Top Chef Season 11, Ep. 17: Season Finale

Top Chef Season 11 Finale - Nina Shirley Travis Stephanie

The Top Chef finale starts out like all Top Chef finales do—with Padma frolicking in ocean, wearing the itsy bitsiest of string bikinis. She barely even bothered to dry herself off to inroduce the challenge, which is to cook a four course meal.

Nicholas and Nina get to choose losing chefs to work as their sous chefs. Nicholas gets to choose first because he won the last challenge, and he picks Jason, Louis, and Brian. Nina chooses Shirley, Stephanie, and Travis.

Nicholas is cooking a meal that showcases classic and contemporary French technique, whereas Nina goes Italian with local ingredients. Nina throws in two extra courses, just because that’s how winners get it done.

Top Chef Season 11 Finale - Brian Louis Jason Nicholas

Padma’s neck is being attacked by a bright red legwarmer.

With one hour left, Nina’s goat is “chewy as f***,” so the only thing she can do is braise the f*** out of it.

Nina starts off her service with a surprise course of breadfruit with whipped foie gras butter that delights the judges. The first course is tuna and escolar tartar and the diners can “taste the island.”
Top Chef Season 11 Finale - Nina breadfruit dish

Over in Nicholas’s kitchen, service is a problem which means he feels the need to treat the waitstaff like crap. His hamachi and tuna with green apple falls a little flat. His second course is a sweet shrimp bisque with scallop noodles. The judges are confused about his use of scallops, so it’s not looking good for Nicholas.

Nina’s next dish is roasted goat ragu with orecchiette pasta, and  Tom says “the goat is perfectly cooked, I would come back for this dish.” I think he likes it, a lot. Nina’s third dish is swordfish with squash puree. It seems passable, but the diners are not impressed.

Back in the kitchen, Nicholas’s duck is a little tough but he has to serve it anyhow because there is no do-over in Top Chef. He serves the kombu-cured duck with squash, and it is received well by most of the judges. His last course is caramelized white chocolate panna cotta, and it’s not jiggling enough for Padma (that’s something she probably doesn’t hear a lot).
Top Chef Season 11 Finale - Nicholas Duck Dish

Nina again surprises her diners with a bonus round intermezzo of compressed dragon fruit with papaya infused simple syrup. Her dessert course is a chocolate zeppole with macadamia nut and toasted coconut glaze. It’s not enough for the judges, but only because it was so tasty that they want more.

The only thing worth mentioning about Nicholas’s second service (the judges visited both restaurants in two separate groups) is that there was a loud crash and Nicholas stopped in the middle of cooking to yell “Goddammit! Seriously?” and abuse the counter with a dishtowel, to the horror of the entire dining room. Now that is the Nicholas we have come to know.

It’s pretty clear that Nina is the winner, but let’s go through the formality of Judge’s Table in case Padma shows up in the string bikini heard ’round the world.  Sadly, Padma is fully clothed. Tom loved Nicholas’s scallop noodle dish, but Padma rolled her eyes because she couldn’t even taste any scallop. His panna cotta was underset. Then, the judges start in on Nina and suggest that they shouldn’t even judge her extra courses. There was really nothing bad to say about her cooking, except maybe the swordfish and the fact that her dessert was more of a little bite than a full dessert.
Top Chef Season 11 Finale - Nina Nicholas Face the Judges

For some reason, the judges take a long time deliberating. Why are they pretending that they liked Nicholas’s jiggle-free panna cotta? Oh ha, the judges are now going to factor in Nicholas’s crappy treatment of his waitstaff. Ugh, it’s 1:00 a.m. and they’re still sitting at that stupid table, talking about food that has been fully digested.
Top Chef Season 11 Finale - Nicholas Wins

Nineteen hours later, “Nick, you are Top Chef.” What? Are you kidding me with that crap, Padma? I mean, really. Really? The chef who specialized in temper tantrums all season gets rewarded for his bad behavior? Well, that’s disappointing. Ugh. Lame. Very lame.

So that wraps up another season of Top Chef. Let’s do this again, only with less Emeril, more Gail, and both more and less of Padma’s bikini.

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