The Greek food challenge sent Elgin Community College-trained chef Zach Laidlaw back to the basement kitchen Thursday night after his teammate was booted from the “Next Level Chef” competition.
Angela Pagan, a professional chef from Atlanta, was sent to the elimination round for a lamb neck served with feta and salad deemed one of the two worst creations of the night by the three celebrity chefs/mentors for the reality TV show, but Laidlaw didn’t fare much better.
His grilled octopus served with a goat cheese puree drew knocks from the judges as well.
“The fattiness from the goat cheese is overpowering,” Nyesha Arrington said.
Richard Blais questioned whether Laidlaw, a member of Blais’ team, has been making his dishes unnecessarily complicated while chef Gordon Ramsay suggested it might be time for Blais to pull in the reins on the Burlington native, who now works as an executive chef in Maui.
Even Laidlaw, 34, wound up wondering why he picked the ingredients he did during an interview on the show, which airs on Fox TV Thursday nights and streams on Hulu the next day.
In the elimination cookoff, Pagan faced off against Christina Miros, Greek-American home chef from New Jersey whose deep-fried sardines also were declared the worst dish of the night. Each was given a rack of lamb with which to work for the final test.
Miros’ entree, served with a carrot puree and mushrooms caramelized with fat from the lamb, was judged better than Pagan’s wintry-like lamb served with a summery tomato-based salad, which was criticized for trying to combine two opposing concepts.
With Pagan’s ouster, Laidlaw and his only remaining teammate Nicole Renard, a social media chef from Washington state, will be back in the inferior basement kitchen for next week’s competition. Arrington’s team heads to the midlevel while Ramsay’s goes to the top floor thanks to the thick pork chop prepared by Gabi Chappel, a social media chef from Brooklyn, which was declared the best dish of the night and worthy of a magazine cover.
Next Thursday’s show will have the team members together to create a dish.
Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
