the notes of episode 13 / TV / Top Chef / Episode 13 / SOFOOT.com

Mickaël denounces intensive breeding

Le Nordiste offers us raw pork in ceviche, sesame oil and Espelette pepper and pork ice cream, placed on a pig’s skull. You read that right: pork ice cream, we think we won’t be able to climb much higher in this season’s unlikely ice climbing. And given how quickly the show’s concepts (like the pop-up restaurant « Philosaucisse ») come to life in reality, we can expect this summer to see the kids dropping their pig-chicken cone on the sand .

We between each pub.

Accompanying the pork, a syringe full of sauce available to the taster allowed to denounce the use of antibiotics on animals. Surprising, since Rasmus Munk, in 2019, offered the same accessory, the same meat, to denounce the same cause (to read the report by Elvire Von Baldeberen). This loan, voluntary or involuntary, did not offend the young chef since he granted Mickaël first place, not resentful either of the hepatitis E that he had surely caught while tasting raw pork.

Arnaud denounces blood donation

Finally no, the opposite: the shortage of blood, and especially the difficulty endured by homosexuals across Europe to give theirs – note that in France, it is only since March 16, 2022 that the obligatory abstinence of four months has been abolished. To mark the occasion, Arnaud makes a chocolate mousse dessert, rose and coffee panna cotta insert, raspberry coulis and balsamic vinegar. Raspberry/blood, it works, especially served in a transfusion bag placed on its medical foot. This impresses Munk, known to faint at the sight of the smallest red fruit.

However, I had asked for it.

Lilian denounces tobacco

Lilian reproduces for us these disgusting little photos that we usually see on cigarette packets. He could have chosen the one with the rotten teeth, with a fake mouth full of caramel nougat as ratiches, but he opts instead for the oily lungs. He poaches two oysters in pastis, glazes them with vegetable charcoal and places them under a smoke bell accompanied by a pretty fake ash. Creatively, the dish is less exposed at the end of the year than Mickaël, but that is not enough to convince Munk.

Sébastien denounces school bullying

The cause is noble, and Sébastien is super sincere, but there is something embarrassing at the sight of this chocolate mousse satchel. At the tasting, Munk receives an SMS happening “no more silence” which will completely tense him up until his departure from French territory. Note the cool idea of ​​a schoolboy’s slate dish, making the hairs on the back of the neck of the whole of France stand up with each stroke of the fork.

Pascal denounces the hunt

No sorry, nothing to do… Pascal denounces a forestry practice leading to the death of animals, but without friendliness and respect: forest fires. We have often supported Pascal, but there we doubt. The dish is a set of tapas intended to dissuade us from setting fire to the garrigue, and the message is obvious: penne pasta stuffed with mashed carrots, stuffed Jerusalem artichoke, marrow bone sauce, morel stuffed with mushrooms flambéed in cognac, all erected on a beach wood borrowed from the Jewelery Carousel. At the sight of the dish, several arsonists, convinced by the message, realized their monstrosity and immediately surrendered to the police. fun facts : Burnt Jerusalem artichoke was also practiced by Munk in his restaurant.

Louise denounces the famine

Aesthetically, it is the prettiest dish compared to all the presentations of his little comrades. And where all the haters were waiting for her on another theme, Louise embarks on a somewhat convoluted story: under the earth which is regularly eaten by poor people all over the world (it is well known), hide emeralds exploited by the richest who leave them nothing. Irony of fate or absolute genius, the crème brûlée contained in these emeralds is made with vanilla from Madagascar, a veritable emerald of spices subject to galloping overvaluation, in a country where half a million children suffer from acute malnutrition.

Nice fake land.

Second test: Crenn degun

After Dominique Ansel a few weeks ago, the brilliant Dominique Crenn comes to give us a new demonstration of Franco-Rican-French accent, and invites the candidates to dazzle us with shells. That’s what they did: rarely have we wanted to eat all the dishes so much since the beginning of this season. Technical and refined proposals: we want more.

Lilian

Lilian offers a scallop served in its shell, with brunoise of potatoes, shallots and haddock, marinière ice cream with buttermilk, haddock, tarragon and shellfish jus. He creates a trompe-l’oeil with a pretty Breton buckwheat pancake, but a huge misunderstanding arises during the tasting: Dominique Crenn taps on it with the spoon, and complains that this pancake is not brittle enough. Lilian, polite, apologizes rather than explaining that a Breton pancake does not break and misses the victory quite stupidly.

Louisa

The Franco-Portuguese makes a nice carpaccio of smoked razor clams with seaweed, clams marinière, on a risotto. On the side, a bisque of crabs, garlic, shallots so full-bodied that Hélène Darroze lost two molars in tasting. Softened, whipped in butter, adjusted with lemon, the bisque brings all the knives back to its bed, Crenn loves it in tasting and dubs the chef.

Pascal

Very nice moment when tasting this dish in two plates, when Pascal pretends to be a Breton and the Breton woman with the American accent speaks to the Breton woman with the Var accent without anyone calling the gendarmerie for fraud. A grilled scallop, and a pretty shellfish ravioli cooked in broth, with a small foam of crab and crab cake: we lick the screen.

Sebastian

And if Sébastien was the most rock’n’roll of the band, finally? His carpaccio of scallops and turnips, celery apple detox juice, cauliflower celery condiment and shellfish sauce, under the air of a Saint-Tropez thalassotherapy dish, was so radical that he took the scallops out of the frame. It is eliminatory according to Dominique Crenn.

Last high-flying chance around the pear, which Sébastien and Lilian beat up with lots of ideas: poached, cottage cheese and pickles for the first, Vatican-esque cardinal red wine for the second.

By Henry Michael