]

Top Chef, Local Debriefing: San Francisco Getting Spanked

This year, they're letting third-graders write the polls. Or Padma.

Roughly 24 hours ago, after seeing the juicy preview clip from Bravo, we had a quick discussion with Eater LA about the upcoming fifth episode, each California contingent fretting that local chefs—SF's Zoi and LA's Antonia—looked like they were on the chopping block (yet again). Plus, there were teasers of some serious drama in the stewing room. As it turned out, Zoi and Antonia were indeed among the losers, and the last two minutes of the episode somehow turned into a parody of the Real World. Up ahead: a quick episode summary, followed by our local recap.

Summary and Local Highlights: Jennifer and Ryan under the radar. Oh, Zoi. >>

Eater Preview: Top Chefs Test Palates, Relationships

The fifth episode of Top Chef airs tonight, and from what's seen here and at the end of last week's show, it's going to be a doozy. Last week's previews featured a little tiff between Dale and Jennifer, and the sneak peek above suggests that Zoi might be on the chopping block, so it looks like we're in store for some drama surrounding our local chefbians. Now usually, the Bravo folks send us a preview clip featuring something innocuous (like a quickfire intro), but today's clip is just a strange exercise in elusive Top Chef editing where it looks like every single chef (Zoi and Antonia especially) is under fire from the judges. Bonus info: For the quickfire, cheftestants will have to determine which ingredients are most expensive during a blind tasting and celeb chef Ming Tsai will be the guest judge.
· Complete Top Chef Coverage [~ESF~]

Top Chef Local Debriefing: Let's Go to the Movies!

Last night's Top Chef may have been the most random albeit most entertaining one yet—Daniel Boulud, Richard Roeper, a basket of greens, and movie-inspired dishes were all on the menu during this bizarre fourth ep. As usual, the spazzy antics of the young chefs did not disappoint: bitching, flailing, and clawing their way through this "cinema-themed" episode. First a quick summary, then the local angle:

As previously mentioned, Top Chef regular Daniel Boulud, (looking oh-so-Euro in his shiny, dead sexy leather jacket), was front and center at the start of the quickfire. We learned/were reminded that Ryan and Richard had both worked in one of his restaurants. Apparently Boulud's style just wasn't "Ryan's thing." Shocker. The QF challenge was to create a veggie plate using 3 classical techniques to impress D-Biggs. After whining about the lack of technical skills of many cheftestants, Dale pulled off his first win. Then, in a total segue of theme, the elimination challenge was to create a six course meal for Richard Roeper, Aisha Tyler and a cast of randoms; each course was done by a different pair of chefs and inspired by a different film. In the end, Richard, Andrew, and Dale's Willy Wonka dish won, Daniel required subtitles 20% of the time, another non-personality too polite for reality television got the boot, and Padma's outfit was a feat in itself.

And now, your highlights from Zoi, Jen and Ryan >>

Top Chef Local Debriefing: SF Foursome Down to a Trio

Following a bit of a local snoozer last week, the entire quartet of San Francisco cheftestants were front and center in yesterday's episode of Top Chef Chicago. The third episode of the season centered around the theme of street food: the Quickfire Challenge requiring the 14 remaining chefs to make the humble taco suitable for upscale dining (Richard—whose faux hawk is growing by the week—won immunity with his jicama wraps), and then the Elimination Challenge pit a pair of teams against each other in a neighborhood Block Party cookoff. Since the chefs got to divide forces amongst themselves, all four San Francisco chefs—whose camaraderie really came through in this episode—were on the team that opted to eschew fancy food in favor of Americana comfort food, a decision that ultimately proved disastrous. Ted Allen made his first appearance of the season, Padma spilled marshmallows, and Tom was bald. Also, it's now been about twelve hours since the episode aired, and we still don't understand one thing: what the hell was Geraldo Rivera doing there?

And now, the highlights from our beloved San Francisco Foursome:

Ryan, Erik, Jen and Zoi: Someone Packs Their Knives >>

Eater Preview: Top Chefs Go For a Ride, Then a Run

Tomorrow night marks the third episode of Top Chef: Chicago, and above we have a little sneak peek of the challenge at hand. The clip features the chefs driving through the streets of Chicago in teams—Zoi and Erik are on the same team, and Jen and Ryan join forces on another. What you won't see but we know: the challenge is to turn the everyday fast food taco into a fine dining meal; there's a neighborhood party; and fittingly, your celebrity guest judge is Rick Bayless, who knows something about taco fine dining (though this assertion may not be discernible from Union Square's Frontera Fresco).
· Complete Top Chef Coverage [~ESF~]

Top Chef Chicago: Local Debriefing, Episode Two

We'll get to the San Francisco Foursome and our thoughts on the second episode of Top Chef in just a moment, but before we do, we had to point out the continued polling feature brilliance by Bravo. Eater LA put it best: "It's almost as if the whole animal theme was conceived just so they could run this poll."

And now, to the local recap: the Quickfire Challenge saw the contestants going to the local farmers' market, with five ingredients to use, $25 to spend, and 30 minutes. It was the perfect challenge for the San Francisco bunch, all veterans of the seasonal ingredients game, and for the most part, they all represented well. The Elimination Challenge pitted the 15 chefs in five groups of three to cater a 200-person event at the zoo. As far as judges go, molecular gastronomist Wylie Dufresne presided as guest judge, Gail Simmons was as perky as ever, Padma was Padma and Tom's head was the shiniest it's ever been.

Individual Highlights from Ryan, Erik, Jen and Zoi, NEXT >>

Eater Preview: Top Chefs Go to the Market; Hilarity Ensues

It's not on the Top Chef website on Bravo, but Eater LA has gotten its hands on the above video introduction to tonight's Quickfire Challenge. It's not too spoilerish by any means, but rather just a preview of the task at hand. And let's just say that if the Bay Area's claim to fame about seasonal ingredient love holds true, our Fab Foursome should have no problem with this challenge (a prediction sure to go wrong, we're sure). Related: Time Out Chicago staked out the contestant house during filming and is now sharing some substantial spoilers and plot twists involving the current season.
· Top Chef Chicago: Local Debriefing, First Episode [~ESF~]
· Top Chef Preppage: Sizing Up the Four Locals [~ESF~]

Top Chef Chicago: Local Debriefing, First Episode

Last night's premiere of the fourth season of Top Chef didn't stray too far from the proven formula of past seasons: plenty of product placement (anyone know where to find some GLAD items?), requisite lusty shots of Padma and a fair amount of kitchen sweat, but the first episode was packed with lots of new characters, memorable quotes and some very wildly-entertaining moments, many of which involved the (already!) front-and-center San Francisco foursome of Ryan (Myth Cafe), Jennifer (Coco500), Erik (Circa) and Zoi. Since we've got 75 minutes worth of chefgasms to recap, let's cut right to the chase:

Analysis, Quotes and Spoilers Ahead >>