TV Recap: ‘Top Chef All Stars LA’ Episode 12 “My name is Lucca”

Welcome to this week’s recap of Top Chef: All-Stars LA, the final episode to start in the cavernous California mansion and the first without human ventriloquist dummy Brian Malarkey.

My name is Daniel Trainor and while I’ll miss Malarkey and his hats, I’m thrilled to be HEADING TO ITALY! 

I’m Sam Stone, and I find it erotic that Italy is shaped like a thigh-high leather boot.

Andiamo!

DT: The chefs rise at 5:45 for their flight to Rome and we’re graced with more shots of grown men rolling out of child-sized bunk beds.

SS: Are these chefs not allowed to sleep in? 

DT: Apparently not! Before we get to the airport, we’re blessed with a video package highlighting Stephanie’s heroic rise to the final episodes, which I will now use as motivation to do ten push-ups before noon.

SS: The chefs arrive at the airport, and are greeted with a gourmet meal in the American Airlines First Class lounge. Roll out the guillotine, folks, we’ve got some class traitors on our hands. (This is something I say whenever someone has something nicer than me).

DT: It was a stark contrast to my standard airport meal: a soaking wet hummus wrap and bag of almonds covered in some kind of dust.

SS: God I would kill for almond dust right now. They slap on their solid gold eye masks, recline in their roomy first class seats built on the back of the proletariat, and before you know it we’re in Italy! ITALY!!!!!!!!!

DT: The country! I have to say, and maybe it’s the Italian air or the gallons of product placement Peroni sitting on barrels, but Bryan Voltaggio has managed to get 10% sexier every episode this season and I’m now convinced that Bryan Voltaggio is the best looking person I’ve ever seen.

SS: Bryan, if you’re reading this I am single and desperate to fuck.

DT: YIKES! Once in the piazza (an Italian word I learned!), Padma greets the chefs and starts speaking in fluent Italian. There is nothing this woman can’t do!

SS: She can speak Italian, she can pound champagne on international television, she can do more than ten push-ups probably – as if I didn’t feel inadequate enough. 

DT: The woman is a ruthless success machine and I could not love her more. Padma and guest judge Filippo Saporito introduce the Elimination Challenge, in which the chefs must create an “aperitivo” (an Italian word I learned!), which is basically a happy hour snack that you can eat with one hand.

SS: Americans may be familiar with the format – we might recognize it as what a TGI Friday’s waiter would call “dollar apps.” As in “y’all want some dollar apps with y’alls drinks? Jalapeño poppers? No?”

DT: Jalapeño popper? I don’t even know her! 

SS: Daniel, that is disgusting. Completely inappropriate, and, frankly, unprofessional. 

DT: Ten seconds ago you said you were “desperate to fuck.”

SS: It’s a common phrase! Anyways! 

DT: Anyways indeed! The chefs each pick a region of Italy and must use that region’s ingredients in their aperitivo (!!!). Despite being tasked with creating happy hour bites that you can eat with one hand, it becomes abundantly clear that most of them have never been to happy hour and/or are not familiar with the concept of hands.

SS: Voltaggio, who is a dad in a J. Crew catalogue come to life, really struggles with the challenge. He changes his dish like three times, eventually settling on lamb tartare, which, to me, is lazy. If I wanted some dang raw lamb on a plate I could go murder a lamb or whatever!

DT: Stephanie, the only chef who seemingly followed the challenge guidelines with her venison cheese bread thing, gets dragged because her dish is uh…how do you say in Italian…bad?

SS: The judges made it very clear that while her idea was good, her actual dish, and here’s where she lost them, was “bad.” Bad how? Who knows! But, bad, to be sure.

DT: Kevin and his polenta take the Quickfire crown and, just like that, it’s time for Tom Colicchio to come strolling into the piazza (!!!) looking like a swashbuckling lothario who wants to tell you about his latest business venture which is definitely NOT a pyramid scheme.

SS: The chefs are told they’re going white truffle hunting and Kevin gets so excited I’m worried he thinks truffles are a type of grits. 

DT: Alas, to Kevin’s disappointment, white truffles are not a type of grit, they are a type of truffle. A type of truffle, in fact, that will be used as inspiration for this week’s Elimination Challenge.

