The world-class culinary competition only gets fiercer in TOP CHEF: NEW YORK–the No. 1 food show on cable–as 17 new cheftestants head to the Big Apple to test their skills and compete for culinary stardom. Featuring some of the biggest names in food and entertainment, the fifth season of this Emmy®-award winning series welcomes newbie Toby Young to the judges’ table alongside host Padma Lakshmi, head judge and celebrity chef Tom Colicchio, and Gail Simmons. In the most challenging season yet, the cheftestants battle to prove they have what it takes to be crowned the next Top Chef.

DVD features:

-Exclusive cookbook
-Never-aired stew room footage
-Extended interviews
-Cooking demonstrations
-PC game demo

Vote for your favorite contestant, read bios, and more in our Top Chef: New York Store.

COMPETITION STAGES

Episode 1: Melting Pot

Quickfire Challenge: The chefs are welcomed to the Big Apple by host Padma Lakshmi and head judge Tom Colicchio and their skills are put to the test with a three round apple tournament.

Elimination Challenge: Each of the chefs draws a knife from the knife block marked with one of eight New York City neighborhoods. The chefs teams must cook dishes which represent the ethnic cuisines of those neighborhoods.

Guest Judge: Jean-Georges Vongerichten (Elimination Challenge)

 Episode 2: Show Your Craft

Quickfire Challenge: The chefs are asked to create their version of a classic, well-loved New York dish: the hot dog and the compete against Angelina DiAngelo of Dominick’s Hot Dog Truck in Queens.

Elimination Challenge: The chefs must now open what Padma calls “Top Chef Restaurant” in Manhattan. They are asked to create a three-course New American lunch menu for fifty diners.

• Guest judge Donatella Arpaia, a successful restaurateur and food expert (Quickfire Challenge)

 Episode 3: A Foo Fighters Thanksgiving

Quickfire Challenge: Padma announces that this week’s challenge is about “rolling with the punches.” The chefs are asked to draw knives. Each knife is marked with a number, which refers to a specific page in “Top Chef: The Cookbook.” Contestants are given an hour to put their own spin on the recipe from that page

Elimination Challenge: The chefs are asked to cook Thanksgiving dinner for the rock band Foo Fighters and its entire entourage of more than 60 guests at the band’s next venue.

• Guest judge and award-winning molecular gastronomist Grant Achatz.(Quickfire+Elimination Challenges), Foo Fighters (Elimination Challenge)

 Episode 4: Today Show

• Quickfire Challenge: The chefs are given 30 minutes to create a breakfast amuse-bouche for the Today Show.
• Elimination Challenge: The chefs are asked to create a dish that can be cooked and served for a 2½-minute live television presentation, which will be taped inside the Top Chef kitchen. They are to be taken to Rockefeller Center to cook their dishes for the hosts of NBC’s The Today Show.
• Guests Rocco DiSpirito (Quickfire+Elimination Challenges), Today Show Cast (Elimination Challenge)

 Episode 5: Gail’s Bridal Shower

• Quickfire Challenge: The chefs pair up and are taken into a darkened kitchen where they are given 15 seconds to taste a specific sauce. They must then bid on the number of ingredients they think they can name correctly.
• Elimination Challenge: Padma asks the chefs to prepare a four-course meal for 40 of Gail’s bridal shower. Each course is to be inspired by one of the lines of the traditional wedding rhyme, “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”
• Guest judge Dana Cowin (Elimination Challenge)

 Episode 6: 12 Days of Christmas

• Quickfire Challenge: The chefs are asked to create a “one pot wonder” – a holiday meal that can be prepared in just one cooking vessel – and present it to Martha Stewart.
• Elimination Challenge: The chefs must create dishes inspired by lines from “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and cater a 250 guest holiday party hosted by the American Foundation for AIDS Research.
• Guest judges Martha Stewart (Quickfire Challenge), Natasha Richardson and Michelle Bernstein (Elimination Challenge)

 Episode 7: Focus Group

• Quickfire Challenge: The chefs have 45 minutes to craft a sugar-free dessert so good, the judges will think there is “nothing diet about it.”
• Elimination Challenge: The chefs must create dishes that express their individuality and serve the food family style to the judges and an unspecified number of mystery food experts.
• Guest judge Jean-Christophe Novelli (Quickfire+Elimination Challenges)

 Episode 8: Down on the Farm

• Quickfire Challenge: The chefs have 15 minutes to create a delicious dish using only canned goods.
• Elimination Challenge: The chefs are asked to draw knives and split into three teams: Team Chicken, Team Lamb, and Team Pork. The chefs are to create a delicious, seasonal lunch for 16 people based on their team’s protein. Their menu must be served family-style, and must include a dessert.
• Guest judge Hung Huynh (Quickfire Challenge), Dan Barber (Elimination Challenge)

 Episode 9: Restaurant Wars

• Quickfire Challenge: The contestants must do a tasting for restaurateur Stephen Starr. The chefs then have 30 minutes and complete access to the Top Chef pantry to create one dish that showcases their concept for a potential restaurant.

Foodies and budding chefs love the reality show Top Chef, but so do millions of other viewers, as evidenced by Top Chef‘s position as the number one food show on cable. Season 5 of Top Chef takes place in the food city of New York as well as in New Orleans and pits 17 chefs against each other in a test of culinary skill, creativity, flexibility, and performance under pressure. While the show is all about food, it’s also about personalities, and this 14-episode season is full of strong personalities. There’s the brashly confident Stefan, hyper Carla, ladies’ man Fabio, overachiever Jeff, gay and lesbian “team rainbow,” and many others, and everyone’s antics in the kitchen, the stew room where they await judgment, and their shared apartment translate into some great entertainment. Host Padma Lakshmi is joined by head judge Chef Tom Colicchio, judges Gail Simmons and Toby Young, and an array of guest judges, including celebrities like Emeril Lagasse, Martha Stewart, Jean-Georges, and Wylie Dufresne. The judges are demanding, exacting, and sometimes downright harsh, but they push each chef to deliver the very best food that he or she can–all in hopes of escaping Padma’s dreaded words “please pack your knives and go.”

Each episode consists of a quickfire challenge and an elimination challenge. The quickfire challenges test the chefs’ culinary techniques and palates as well as their ability to think on their feet and create winning dishes with very little time and some particularly odd ingredients. The elimination challenges give the chefs more time but test their versatility and creativity, requiring them to cater to groups such as rock’s Foo Fighters and other Top Chef contestants and highly regarded food legends; to cook in specific styles that may lead them far from their comfort zones; to employ highly exotic ingredients; to make do with severely limited kitchens; or to engage in the highly competitive restaurant wars at the very last moment, among other trials.

Just as entertaining as the food challenges are the unpredictable interactions between contestants, which range from unlikely friendships to romantic liaisons and ugly shouting matches. This fifth season gives rise to several burning questions: can a person get voted out for serving deviled eggs or s’mores in a cooking contest? Is making an ostrich egg omelet original enough to keep a contestant in the competition? Is the Top Chef competition all about food, or does service count, too–and if so, how much does it count? Is this purely a cutthroat competition between chefs, or is there room for compassion and maybe even a little holiday spirit? Bonus features include footage and interviews from inside the eliminated cast house, extended interviews with the top four chefs, some pretty amusing stew room footage, and cooking demonstrations of selected contestants’ dishes on “The Wong Way to Cook.” The DVD also comes with a cookbook insert that features five recipes from past Top Chef seasons. –Tami Horiuchi

Rating: (out of 9 reviews)

List Price: $ 29.95

Price: $ 11.95

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