Josie Smith-Malave, left, and D.C.’s Bart Vandaele in the kitchen on last night’s episode of ‘Top Chef.’ (NBC Universal)Still got Top Chef fever? If so, hopefully you’re current on your watching of the Bravo TV franchise’s tenth season. If not, watch out for our spoilers below.
Bart Vandaele, the executive chef and owner of Belga Café on Barracks Row, was eliminated in last night’s episode of Top Chef Seattle. Vandaele’s delicate touch with the seasonings, a critique he received several times this season, finally did him in. Paired with the grating Josie Smith-Malave in a roller derby-themed challenge, Vandaele was tasked with creating a dish inspired by a skater by the name of Teriyaki Terror. When told by his partner that his blood red beet sauce needed generous doses of salt and pepper, he’s shown adding just a small pinch; the forbidden rice accompanying the beets was called overcooked and under-seasoned. But the final indignity came from Tom Colicchio, who dismissed Vandaele and Smith-Malave’s steak teriyaki with forbidden rice, beet blood and green papaya salad as “teriyaki terrible.” Ouch!
Colicchio faulted Smith-Malave for not making sure he used a heavier hand with the salt shaker. And it seems that Vandaele took on more of the heavy lifting, and thus risk, with the dish. But with the seasoning and rice cooking at fault, it was clear that host Padma Lakshmi would have to ask Vandaele to pack his knives and go.
Born, raised and recently knighted into Belgium’s Order of Leopold, the tall, thin, Flemish-accented chef brought a sense of offbeat, measured levity to the season. His affable personality was on display through the season as he generally avoided conflict in the kitchen, save for one time when a chef refused to share a blender with him.
“In Belgium, we don’t go head to head,” he told the cameras in an interview segment after being paired with the loudmouthed Smith-Malave in the contest that would be his downfall. “We’re civilized.”
As the eighth chef to be eliminated from the Top Chef kitchen, Bart spent most of the season hovering around the middle of the pack. He won a breakfast challenge with a sandwich on a stick served to workers at Seattle’s Pike Place Market. There were several instances where he said he was recreating a dish available at his restaurant like oysters with champagne sauce or a blackberry soup served with salmon and rhubarb yogurt.
“Maybe I didn’t push it enough,” he said during his exit interview. “Didn’t step out of my comfort zone. If I had more time I would have done it different.”
Vandaele’s fall could have been predicted early in the episode. Being built up in the editing room early in the show with cute baby pictures is always a bad sign. Shown as a toddler in his father’s arms and wearing his toque blanche, we learned that Vandaele’s family tried to steer him away from the restaurant industry he grew up around. But at the age of 12, he chose to go to culinary school, a path that led him to train and serve as sous chef at Michelin-starred restaurants and the Dutch embassy to the United States and as a brand ambassadorship for Stella Artois. Just in time to capitalize on his newly found TV fame, Vandaele is slated to open his second restaurant, B Too, in Logan Circle in early 2013.
And he’s not necessarily done on Top Chef. In addition to the Last Chance Kitchen online video feature that was added to Top Chef last year, ousted chefs also have a chance to be saved by fans via a Save A Chef poll. Good luck, Officier Bart!
