He can’t run a kitchen if there are no consequences for ignoring him and sabotaging him.
Well, the consequences are you are probably going to end up on the losing team. I doubt any of the cheftestants are interested in increasing their own chances of elimination to spite one guy. I can’t imagine they’d deliberately sabotage themselves to sabotage Marcel.
Marcel’s at least partially responsible for staffing his team with a bunch of people he couldn’t work with. He got the first pick of the remaining chefs. He could have gone for chefs that would have formed a coherent team, rather than shooting for individual cooking talent. Dale, on the other hand, seemed to have a better idea with his first couple picks of how they would contribute to the team (Blaise with concepts and Fabio with FOH).
Maybe Marcel’s food was sabotaged. Maybe not. One of the leadership qualities lacking in Marcel was an acceptance of his own limitations and owning up to them. According to him, he didn’t make any major mistakes. But clearly, at least his team selection was a mistake.
A chef may be able to fire anybody at any time, but you can’t fire everybody until you get quiescent drones. You have to be able to manage different personalities, and that never happened during the episode. They only had a day to come up with a kitchen, but they’ve had a couple weeks to learn each other’s personalities and styles. Any halfway decent leader should have had some plan to deal with each person. Granted, even Angry Dale seemed to have this issue, but he staffed his team so it never came up.
You can’t physically force people to do things, but you can certainly help them see it’s in their own best interests to pull together instead of stabbing you in the back (something I think the editors showed both Angelo and Antonia stating). The easiest way to avoid elimination, after all, is to be on the winning team. A rising tide lifts all chefs or something like that.
A chef doesn’t have to fire anyone, my point was that it’s an employer-employee relationship where the chef is paying a staff to do what he wants (and if they don’t do what he wants, then yes, they do get fired. That’s how it works in the employment world). In these show challenges, there is no genuine authority or power to these “leadership” designations. No carrots, no sticks. If the others don’t like you, then they aren’t going to put out for you. Being on the losing team doesn’t concern them as long as they cover their own asses (i.e. by making sure their own dishes are ok before they worry about anything else), and as long as they know they can scapegoat the “leader” for their own bad work.
ETA, I agree that Marcel staffed his team badly. he should have taken Blaise and avoided Isabella.
Except when it doesn’t.
I’ve got somebody on my team who isn’t malicious but is clearly incompetent and often ignores some of the tasks I assign in favor of lower priority tasks because they aren’t “exciting” enough. I am her direct report but have no firing power, and she is just competent enough to avoid being fired by my own bosses (besides which, we’re shorthanded and waiting for new hires to fill the gap).
That doesn’t really matter. I still have to stay on schedule, deal with the situation, release a quality product, and never let our clients see these problems coming up. And I do (brilliantly, in my own opinion). You don’t always get the staffing situation you want and sometimes are stuck with one you can’t change. You still have to suck it up and do your job. Or quit.
That might not be fair for a contest situation, though. But I think everybody agrees Marcel brought that on himself.
I laughed.
Glad to see rapping Marcel go home. Even if he is the best chef in the world I don’t want to watch his antics.
I agree with Dio to an extent. The “you didn’t lead your team” mantra is over done. There isn’t anyway for a team to force a team member to do.
I had the same objection at the US Open challenge when Tom said the team should have forced Jamie to go next by yelling her name out. Really? That’s the rule whoever yells the name out decides it? And the contestants knew that? Cause it didn’t seem like they knew that. And then what’s to stop Jamie from just yelling someone else’s name first.
That said, I think Marcel’s I don’t ever do anything wrong it’s bad edits is a bit delusional.
Dale did not deliberately pick Marcel to captain the other team because he’s a genius whose downfall would be masterminded by the producers. He did it because the guy, while very talented, is not at all tuned in to how his actions impact others. Besides getting on two seasons worth of contestant’s nerves, he also made two dishes with FOAM. Immediately after being told for the umpteemth time the judges were sick of seeing FOAM.
He seems to have trouble with the idea that other people may react differently to his genius than he does.
In the stew room when everyone was congratulating Fabio on his performance, who was it who said, “I expected you to pull out a white truffle,” [pantomimes grating a truffle over a dish], “Something special just-a for you.”
My wife and I cracked up.
I think it was Dale. I couldn’t tell at first how funny Fabio thought it was.
I’m always of a mixed mind about team challenges. On the one hand, Dio is right; a real-world chef has a bigger stick to wield, and can get some things done just by the power inherent in their position. “Do this, or your out of here.”
