Quick Take: Hell's Kitchen, "7 Chefs Compete"
One chef's caviar dream comes to an end.
Review: Hell's Kitchen, "7 Chefs Compete"
(S0710) For the initial challenge, the chefs have to be creative with 10 lb. lobsters. Sharing the creature as a team, each member has to make a lobster dish in 45 minutes.
Since the Red team has one extra chef, they need to sit someone out. Autumn suggests they taste the dishes, and Ramsay thinks that's a smart decision. Nilka gets voted out and voices her unhappiness. She made a potato puree with lobster on it, and Ramsay says it sounded disgusting and they made the right call.
Three Michelin-star chefs, one at a time, join Ramsay to judge the dishes. After the first two rounds are conveniently split, Benjamin and Jay bring up their work. Making the endeavor seem even more like a television show conveniently, the judge says he wouldn't want to eat either one, which didn't seem to be a choice the other judges had. This allows Ramsay to pick the best dish overall, which he deems as Holli's. The Red team wins a trip to a caviar house and a shopping spree of $1,000. Now, that seems like a chef's reward, unlike past weeks. The Blue team gets the worst punishment so far: cleaning the dorm and prepping both kitchens, Red's first.
At 15 minutes to go to open the restaurant, the men haven't completely prepped their kitchen for service. Luckily, it was Ramsay's plan to have all the chefs working in one kitchen. The hitch is they only have two and 1/3 hours to get through service. Since Holli is the challenge winner, she is assigned to work tableside caviar, which likely means she's safe from elimination in Ramsay's eyes.
Nilka struggles on the fish station. One time Ramsay sends a turbot back because it is raw and out of frustration she throws it on the floor rather than recook it. She continues her poor performance and Ramsay takes her in the back where she starts to cry. He finally kicks Nilka out and tells her to take her jacket off, which means she's done for the competition. She throws a little fit and comes back into the kitchen, making Ramsay angry. After she packs her stuff and leaves the building, Ramsay is waiting to say goodbye to her. It's something he rarely does, so he must think she has promise but isn’t ready to run a restaurant, which Nilka finally admits to herself.
Ramsay compliments the group yet still asks for two people for elimination. This is understandably a very hard decision for them. Ed is selected because he struggled a bit on the appetizer station, including burning pans that went dry, as well as Autumn who is deemed the weakest cook remaining. After they both defend themselves, Ramsay calls up Ed and tells him to take off his jacket. Unable to hold his grin any longer, Ramsay's practical joke ends as he gives Ed the black jacket, signaling no more teams for the final six members.
