Bon Cop Bad Cop

Throughout the challenge, the chefs disastrously took the “family style” brief as an invitation to play it safe (instead of an invitation to present their food on serving platters). For his starter, MacKay served up two kind of oysters with two simple mignonettes. McEwan was unimpressed: “Everything about it is clumsy, right from the plating to the final choice of ingredients.” Gallagher offered two big sloppy bowls of overcooked and under-flavoured homemade pasta. DeSousa impressed on the first course with an elegant beet salad with homemade fresh cheese that stunned both Lee and Simmons.

The second course was a battle of roast fish between Rossi—whose seared perch with gnocchi and peas drew adulation from the judges—and Gallagher, who served a whole, messy grilled lake trout. Quoth McEwan: “The juvenile nature of the trout really stands out.” DeSousa, meanwhile, removed her dead-simple roast chicken from the oven to find that the breast was totally uncooked. And while we applaud her emergency save—she plonked her halved chickens right into the deep fryer—we can’t believe such a highly trained chef could mess up a roast chicken. MacKay, for his part, sailed by with an inoffensive dish of diver scallops with asparagus purée and white asparagus.