On the verge of tears when the sentence was announced, Miguel Garcia, sous-chef at the Abdel de Lyon bistro, had to leave the “Top Chef” competition in the first week of competition. Without having been able to show all his talent. A disappointment for the Twittos who had already made it their favorite. Especially since we felt that the boy, endowed with a strong capital of sympathy and a grain of madness, had some under the sole.
Spectacular turn of events ! The young man was recalled on Wednesday by chef Hélène Darroze, being offered the opportunity to join her “secret brigade” to possibly win the competition in the quarter-finals. An “incredible second chance”. And to be honest with you, we believed in it hard as iron because until then the competition has hardly smiled on the Lyon candidates.
A fatal sinking heart
Only bad luck! The technical test of the “salty flowing heart” cost him a second time his place in the competition… and his return to M6. “Successful in terms of taste”, his “pretty dish” was “not successful”. To put it simply: the coulis did not flow when the chefs cut it into pieces.
“It was a great experience”, confides the interested party who would have liked to “show more Lyon cuisine” and his way of sublimating the offal. The “stress” undoubtedly played a role, he analyzes: “With all the cameras around, I couldn’t do both. I stopped cooking to answer interviews. Then I was wasting time and running after the watch. But rushing is never good in the kitchen. »
In the meantime, his elimination hardly helps our statistics because no matter how much we dig into the archives, no cook from Paul Bocuse’s homeland has won “Top Chef”. A height! From there to think that the “capital of gastronomy” is as cursed as France at Eurovision? Our bad faith would tend to believe it…
Black series since 2016
If Thibault Sombardier came close to the feat in 2014 by losing to Pierre Augé, Pierre-Sang Boyer had shown the way, three years earlier, by finishing third in the competition. The following season, the solar Tabata Bonardi had also narrowly failed by losing in the semi-final. This did not prevent him from pursuing his brilliant career and winning a first Michelin star. In 2016, Florian Chatelard wore the colors of Lyon until the quarter-finals. From ? Nothing ! The belly. The Berezina.
No candidate selected during the castings for seasons 7,8 and 9. It will be necessary to wait until 2019 to see the stealthy appearance of a Lyonnaise. Leaving the competition at the end of the second episode, Marie-Victorine Manoa only had time to show her strong character on the screen. The following year, Adrien Zedda, executive chef of Culinas Hortus – crowned best vegetarian restaurant in the world – was taken out in the first round, after being completely zapped by the production during editing.
As you will have understood, we were betting particularly on Miguel Garcia with such an atypical career. “If I have the opportunity to do the competition again, I will take it. And this time, to win,” laughs the chef. For the moment, he is pursuing another dream: that of being able to open a guest house with a gourmet table alongside his wife.