Giada De Laurentiis' favorite part of her meal at Graffiato? The pasta course.

“I think it's pretty gutsy for someone to try and feed me pasta,” said Giada De Laurentiis, her voice crackling slightly thanks to a sinus infection.

The Food Network's queen of Italian cuisine had just left the stage at the Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show. Held this past weekend at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, it is the sort of event where vendors hand out samples of pepper jack cheese and jam and tiny sausages to suburban couples getting a jump on their Christmas shopping. Behind a labyrinth of black curtains, attendees watched De Laurentiis and fellow Food Network personalities Guy Fieri (bleached hair, bowling shirts) and Paula Deen (butter) demoing dishes from a large, brightly lit stage.

So who would have the gall to serve gnocchi to the Everyday Italian lady? That would be Mike Isabella, Top Chef alum and owner of the recently opened Graffiato in Chinatown, where De Laurentiis and her agent spent Saturday night gorging themselves on the potato-filled pasta, along with chestnut-filled mezzalunas; handmade spaghetti with cherry tomato, garlic, and basil sauce; crispy goat; chicken with cranberry sauce; and pumpkin-filled zeppole (doughnutlike pastries).

This week’s Top Chef: All Stars was a tale of two pop-up restaurants, as the chefs divided into teams and opened their own eateries. One team's Mediterranean-style spot, Etch, was plagued with problems from the very start, with poor communication and bickering leading to disastrous food. 

Spike Mendelsohn is the proud owner of two popular Capitol Hill eateries, but he never lost his hunger to take home the title of Top Chef. Expectations were high when joined this season’s All Star cast, battling it out against other DC-area favorites such as Carla Hall and Mike Isabella. Alas, when the owner of Good Stuff Eatery and We, the Pizza paired a tangy tomato-tamarind soup with bland shrimp, the judges were nonplussed, asking Mendelsohn to pack his knives and go. We chatted with him about strategy, Angelo’s sabotage, and who he sees as the top competitors.

This week’s Top Chef featured a Quickfire of lobbyist-friendly toothpick snacks, followed by an elimination challenge that sent the contestants to cook a “power lunch” at the Palm, using the restaurant’s proteins. Saddled with swordfish, Miami chef Andrea Curto-Randazzo dished it up pan-seared with a vanilla/mustard beurre blanc. Alas, the judges found her dish too “sweet” and “totally unfocused” and sent her home. She chatted with us about the case of the missing pea puree, her rivalry with fellow Miami chef Michelle Bernstein, and why she wouldn't do the show again.

Local ingredients were the star on this week’s episode of Top Chef. For the Quickfire challenge, the contestants confronted squirming blue crabs that seemed ready to take over the whole kitchen. Later, they decamped to Virginia’s Ayrshire Farms to create a family-style meal, working together as a single team. Battling frigid temperatures, limited produce, and a makeshift outdoor kitchen—not to mention 12 oversized egos— the chefs cooked a lunch of (mostly) farm-grown ingredients. Three dishes sank to the bottom: Amanda’s shockingly rustic faux-minestrone, Stephen’s “over-thought and over-dressed” salad, served—Horrors! —in a bowl, and Timothy’s forgettable roasted turnips, potatoes, and asparagus. In the end, the judges sent Timothy packing. We talked with the DC/Baltimore-area chef about home-turf advantages, Angelo’s master plan, and his favorite local restaurants.

Maybe Jacqueline was just too damn nice for the cut-throat culture of Top Chef. Photograph courtesy of Bravo TV.

Wednesday night’s episode of Top Chef saw a sandwich-making Quickfire that forced the chefs to work tied together in pairs (hilarious for the viewer, perhaps not so amusing for the cheftestants), followed by an elimination challenge that grouped them into teams of four to create a healthy, budget-friendly school lunch. With her teammate Amanda insistent on dishing up the unlikely kid’s meal of braised chicken thighs in sherry jus, Jacqueline Lombard was left with meager fixings to prepare her banana pudding. Alas, two pounds of sugar later, judge Tom Colicchio deemed Jacqueline’s dessert “grainy, loaded with sugar, and not very nutritious” and sent the Brooklyn chef home. We caught up with her today to discuss the combative atmosphere at judges’ table, grocery shopping for 50 on a tight budget, and why she didn’t know that desserts on Top Chef are usually the kiss of death.

>>For a recap of episode 2, click here.

Was Amanda really as selfish a teammate as she appeared to be?
“Amanda took the competition very seriously. She had a take-no-prisoners attitude, and she was working for herself and no one else, versus having us come together as a team. [At judges’ table] I defended the team, but my teammates only defended themselves.”

Do you regret making a dessert?
“I didn’t want to be the one to do dessert, but I was the only member of the team with pastry experience, which everyone kept bringing up. I would’ve loved to do the chicken! But [dessert] was the hand I was dealt.”

Do you feel your team had the worst plate of food?
“My team felt very strongly that, based on the critiques, our dishes were much less offensive. Angelo’s team was really the losing team. They had a total lack of nutritional quality. They served carbohydrates and sugar in all four of their dishes, which was way worse than Amanda’s boozy chicken. We served 19 ounces of health with one ounce of sugar.”

He says he's the most talented chef of the lot, but he was sent packing first. Photograph courtesy of Bravo TV.

Everyone’s favorite reality cooking show is back, and it has a new star: our fair city. Season seven of Top Chef premiered this week with beauty shots of the cherry blossoms, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Capitol—not to mention a new judge, Eric Ripert of DC’s Westend Bistro. And of course, there was a whole lot of drama. After enduring a mise en place Quickfire that featured bloody potatoes and a $20,000 cash prize, the cheftestants prepared cocktail fare that was supposed to reflect their roots and personalities. Alas, dreadlocked Michigan chef John Somerville disappointed the judges with an overly sweet maple-mousse napoleon that was long on the packaged puff pastry and short on the maple flavor. We spoke to him about how it feels to be the first to leave, the steamy close quarters of the Top Chef kitchen, and which contestant most resembles belligerent Lakers star Ron Artest.

>>For a recap of episode 1, click here.

Were you surprised to be the first to go?
“Absolutely. [Stephen] pounded the living crap out of rib-eye steak and then fried it. And I thought [Jacqueline] was going to have to throw those livers away. I really thought I had a real good chance to win. I’m hoping this shows how legit Top Chef really is. The show is creating a new breed of highly skilled superchefs that can think really fast on the fly.”