Bobby Flay’s first restaurant was Mesa Grill. His training, however, ran through the French Culinary Institute. The losses in this chapter are losses against chefs operating in the idiom Bobby studied for his foundation — which is a quiet kind of embarrassment.
Alex Guarnaschelli has beaten him twice in this chapter alone — lobster Newberg and sole almondine. Both dishes she grew up cooking at Butter. Both dishes Bobby admitted, on camera, he had not cooked in twenty years.
French technique often wants restraint. Eight chefs in this chapter understood that.