Not too much, it would perhaps be the moral of this final concluding in beauty this season 14 of "Top Chef". In this final fight of the chiefs, broadcast this Wednesday, June 7 on M 6, Danny Khezzar and Hugo Riboulet, the Red and the Blue, faced themselves at the Georges V, in Paris. The two young prodigies of French gastronomy had ten hours and four partners each to delight the four chefs of the jury and a hundred volunteers of the Red Cross.
Alban, Mathieu, Jean and Sarika for Hugo, Jérémie, Jacques, Carla and Alexandre with Danny, the brigades formed, the duel could begin. Two rooms, two atmospheres. The "fuego latino gang" among the reds of rapper Danny who distributes blood-colored scarves to his troops. "I want Tupacs on the team!" he tells them. War word "fuego", fire. "If you win, you make a rap video with your brigade," Jacques challenges him. At Hugo, "the brigade of good humor", for Jean, we are rather "atchic atchic atchic aïe aïe, for Hugo de Montmirail!", a reference to his clear haircut behind the ears.
"Your broth, it will change color? A Top Chef finals day? »
This final is a happy opportunity to find the cheerful Lurons that are Jacques, Jean or Carla, relaxed and mischievous. "Do you want a chair Jeremy? Ten hours is a long time," scoffs the Jeannot coming to distribute glasses of water to the Reds who make him "pain". And Carla to knock it on his head! "Why don't fish go to school? Because they fish," dares Jacques, who lifts dozens of char nets without flinching. Nothing stops him!
As usual, Danny wants to impress and plans a color-changing broth at the service. "From the shadows to the light," he says, amused. "Your broth, it will change color? A Top Chef finals day? ", chokes Hélène Darroze, who recognizes there her "gentleman more" that she would have liked to see do less. "And doesn't that scare you?" she adds, pouting dubiously as he starts with his characteristic laugh...
After his Arctic char, a fish he used to cook in Geneva, he will propose the chocolate puffed pie with which he seduced Darroze in the parallel competition. "Doing it for two plates is not the same as for 100," she warns him. And to say to his comrades: "Do not be afraid to calm his ardour".
"It pisses me off, I didn't manage to organize ourselves well"
At Les Bleus, Hugo is aiming for a leaf-to-leaf made from mushrooms with small touches of protein. A cold starter, an advantage, but the mushroom oxidizes and Hugo wants to cut it at the last minute... Perilous, Glenn Viel tells him. But Hugo sticks to his idea and his training in extremis. It will heat up a little in the kitchen for this starter, sent in pain, Hugo annoyed by the imprecision of Jean's editing, the slowness of his comrades. And especially of himself. "It pisses me off, I didn't manage to organize ourselves well," he says. The dish will fortunately seduce the tasting ... Unlike Danny's whose promise of color change is not kept. He has tested it in the kitchen, but at the table, it is "pschitt". And "grrr" for Darroze who fulminates. "It's from shadow to shade," she snaps, "angry" at her foal. Hugo advantage.
"Cabbage must go on," says Albane, tackling a mountain of cabbages to wash, blanch, irritate for the pâté that will accompany Hugo's scallops topped with an oyster tartare. In the wine sauce that will marry land and sea, the bards of the scallops must play matchmaker. "Don't wash them!" urges Etchebest, horrified at the idea... "But it's full of sand," retort the little Blues. "You filter them after!" slips the Basque who confides one of his tips.
All of them have always done so... "We're going to be the ugly ducklings and we're not going to listen to the chefs, we're rinsing them," says Hugo. He fears the loss of time, he loses that strong taste of scallops that would have bound his dish. "The sum of very good things does not make a whole," points out Paul Pairet. Hélène Darroze reconciles with Danny on this dish to which she finds a lot of roundness, sweetness. Opinion shared at the chefs' table. Point to Danny on the flat. One everywhere, the ball in the center.
"It's a blower you're going to take"
Everything will be played on dessert. A puffed pie on Danny's side, a balanced alliance between chocolate, savory ice cream and Timut pepper for Hugo. "We've never seen a soufflé in the final," Danny says with a conquering air. "It's a blower you're going to take," replies Hugo. But no false note from either side on this point. Both seduce jurors as Red Cross volunteers. What's the point of a victory? Not much... Maybe to Danny's willingness to always do more. "It's always gentleman more," breathed Hélène Darroze.
Maybe to this dry ice that smokes Danny's plate, the bluff recalling the disappointed promise of the entry? After the leaders' vote, the two are tied. The decision rests with the volunteers. They surely have it in mind when they take the knife out of the base during a ceremony that is always as moving. Families, loved ones, chefs there to discover the result. The pride of a father, a mother and a sister in Danny, that of a mother, a sister, a brother in Hugo. And the tears of the two candidates in front of the words that touch, the intensity of the moment, the stakes.
Before getting their hands on the knife handle, they discover the score: 54.19 for one, 45.81 for the other. There is no photo. Hugo draws first, the blade is steel. Explosion of joy and mingling around the boy. Carried in triumph by his relatives, he loses his jacket. "It's the best day of my life," he says. Just because you're young doesn't mean you can't do great things."
Another atmosphere, obviously, at Danny's. "I'm disgusted, it's a mess, I'm not proud of myself, I want to run away and hide," he says. We immediately see him surrounded. "Good thing the family is here," he said. "You remain the one who stoned us all," Jacques comforts him.
