Top Chef Masters Season Four Episode Five: Bikini Brunch

Image via Bravo

By Samantha Zalaznick

Last night's Top Chef Masters episode brings us back to Vegas. The Indigo Girls are the Quickfire judges and since they're a part-carnivore, part-vegetarian classic duo, the challenge is for each of the chefs to create their own Indigo Girl classic meat and vegetarian duo. Art Smith accidentally puts chicken broth in his vegetable pot pie and has to remake it in the last five minutes and Patricia Yeo's just ladling the broth into her pho as they call time and it doesn’t make it in (#brothproblems). Turns out Art is Miss Biscuit and his chicken and vegetable pot pies come out on top anyway with Lorena Garcia's arepas, and Takashi's Japanese tofu and eggplant with noodle rolls or pork belly. Takashi takes the prize and gets immunity and another $5K which brings up him up to a total of $15K. Takashi's loving the compeition because he keeps winning: "I'm getting very good cooking in very short time, kind of fun!"

For the elimination, Girl Next Door/Heff's ex/apparently "Ms. Las Vegas" Holly Madison is in the house. Her challenge is to create canapé-sized dishes for a poolside brunch of 150 hungover partiers. And she doesn’t like garlic and onions. Thierry doesn't know what to do since garlic and onions are the basis of French food but Lorena is psyched. She lives in Miami - hello! - brunch is what they do.  

After a whirlwind shopping trip to Whole Foods, prepping and as many Lexus RX (say it three times fast) mentions as possible, the chefs unwind at Blue Ribbon Sushi. They all drink and bond exchanging war stories and comparing first jobs. Art's was at KFC, Cosentino's was a dishwasher at IHOP, and Kerry was a busboy at Bonanza. Yikes.

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The next morning, judges Krista Simmons, Francis Lam and brunch MVP James Oseland come down to meet Holly and get the party started. Oseland jumps right in, telling girls he wants their bikinis, undressing guys and doing push-ups with shirtless men.

As for judging the dishes, the desserty brunch items seemed to go over best. Then just when we think it's all over, Art bursts out like the Green Lantern in a bright green speedo and splashes around the pool, which Bravo decided to play in slow-mo with porn music. Thanks for that.

Art, Lorena, Takashi and Kerry have the favorite dishes. Kerry surprised us and pulled through this round. Lam felt sexy and loved when he took a bite of Lorena's buñuelo and she gets the win. They're all excited for Lorena because she was the real underdog and she's now racked up $15K and is right up there with Takashi.

Oh man, now it's gotta be Thierry, Cosentino or Patricia to go home. We're so scared it's Thierry but we also know it is. They didn't like his texture and the bread was burned, Patricia's wasn’t good BBQ and they liked Cosentino's. Curtis says his "it looks like we've got a consensus" wrap-up line that he says every week when it never looks like they have a consensus.

Fedora gets the boot. Our time together has come to an end. Notice how it's always the person in the opening scene who says they're feeling confident who ends up going home? This may be Thierry's second Masters loss and he's only made $6K, but he's the most FEDORABLE chef in the world. Takashi misses him already and so do we.