"laurent manrique" news and stories

For the third installment of their hit series, Top Chef, Bravo wanted to take the competition up a notch by bringing in some very discerning judges: a group of forty 10-year olds. The theme of the whole episode seemed to be to make unappealing food appealing, both visually and taste-wise, to a group of picky eaters, hence the name of the episode: Nasty Delights.

The quickfire challenge, which awards immunity from elimination, at the beginning of the show dealt with octopus. Given a whole octopus, the chefs had 60-minutes to make it look and taste good - a difficult feat on any day, but compounded by the fact that some people had never really dealt with the ingredient before.  Braising seemed to be the cooking method of choice and the guest judge, Laurent Manrique of San Francisco's Aqua restaurant, had a difficult time judging. In fact, there were four dishes that he liked, but Tiffani's traditionally prepared octopus dish, brimming with Mediterranean flavors, was what won her the challenge.