I would have to go with Jen. She is at least competent. How much damage could she do in one serving, especially with the guys, with whom she has little history? Matt on the other hand hates the guys, and is so delusional you’d have no idea if his dish was awesome or shit. Everything he does is awesome to him. Also, getting picked last would set him into full out crazy mode.
On the other hand, if he’s not picked last, he’ll probably be beaming, excited, convinced that Petrozza is his best friend and they’re going to be great together. He can turn on a dime, and it really doesn’t take much encouragement to send him either way. So he’s either going to do a great job for whoever picked him, or he’s going to be a complete and utter disaster. i doubt there’s going to be a middle ground with him.
Bump for the finale!
StG
Well, that didn’t go as I’d hoped. No spoilers until after the West Coast has seen the ep.
StG
Same here. Understandable choice but I was rooting the other direction.
I still think making Jen and Matt sit in the corner would have been preferable.
Well, I kind of figured if all things ended up equal in the finale he’d probably go for the younger one. Still I thought she played it safe with her dishes and Petrozza made more of an effort and therefore took the bigger risk.
The way he’s been treating Christina the last few weeks, I kinda figured she was a shoo-in. I suspect she’s cooking more than food in Ramsey’s kitchen (at least he’s hoping that someday . . .)
True enough. Petrozza’s 47, which may not be the potential for long-term work that Ramsay might like. Hopefully Petrozza got a good opportunity out of this exposure.
I think Petrozza lost when he ran out of ingredients for two out of three appetizers. All other things being equal, the lack of preparedness on what should be his biggest night is a lot of points off.
Good point. I thought he recovered really well from that, but was left puzzled as to what happened, if it was poor planning or what. I guess it must have been.
Petrozza running out of aps was a bad move, and Bobby did step right up and help, coming up with the risotto. Petrozza (is that his first name?) was losing it and could come up with a solution until Bobby was called on. I wonder, though, if Bobby on aps made the portions too big. Petrozza should’ve caught that, though. I think Petrozza should’ve taken it because his menu was more challenging, and he did, to a great extent, pull it off. I don’t think anything made it out the pass the the customers weren’t satisfied with, where Christina had dishes come back and Matt gave her the raw monkfish.
Speaking of Matt and Jen, I think both Christina and Petrozza would’ve moved themselves up a notch in Ramsey’s favor if they’d kicked out their poor performers. Jen’s asking for a reference during servie was priceless, as was her assertion that she was picked last because everyone was afraid she’d show them up in the kitchen. Poor delusional Jen. At least she doesn’t lack for self-esteem. And Matt got more unstable was the show progressed. I almost wonder if he was instructed to be that way by the producers.
I think in the end, Ramsey likes young talent. I’ve seen him take in young chefs on Kitchen Nightmares and give them extra training. That (besides being a sort of cute blonde girl) may be what gave Christina the win.
StG
I really wanted Petrozza to win, but I also figured that Christina would probably win just by virtue of this.
47 is “old” in chef terms.
There’s a reason why youth is revered in the field.
I think Ramsey may have told the exact truth about his choice: the two of them were pretty much evenly matched in cooking skills, ability to handle their ‘staff’, supervising the hot table, etc, and so he didn’t have a clear cut choice on that basis.
OTOH, Petrozza is 47, and therefore is likely ‘mature’ as far as his skills go. If Christina, 25, has already acquired basically the same level of skills in much less time AND is young enough to hopefully continue to improve quite a bit more.
Ramsey went for potential.