The more we advance in the competition, the heavier the departures seem.
This Wednesday evening, it is a heavyweight from the blue brigade of Philippe Etchebest who is leaving.
Passed a hair's breadth of qualification in the first event, he failed to seduce in the second and, after a drop in motivation, tried a go-all that would not pay off during a last chance on the theme of the lamb.
He bows to another representative of the North, Sébastien.
More reassembled than ever, the candidate with the eternal smile and the laughing eyes behind his glasses, seems like a lamb that would have become a wolf over the weeks.
In total, in fourteen evenings, Sébastien won the last chance event four times, each time in a duel… “The butcher of the last chance”, do we call him now…
Sébastien in Paul Pairet's Violets team
After moving to Les Bleus d'Etchebest, then to Glenn Viel's orange brigade, the boy joined Paul Pairet's Violets team for the quarter-finals, without a candidate since Lilian's elimination on the 13th evening.
“You're an incredible guy,” the chef whispers to him, handing him his new purple cuffs.
The jurors will have preferred Sébastien's plate, his "reasoned creativity", he says himself, but perfectly balanced and gourmet to that, a little crazy and radical, but slightly unbalanced, of Mickaël.
He will have tried a lamb tartare with squid ink.
“Make or break,” he warned.
It didn't happen.
"You're a great guy in addition to being a great cook," greeted Etchebest, visibly struck by this elimination.
"I don't think I would have gone this far without this chef, thank you chef", replies, with tears in his eyes, Mickaël, who has come so close to qualifying for the quarter-finals...
Read alsoMickaël Braure, eliminated from "Top Chef": "I would have cooked it 30 seconds less and it was won"
It is at the Plaza Athénée, a palace whose kitchens he took over from Alain Ducasse in 2021, that Jean Imbert invites them to revisit a classic of French gastronomy: vol-au-vent.
The winning dish takes a direct trip to the quarter-finals… Mickaël sets off on an inverted plating, filling his cylinder of puff pastry with a raw langoustine filling and langoustine bisque to present it upside down, a very shiny sweetbread placed on the top.
A dressage hailed by the winner of the 3rd season of the competition.
“It slaps, it's committed, it's beautiful (…) there is an idea, a find”, loose the latter, prolix and generous in his comments.
Only after having so often shone for the precision of his cooking, Mickaël stumbles on that of his sweetbread, "overcooked".
Imbert prefers Louise's proposal, again, yet not in his element with this classic...
Louise harmonizes and wins
“I don't like it at all, it's so not my thing, such an unsexy dish,” she breathes, launching herself.
Very quickly in the juice with a juice that she drowns in the tomato paste, she throws another one that she misses, sweats as the clock ticks.
"Oh damn, Top Chef is hot his mother," she says.
She ends up marrying the two, and bingo.
At the tasting, Jean Imbert appreciates this juice which allows his veal, his smoked eel and his mushrooms to harmonize well.
“Oh the heist if I go to the quarters”, she swings, incredulous, when Imbert announces that he hesitated between the two plates.
Louise wins and exults with Hélène Darroze – three weeks in a row that she wins and shines – Mickaël can only swallow his frustration.
“Oh the balls, oh the balls,” drops Etchebest.
Pascal and Arnaud are 3rd and 4th.
Slightly less readable than the other dishes, with a “venerable bias”, according to Imbert, Sébastien's proposal with snails is good last.
"Whoever is going to be with Sébastien as a last chance, it's going to be like in Les Visiteurs:
Que trépasse si je faiblis
", predicts Arnaud.
Eight Michelin stars to support them
With Mickaël and Pascal, it is on the tomato that they must decide.
To support them, no less than eight Michelin stars with respectively Dominique Crenn, Alexandre Gauthier and Alexandre Mazzia.
Pascal opts for a slice of Crimean black grilled on the barbecue and stuffed with several tomato preparations, the same dish base for Mickaël who covers his slice with a tomato water jelly and a garden of stuffed cherry tomatoes.
As for Arnaud, he plays on textures and temperatures with tempered tomato water served in a Martini glass, a heart of warm tomato and buttermilk and tomato ice cream.
A proposal that thrilled the four chefs during the blind tasting.
“Look at what they say, you have to trust yourself,” Dominique Crenn friendly intimates to him.
It's a crush on the Belgian who struggles to hold back his tears.
Second place goes to Pascal.
The sequel, we know it for Mickaël who attacks his last chance with a motivation at the lowest - "I'm fed up, it's a bad period" - while Sébastien displays, him, a face as smiling as conquering.
"I will go after my dreams, where reason ends," he sings.
The adventure does indeed continue for “the butcher of the last chance” who was celebrating his birthday that day.
