May “Top Chef” delight us this year! Each episode has its own little twist to heighten the pleasure. The editing, the music and the sound effects, the innovations in the angle of attack, this stadium atmosphere of a high-flying competition against the MoF (best workers in France) last week, the superb white box the one before …
For this 6th episode, this Wednesday evening on M6, it is the freshness of childhood, in what it has both tender and uncompromising, which strengthens the traditional “Who can beat Philippe Etchebest? The candidates must redouble their seduction in front of a double jury: children from 6 to 10 years old, then the three-starred chef Régis Marcon.
“Fear, I can feel it from here”
The case is not small. The mission: to make kids who abhor green vegetables love them, knowing that Marcon will only taste the approved plates. To qualify directly, they will above all have to do better than Etchebest. The hound of the stoves who is offered a cador entry into the arena, bulging chest and gladiator music.
“I can feel the fear from here,” he tells them. “We saw so many white-red blue-collar workers last week that one more one less,” breathes Jérémie. “You’re annoying him,” worries Sarika. “You are crazy to annoy the bull just before he enters the arena”, also notes Stéphane Rotenberg…
They are still ten and form five pairs. Everyone has a vegetable to prepare in 1h30 compared to an hour for Etchebest who picks up the broccoli. At the time of launching, the MoF Bordeaux takes off even five minutes to have only 55 minutes.
“Too much confidence kills confidence”, slips Glenn Viel who, with his friend Pairet, has banana peels on the course of their comrade. For a bit, we would think of ourselves in Mario Kart!
The “Team Daron” takes on water
César and Sarika offer a kind of zucchini sandwich, Mathieu and Hugo top Romanesco on crisps, Léo and Alexandre nuggets of Brussels sprouts while Jérémie and Carla opt for spinach crisps. Green bean fries for Albane and funny Jean, who slips jokes into his cones: “What is yellow and waiting? Jonathan”. The kids love it.
After a discreet spat of Brussels sprouts, “it’s not good” or “it’s weird”, but also “I love it” and cute “nice job!” “, four plates out of five pass.
Despite their quality as parents, Jérémie and Carla from the “Team Daron” are put off by the kids. Blind, without knowing that he cooked, Marcon welcomes the proposal of Etchebest, “a reference dish”. Broccoli puree, wasabi fish roe, poached egg and parmesan siphon covered with a bread tile. Unbeatable.
“I want to take him to my family”
The five doublets spin in the eliminatory round sponsored by Pierre Gagnaire. It’s up to them to find emotion and elegance in a childhood dessert. Hugo and Mathieu revisit the floating island with chervil, Sarika and César dry off a little on the crepe before leaving for the souffléed crepe. Carla and Jeremy push the chocolate mousse, siphoned off with ice cream.
Léo and Alexandre must sweeten the strawberries. He runs, he runs Alexandre, who misses once, twice, three times his tarragon whipped cream and curses hard against what they manage to get out. “It’s my fault, I did shit,” he says. “It lacks indulgence and elegance”, says Gagnaire who, tasting, literally melts for these strawberries which he classifies on the podium, behind Clara and Jérémie’s chocolate.
For Jean and Albane, it’s a stroke of heart that feels good. “I want to take her to my family, share these memories of happiness with her,” whispered Jean about Albane who did not have an easy childhood, even letting out a tear. It is this emotion that they manage to convey to Gagnaire, enthusiastic about their grain of happiness, rice-au-milk and mushroom tuile.
L’invincible Danny
Sarika and Caesar finish last. Paul Pairet decides between them blindly on a caramel bite. He welcomes Sarika in his brigade, César is eliminated.
“The ups and downs are part of life,” notes the latter as he slips away. We find him in “The hidden brigade” by Hélène Darroze facing Danny, four victims already on the counter. Never four without five?
Darroze asks them to make it crack, salty. It has to crack and crunch on the plate. In this game, the Caesar tartare inspired by César Troisgros seduces, but no more than Danny’s rosette dauphinois, its tiles and its Champagne sauce. The braided chef has struck again.