Welcome back! Thank you for joining us! Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars Recap of Season 2, Episode 4. Last time, Gordon Ramsay’s team won the bar competition, and Kamal Grant from Lisa Vanderpump’s team was sent home.
In this week’s episode, “Recipe Showdown,” teams are challenged to create a recipe and perform a cooking demo together. Here’s everything you need to know about Gordon Ramsay Food Stars Season 2, Episode 4.
A tasty challenge
The group met at the Gordon Ramsay Academy, where Team Ramsay and Team Vanderpump will be working with a client, and that client is Delish, so no pressure!
Each team will create recipes, guides and host cooking demonstrations together, which will be livestreamed in both the UK and US.
So what’s the theme? The Fourth of July. The recipes are designed for home cooks and must be ready in 30 minutes. Then, two experts will choose the winner. Some team members will work on the media team, while others will cook in the kitchen.
Team Vanderpump
These are the members of Lisa’s team.
- Erica Levin
- Maria Laura Baca Flores
- Roman Desmond
- Nicholas Ducos
- Peri Basel
- Jess Druy
Lisa lost last week’s challenge and doesn’t want to lose again. Peri runs for team leader, but gets a lukewarm response. Roman is worried because Peri has business experience but no cooking experience.
Peri has “run hundreds of millions of dollars of businesses,” so when she became leader, she made a decision quickly: She wanted to add Erica to her culinary team, in addition to Nikolas and Roman.
Team Ramsay
Here are the members of Gordon’s team:
- Ari Schlichter
- Kyson Clark
- Andrew Whiting
- Chuan Liu
- Liz Aust
- Rose Hankins
Kaison is now the team leader. Ali, Rose and Andrew are in the kitchen team. Liz, Chuan Liu and Kaison are in the media team.
Meet Our Experts
The live demos will be judged by two Delish experts: Executive Content Editor Carissa Tozzi and Food Director Robert Seixas. So what’s the perfect recipe for Delish? “Fun, a little irreverence, and wit.” Robert noted that in a competitive industry, Delish “needs to stand out.”
For Carisa, a recipe needs to be easy enough for a home cook to make. Too many steps or ingredients can ruin a recipe. Lisa pointed out that following the instructions to Delish is essential.
The challenge intensifies
Each group has six hours to present their work. Oh dear! Team Vanderpump was struggling. The kitchen team couldn’t agree on a shrimp dish. Erica wanted a lobster roll but only used shrimp, while Nicholas wanted to make marinated shrimp skewers. In the end, they settled on shrimp skewers with pineapple.
The Ramsay team discussed food choices: Ali suggested shrimp, while Andrew thought a bacon burger might be better, and ultimately they all decided that a burger would symbolize Independence Day.
Meanwhile, each team was given just a few hours to write the recipe instructions and ingredients list. Once submitted, they could not be changed. For Team Ramsay, Ali and Rose were tasked with creating recipe guidelines. Ali was annoyed with Rose’s constant interjections and changes along the way.
Ali was moved to tears during her confession. “It’s frustrating that I’m under pressure to cook and when I explain it to them, no one listens,” she said.
A tale of two teams
Peri clashed with Jess and Maria Laura while taking food photos for Team Vanderpump, and Jess asked Peri to speak to the kitchen team to help move things along, Peri refused, so Jess snuck into the kitchen and offered to help.
When she saw the team’s creation, she wasn’t impressed. “It looked like a dangling penis,” Jess said. After that shocking first impression, the culinary team cut pineapples into star shapes and created a new dish. Thank goodness!
Meanwhile, Team Ramsay took photos for the recipes. This portion of the challenge was led by Kyson and everything went smoothly.
the 2nd day
On Team Ramsay, Kaison chose Liz and Andrew to demo recipes and encourage them to show off their personalities. Liz is no stranger to livestreaming, as she frequently hosts livestreams for her freeze-dried candy business, The Candy Closet. Rose, Chuan Liu and Kaison will work behind the scenes, and Ali will oversee the comments from the home cooks.
