It’s a kitchen rumble between schooling and self learnin’.
I think I’m behind the curve on Rocco DiSpirito. While I’m plenty aware of his renowned culinary talent, I never saw his appearances on The Biggest Loser or Dancing with the Stars or even his notorious NBC reality show, The Restaurant, which featured the implosion of his New York City restaurant venture. My exposure before Rocco’s Dinner Party was vaguely remembering him guest judging on Top Chef. So imagine my surprise at registering that DiSpirito is really a rather charmingly, prickly reality host on his Bravo reality series. When I say prickly, I maybe should qualify that more as frighteningly intimidating without resorting to Gordon Ramsay-style yelling.
DiSpirito is like the anti Tim Gunn or Tom Colicchio. Where Tim and Tom are always honest with Project Runway or Top Chef contestants, they still manage to come off as very encouraging and empathetic with the working contestants. Rocco on the other hand walks into the kitchen with his competing cooks and immediately strikes like a cobra with menu withering questions. He doesn’t have to say much – he just stands over them and their food a little too close – and in an instant you can see the cooks start to drip flop sweat from his observations. There’s an utter dearth of hearts and flowers in the kitchen and I kind of love it. DiSpirito is the living, breathing embodiment of “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
In the “Perfect Pairings” episode, three cooks compete to cook for a DiSpirito dinner party with the winner eventually walking away with $20,000. Funny, flighty NYC caterer Vicki Ferentinos squares off against “Japazuelan” non-professional Yuki Tsutsui and the extremely well-trained culinary chef-turned-food truck owner Chris Thompson.
Chris immediately postures himself as the food snob that is going to wipe away the two women. Vicki is confident but goofy and is thrown a bit by DiSpirito’s side-eye appraisal of her signature dish of buttermilk chicken with maple based sauce. Yuki is energetic but completely thrown by the pace and her lack of technique when she puts together one of her fusion sandwiches for Rocco. Chris produces some beautiful food but a blueberry sauce that’s far too tart for Rocco’s palate. In the end, Yuki is sent home while Vicki and Chris go head-to-head.
The challenge is to create a full meal consisting of perfect pairings – a duet of two great tastes together on a plate that are tastefully in harmony. The theme is to celebrate the 10th wedding anniversary of The Daily Show reporters Samantha Bee and Jason Jones. DiSpirito also invites along the couples<strong> </strong>of<strong> </strong>Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler, and engaged food and wine masters, Tia Keenan and Hristo Zisovski.
Vicki decides to create a sexy and fun formal dining room with white flowers, candles and the vibe of eating romantically in bed. She cooks carrot ginger soup with coconut shrimp, lamb chops with risotto, pumpkin doughnuts with vanilla custard and take-home jam and scones.
Chris goes for a New England beachy vibe with the patio room, candles, picnic tables and the air of a relaxed wedding. For dinner, he cooks tuna and lobster, short ribs and French onion soup and pot de creme and creme Brule.
Both rooms look great, so it really comes down to the meals. And of course, there’s a twist! Sam and Jason are asked to inspire the two chefs to come up with another plate that reflects food they love which turns out to be Cuban food from their honeymoon.
Vicki lands the appetizer course, the Cuban course, and the desserts, but she overcooks the lamb. Chris takes 30 minutes to get his first course out which is tastes good, but he really sticks the Cuban course, the short ribs and the desserts. Aside from the time crunch, he also forgets to alter his menu for the shellfish allergic guest and the vegetarian like Vicki did.
In the end, Chris gets his James Beard, name-dropping comeuppance as Vicki gets the toast (and check) from Rocco. A sour Chris walks out of the kitchen offended and snitty, while Vicki is delightfully shocked at her achievement and accepts facetime and kudos from the guests.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.