SS: It turns out that white truffle hunting is actually just following dogs around a forest while they use their gorgeous olfactory senses to locate these tiny expensive little beautiful mushrooms.

DT: We quickly realize it’s dogs that do all the work, which is a metaphor for society at large.

SS: Seems to me like the entire white truffle industry is reliant on the labor of these dogs. Maybe they should unionize? Demand better wages? More time off? Childcare? Just an idea. The people united cannot be divided. Whatever. Just saying. 

DT: The chefs lose their minds over truffles for a few hours, and then it’s off to an Italian grocery store where, for whatever reason, we’re blessed with a shot of Voltaggio screaming the Italian word for carrots to an absolutely empty produce section.

SS: An Italian grocery man gently explains to an incredulous Melissa that the store does not have chicken stock, Gregory grabs a million pounds of wild boar, and we call it a day. 

DT: The next morning, Stephanie reveals that she had a premonition about her planned dish and wants to switch things up. She decides to make pasta for a group of Italians, which is like making paella for a bunch of Spaniards, or champagne for a bunch of Padmas.

SS: Or making Indian nachos for famously Indian chef Padma DAMN Lakshmi.

DT: Stephanie has come a long way! However, once we get into the cook, she has all sorts of trouble with her radicchio puree, throwing massive heaps of butter into the pan in an attempt to mask the bitterness, but it still just looks like Grimace took a shit.

SS: At this point I would like to take a moment to allow Daniel to make a pun on the word radicchio. Daniel?

DT: You think you know me so well, huh? Suck my radicchio. 

SS: Base and vulgar as always. Melissa goes with a congee in an effort to blend Asian and Italian culinary traditions, and Kevin makes a meatball in an effort to be crowned meatball king, I guess. 

DT: In some cultures, “meatball king” is actually more influential than elected officials. Voltaggio is making a veal shank ragu and the editors really enjoy playing up his bizarre personality. Much in the way that New York is the fifth main cast member on “Sex and the City,” Bryan Voltaggio’s insane laugh is the sixth contestant in this episode of “Top Chef: All-Stars L.A.”

SS: Gregory chooses to make a super rich and robust boar-based stew (are you salivating yet, boar heads?), which he adorns with approximately $75,000 in white truffles.

DT: As we move into critiques, we meet guest judge Cristiano Tomei, who is introduced as an “avant-garde Italian chef,” which is what I called myself when I put extra cheese on my pizza Lunchables in second grade.

SS: We’re also introduced to Padma’s merlot red feather jacket which, I think it’s safe to say, is the Iconic Moment of the Episode™, and, dare I say, the season. 

DT: I cannot disagree. Meanwhile, Stephanie’s radicchio has turned into the talk of Lucca, Italy. People are shouting “radicchio!” from rooftops, it’s the lead story on the evening news, Lea Michele once called Stephanie’s radicchio a talentless whore. It’s everywhere.

SS: At judges’ table, Padma asks Gregory the very hard-hitting question “how did you decide to make that dish with those components?” We love an investigative journalist.

DT: The judges complain that almost all of the chefs misused the white truffles. It’s a real Truffle Kerfuffle!

SS: Melissa’s congee and Voltaggio’s ragu place them in the top, while Gregory, Stephanie, and Kevin find themselves in the bottom. 

DT: Ultimately, it’s Melissa who wins the challenge, and, unfortunately, it’s sweet, sweet Gregory who gets sent packing for his cocoa boar white truffle stew which, when you see it typed out like that, was probably inevitable. 

SS: Gregory, we will miss your fringe jacket, your unflappable earnesty, and your inability to cook with white truffles. 

DT: Only two episodes left! Arrivederci (an Italian word I learned!).

Daniel Trainor is writer, podcaster, son and friend from Los Angeles, California. Originally from Michigan, his love for all things pop culture started early, once using pancakes to bribe his way onto the Oscars red carpet bleachers with his mother. In addition to writing for AwardsWatch, he is an huge sports fan and hosts the LGBTQ sports podcast “Same Team.” One day, he hopes Jane Krakowski will win an Emmy.

Sam Stone is a writer and actor based in Brooklyn, New York. He writes humor, culture, and travel among other things, and spends his free time reading about all those things. You can find him on twitter @sam_the_stone or on Instagram @samstone000.