'Top Chef' recap: It's Jimmy's Party

Well, that was a shock! After winning the hearts of women across the country by adding an "-ah" to the end of every word, Fabio the Italian quote factory has left the building. If the judgment had been based on who makes better TV, no doubt Tiffany would have gotten the boot instead. Back in her original season, she flirted happily with Ed. These days she either talks in a screaming voice or looks like she needs a hug. Versus Fabio, who literally said: “Just beef-ah, I was afraid it-ah be dry out-ah.” Come on! No one can accuse the judges of being ratings sluts with that guy out of the game, except maybe when it came to picking the better winner/guest for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. (Adorable birdlike Carla? Or the weirdo who scrawls “Crocadile” on steel tables?) More on that later.

The hour started out casual as always. Our gang of eight sat around a cozy-looking bar, just a couple of stools, some clinky glasses, and an undercurrent of mutual distrust to keep them busy. Fabio asked Antonia to walk him through her mussels. He sounded curious, like it was his first time asking, but she snapped, “No,” like it was his thousandth. According to her Fabio impression, he's been pulling his lips down and murmuring in a pretentious voice a lot lately. “Antonia beat me with a French dish,” Fabio explained in a confessional clip recycled from last week, when the challenge was to cook a classic Italian meal. The accusation had clearly circulated among the group and found a friend in Mike Isabella, who threw Antonia's alleged Frenchness in her face. “I am more Italian than you!” went his silent scream. To which she was all, Well, I won, and he was like, By being French!, and she called him a sore loser. If Mike were even a teensy bit charming, this could have been the prelude to a sexual-tension story line. But no. They pretty much seemed to hate each other.

In Padma's lair, there was new machinery to be explained. She stirred to life and emitted a single word: “fondue.” For the Quickfire Challenge, each chef had to make their own version of the genre. Fabio gave "fondue" an accurate, strange definition: “a pot of boiling something, you cook it in, or you just flavor it with it, and you eat it out of a stick.” Yes. Padma pooh-poohed the '70s fondue standard of “bananas and chocolate,” and told the chefs to reach higher. Blais took her warning as a suggestion. “The first thing I want to do is what Padma said not to do,” he said.

His judgment clouded by memories of the nude fondue parties his parents “definitely” attended, Blais got to work assembling bananas, chocolate, and the ingredient that means you're innovative: liquid nitrogen. Antonia's smoked-salmon fondue was inspired by a mental image of her mom eating deli food at the kitchen table. She marveled at her ideas and where they come from. Dale said the word “pho” in the totally correct way that sounds pretentious if you're not Asian. “It's phuuuuuh-ndue,” he said, describing his dish. Then he smiled deliberately, an anger-management smile. Carlabird chirped about how there's never any time. Mike told us in no uncertain terms that he's never been to any “gay fondue parties” because (a) he was too young in their prime, and (b) he's DEFINITELY NOT GAY. DEFINITELY NEVER MADE FONDUE BEFORE. Angelo, literary theorist of the cooking world, launched into jargon. “I really want to show the other chefs that I am someone with diversity. So basically what I'm doing is a deconstruction.”

Next: Jimmy Fallon is giddy