For Team Vanderpump, Peri decided that she, Roman, Jess, and Maria Laura would be involved in the production, while Erica and Nicholas would be in charge of the demo. Lisa then contacted the team. Lisa was impressed with the recipe and asked the team to demo it.
Meanwhile, Gordon dropped by to check on Ramsay’s team’s progress. He looked at the recipe. Not only were the burger buns missing, but they were also missing bacon. Oops! “Right now my team looks like a bunch of idiots,” Gordon confessed. Now Liz and Andrew need to somehow mention the missing ingredients during the demo.
First Demo – Team Ramsay
Demo time! In the studio, Gordon and Lisa were joined by home cooks at each station, and two Delish experts were in the studio pretending to be home cooks. Once they were live, Rose coached hosts Liz and Andrew on their burger, which they called “The Firecracker.”
Andrew was the first to mention that a few surprise ingredients were missing from the list — pretzel buns and bacon — leaving the studio cooks and home cooks in stitches.
Liz didn’t speak to the audience, she just smiled for the cameras, Gordon ran to the front row and told Liz to speak, and the time was up before they finished.
2nd Demo – Team Vanderpump
Peri decides to have Roman direct the team while he monitors the live feed and comments, followed by Erica and Nikolas doing a live Star-Spangled Shrimp Skewers demo, with Nikolas discussing all the ingredients, which wasted valuable time.
Meanwhile, Gordon was throwing juiced limes at Lisa. I loved their dynamic. The team had clear instructions and the home crowd loved it.
But it was the pineapple star that doomed them all: everyone in the studio struggled to cut the pineapple, but Lisa was worried that Peri would not go off the rails and help the team, and the viewers at home were upset when they couldn’t cut the pineapple into shape.
When Nicholas gives the instructions for the skewers, he works quickly, frustrating the home cooks, who manage to finish before the time is up, but Gordon and Lisa are also busy finishing their dishes.
Afterwards, the experts gave their opinions to Lisa and Gordon. Robert commented that he liked Team Vanderpump’s “playfulness.” Carisa said that their demo was “fun,” but that it was difficult to complete the dish in time. Gordon added that the recipe had many steps.
So how did Team Ramsay fare? Robert felt the recipe and presentation didn’t match up. At times it seemed like the team was “just hitting the nail on the head.” Carissa felt the demo didn’t give precise instructions and was “sloppy.” Gordon hyped the end result as amazing. But what happened to the missing ingredient?
Who won the challenge?
The team gathered to hear the results, and they were shocked to find that their client, Delish, had hired two undercover experts to cook with them in studio.
Gordon explained that it was hard to choose a winner because Carissa and Robert were so close. Delish rated the recipes out of five stars, with Ramsay’s team receiving three stars and Vanderpump’s team receiving two stars.
The Vanderpump team was shocked, and to be honest, so was I. The experts told Lisa’s team that the recipe was too difficult for home cooks.
grill
Lisa asked her team leader, Peri, what went wrong, and she blamed Nicholas for making the shrimp dish.
The restaurant owner wondered why Nicholas hadn’t realized the recipe was too labor-intensive. He blamed his team members, who had no cooking experience, for not pointing out that the recipe was too difficult. Finally, Jess asked Nicholas to take responsibility for his decision. Erica then interjected, saying that she’d suggested a different shrimp dish.
But Lisa was upset that the teams were arguing. “I can’t believe they’re out there arguing when $250,000 is on the line,” she said. We’ll save that for Lisa’s other show, “Vanderpump Rules.”
When asked how Peri was as a leader, Jess replied, “She let things unfold naturally.” Oops. Nicholas accused Peri of only coming into the kitchen once, while Jess came in multiple times. Lisa continued to note that Nicholas created the recipes and that Peri didn’t lead the team.
Who will drop out of the competition?
Peri Basel withdraws from the tournament.
Lisa told Peri that her lack of leadership led to her team’s defeat. In her final confessional, Peri said, “I’m very surprised that I was sent home. It all came down to the food. I ended up putting the cooking responsibility on Nick.”
Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars airs Wednesdays from 9pm-10pm ET on FOX.
Tell us: Did you enjoy Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars, Season 2, Episode 4? Did the right contestant go home? Which recipe will you be making?
