HOH’s One-Minute Recess: Dead Chef Walking
Roll Call Staff
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After infuriating viewers by claiming women aren’t as good at cooking as he is, D.C.’s own Michael Isabella was booted from the beloved foodie show “Top Chef” on Wednesday night, our friends at Hot Plate report.
Isabella, head chef at Jose Andres’ Chinatown hot spot Zaytinya, was in the bottom half of the competition on Wednesday’s episode, along with female contestants Jennifer Carroll and Robin Leventhal. In the end, the judges sent him packing after he botched a vegetarian dish by trying to make leeks look like scallops.
“Why did he think it was in any way inventive to make leeks look like scallops? That’s just silly — there’s no reason for it,” judge Tom Colicchio blogged after the episode aired.
The judges were particularly surprised by Isabella’s flop because Zaytinya is a restaurant that offers a host of vegetarian dishes. For his part, the often-cocky chef made it known that he thought Leventhal — who he referred to as “one less old lady I have to worry about” in an earlier episode — should have been the one to go.
“If you have one bad day at the end, you’re going to go home — and I had a bad day,” Isabella said in an interview airing on the “Top Chef” Web site. “Do I think I had the worst dish? I don’t. Do I think I had the second-to-worst dish? I do.”
Isabella made waves early in the season when Carroll, chef de cuisine at 10 Arts in Philadelphia, out-cooked him. Isabella’s response: “No offense, but a girl shouldn’t be at the same level I am.”
Burn!
Viewers were outraged and took to Twitter where he was called “Mr. Arrogant” and a “loser.” But Isabella was able to weather the firestorm and keep cooking for several more weeks. In the end, he says the worst part of getting voted off is letting down his family.
“The upsetting part about the whole thing is that your team, your family, everyone around you wants you to do so good. And that’s the disappointing part to not be able to do everything for them,” he said.
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