Top Chef Masters Season Three Recap: Meet The Masters

NBC Universal

​It's time to meet our cheftestants, host and judges for season Three of Top Chef Masters. The host is Cutie Mc Cute, Curtis Stone. The judges are James Oseland and Ruth Reichl (ouch for the cheftestants is all I can say). Speaking of cheftestants, they are:

• John Rivera Sedlar (Playa, Los Angeles)
• Sue Zemanick (Gautreau's New Orleans)
• Celina Tio (Julian Resturant, Kansas City, MO)
• Alessandro Stratta (Stratta, Las Vegas)
• Suvir Saran ( Devi, New York City)
• Naomi Pomeroy (Beast, Portland)
• Mary Sue Milliken (Border Grill Restaurants & Truck, Los Angeles)
• George Mendes (Aldea, New York City)
• Traci Des Jardins (Jardiniera Cocina Mexicana, san francisco)
• John Currance (City Grocery, Oxford)
• Floyd Cardoz (Tabla, New York City)
• Hugh Acheson (Five & Ten, Atlanta)

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, its time for the:

Quickfire Challenge

Curtis explains that the chefs are now paired up and each team is doing a head to head competition. each chef will get a mystery box with one ingredient. Each chef will have to make a dish incorporating not only his but his partner/opponent as well. The combinations are simply amazing and horrific. Some of them include:

• canned corned beef and marshmallows
• chicken liver and popcorn
• sardines and dragonfruit
• cockles and marmite
• black licorice and peanut butter
• frog legs and cottage cheese

The overall winner is Traci for her duo of salads, made with licorice and peanut butter.

Elimination Challenge

Restaurant Wars is the first Elimination Challenge? Holy crap! The winning chefs are team red and the losing chefs are team blue. Team Red names itself Mosaic and Team Blue is Leela (because it seounds peaceful). Even though the judges will choose who goes home, the diners will choose the winning restaurant.

Judges Table

Curtis said the critics preferred team Red but the diners preferred team Blue. Naomi's chocolate torte was delicious. Alex's mushroom fricassee was pretty perfect and exquisite. The winning dish is Alex's fricassee.

The judges want to see Mary Sue and Hugh from Team Red.

Ruth says Hugh's scallop was incredibly salty. James said that Mary Sue's cupcake was too safe. Hugh is eliminated - return to the kitchen and pack your knives.

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