On the other hand, a chef who relies on that sort of tactic too much will rapidly find himself with a lack of talent. One can be forceful, decisive, and a strong personality without being a complete ass, but it looks like Marcel hasn’t quite figured that out yet.* Look at Dale. We have all seen him lose his shit, and he clearly has some strong ideas. We even saw a little re-emergence of Angry Dale. However, he was able to lead a team of other strong personalities by respecting them. It wasn’t all about the team make-up. I have to believe that had the team leaders been switched it would have been a much closer race. Blais would not have taken the kind of “direction” Marcel was offering, and Fabio would likely have torn him a new one.
I am also struck by the contrasts between Marcel’s and Blais’s cooking (leadership issues aside). They’ve both got a penchant for injecting some wacky techniques into their dishes, but Blais seems much more capable of recognizing when such things will detract from a dish, rather than enhance. Notice last night’s dish; aside from a playful presentation, there was nothing of Blais’s dish that smacked of molecular gastronomy (or whatever you want to call it). It didn’t serve the dish or even the concept of the restaurant, and so he didn’t engage that portion of his skill-set. Marcel just can’t leave well enough alone with the foams. Bourdain was right to ask, “Why foam? Why now?” Blais’s techniques (for the most part) serve the dish. Marcel’s serve Marcel.
- Note: obviously all of the above comments are based on what I’ve seen on the show and read in a few of the judges’ blogs. If there’s a whole lot of stuff left on the cutting room floor that is contradictory, I’d be more than willing to change my mind.
I saw Tiffani AGAIN today, this time at the Banana Republic. (This time she was about two feet away from me and I was sure it was her.) I’m beginning to think she actually has a cheffing gig around here. I googled around and everything says that she was working at a place in Boston that has now closed.
Next time I see her, I want to ask her if Marcel really is as annoying as the editing makes him look.
The problem with Marcel was that it is a challenge and so he cannot be a manager but a facilitator. His team wanted to talk about what dishes they wanted to do and he was acting like a restaurant owner and, “We will do this!”
Having read both the interview and the article/ blog linked previously, I think that part of Marcel’s problem is that he still just doesn’t get how his comments will be perceived by others. He comes across as whiny an a bit out of touch with others. All of his comments are about how he knew how to fix everyone else’s dishes and they didn’t listen:
He goes on at more length, and essentially his point is “everything I did and said was right, and the other chefs were wrong, and they should have cooked exactly the way i told them because I’m perfect and make no mistakes ever.”
If he doesn’t want the a-hole edit, he should quit saying things that sound so much like what an a-hole would say.
Watch the second clip on this page if you haven’t seen it:
http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/11/bravos-sleazy-top-chef-reunion-dinner-episode/
Basically, Marcel interrupted Richard and started talking over him, Toby Young said “Marcel, shut up for a second” and Marcel cops the biggest attitude I’ve ever seen on the show. He wasn’t even a contestant that season – he was one of the guest sous-chefs for the finale.
After that, I finally understood why every single contestant on Marcel’s season wanted to kick his ass.
Diogenes, you have a point that plenty of real head chefs are jerks and their staffs still have to listen. But I think Marcel needed to recognize the situation he was in. He wasn’t a real head chef, he was in the role of a leader among peers. And when you can’t even get through planning a menu without saying things like “How many times do I have to tell you …” you’re setting yourself up for a mutiny.
Just caught up via my DVR and have to say…
The best part about Top Chef All Stars is getting to enjoy the a-holes you never liked when they were on the first time getting booted all over again.
Goodbye, Marcel 
Hopefully we have seen our last foam of the season…
Foam is hardly unheard of at this level of cooking. Ferran Adrià really brought it to the forefront years ago. If anything, Bourdain commented on the foam because it’s almost becoming old hat. I don’t see what the big deal is.
Ever heard the saying, “A Little Goes a Long Way”?
He persisted, even after being ridiculed, because that’s his only card he has to play with…
I can agree with this without any problem.
But, the nature of reality shows is that as soon as one a-hole is gone another emerges pretty quickly. My money is on Mike I. to be the next one who starts looking like an ass.
Also, I didn’t get the impression Marcel got the boot so much for his failure as a leader but more because he made the worst dishes.
Bourdain
I can agree with this without any problem.
But, the nature of reality shows is that as soon as one a-hole is gone another emerges pretty quickly. My money is on Mike I. to be the next one who starts looking like an ass.
Also, I didn’t get the impression Marcel got the boot so much for his failure as a leader but more because he made the worst dishes.
Bourdain on Marcel’s mushy monkfish - “It’s like effing baby food.”
Bourdain on Marcel’s peach dessert - “It’s a perfect storm of awfulness.”
I knew he was gone as soon as I heard the judges comments while eating because in the end it is always about the food.
Jen made the worst dish and got the boot.
Casey made the awful chicken foot dim sum and got sent home.
Same for Marcel.
With foam on top.
Marcel has his own show. On Syfy. Oy vey.