The final five face off with former final five contestants on this episode of Hell’s Kitchen.
The day’s challenge is the chefs need to take “ugly†food and make them look good. This challenge is to test the chef’s presentation skills. The dishes are: eggplant parmigiana, tuna casserole, lasagna, meatloaf, and chicken and dumplings.
There’s a catch though: each dish is located on plates scattered around the dining room. The chefs must race to grab these plates and the plate they get determines the dish. Elise and Paul rush to crab the eggplant parmigiana and Elise pushes Paul down the steps. It’s not a surprise that Elise would do something like that. At this point in the show, the only surprising thing Elise can do is be nice to somebody.
The dishes end up looking like this: Elise with eggplant parmigiana, Will with meatloaf, Paul with tuna casserole, Tommy with chicken and dumplings and Jennifer with lasagna.
For this challenge, there are notable judges that have vast knowledge on making food look good, such as LA Magazine’s dining editor Lesley Bargar Suter, food stylist Valerie Aikman-Smith and owner of The Foundry on Melrose, Eric Greenspan. Each judge will give a score of 1-10 for taste and presentation with a maximum score of 100.
The amazing part of this challenge is Jennifer doing the worst. She got a 42 on presentation and 44 on taste. Elsie looked to be the winner with a score of 46 until Will gets a 38 on presentation and an amazing 49 on taste for a score of 87, winning the challenge.
His prize is a dining experience in LA with whoever he wants. He does the “honorable thing†and chooses Elise. They go to Wolfgang Puck’s Spago and Eric Greenspan’s The Foundry. They go there in style in a Rolls Royce Phantom. It must be nice to be in one of those nice cars.
It’s too bad this will be the last time these two will be on good terms with each other.
That night Ramsey calls the chefs down for an urgent meeting. Here, he tells the chefs that at dinner service they will be facing against a team of chefs. These chefs are former Hell’s Kitchen final five Ben, Tennille, Trev, Jillian, and Van. Hell’s Kitchen just got a lot louder because Van is he usual wild self.
Before dinner service, each team needs to make a menu. The returning chefs work like a well-oiled machine while the current chefs work like a beat-up cotton gin missing a few parts. Elise has taken over the menu and will not listen to anyone’s ideas. Will flips out on Elise and leaves. It’s safe to say this is Elise’s menu.
At dinner service, the only thing of interest is how much the returning chefs have improved since their time on Hell’s Kitchen. Van is still the loud and wild Van who can cook but needs to calm down. He undercooks a lamb. Speaking of people who need to calm down, Trev may talk about how he is now calm and can cook perfectly, but he is all over the place and clearly frustrated. He makes a salad that is for the next ticket. Ramsey even tells him to calm down. Ben and Jillian are the only ones who didn’t have any problems.
On the current team’s side, Tommy needed help from Will to push apps out and Elise needed to ask Paul three times if a steak is medium.
Both kitchens finish at the same time. Ramsey tells them that victory is determined by the percent of customers who said they will return on the customer comment cards. The current chefs win with 97%. Amazing
Even though they did so well at dinner service they still need to choose two people to go up for elimination. They choose Jennifer and Elise. Elise wants to know why her and Will tells her she had to ask him three times if a steak was cooked. Elise denies this despite the evidence to the contrary.
Ramsey, however, decides that nobody is going home because they did so well at dinner service.
Jennifer, being the worst at the day’s challenge is surprising. She did say she hated lasagna, which may have contributed to her lackluster score. Tommy is still as clueless as a doorknob. Elise may be a good cook, but her attitude is horrendous. The preview for next episode is all about Elise and it may look like she will finally be sent home. Let’s hope that she does, for the sake of our sanity.
I would like the recipe for Will’s meatloaf.