The St Kilda restaurant challenge was at the Baxter and the Republic along the the St Kilda Esplanade. The contestants were split into two teams, red and blue. Each team had one restaurant (upstairs or downstairs). The winner was decided by the diners who chose how much they would pay with the winning team being the one taking in the most money for the service.
Each team had to cook two dishes for entree, main and dessert using the same ingredients and the losing team will go into an elimination challenge.
Spoiler: We will be listing what each team cooked and who won the challenge below.
The Blue Team
The blue team was led by Tracey. They had a few teething problems in the kitchen. They had trouble filleting a salmon, with two contestants both trying their best, George said it was like “murder”, it was “butchered”. So the blue team changed up their dishes to make it easier.
Entree
- Confit of salmon with orange and fennel salad
- Beef carpaccio with herb mayonnaise
Main
- Tagliatelle
- Souse-vide lamb
Dessert
- Chocolate fondant with walnut crumbs
- Tiramisu
The frenching on the lamb dish was perfect and the entrees were tasty. The desserts were brilliant. Towards the end of the service, they were poaching diners from the red team who came down because they didn’t get their meals.
The Red Team
The red team was led by Sarah. They were downstairs in the Republic. The red team also had some problems. They planned fish tacos and fish croquets but they didn’t have enough fish so they swapped the fish in the tacos to prawns. The only issue was that they then had to peel the prawns. In the end the dish was a mish-mash of ingredients, which became a prawn bruschetta.
Entree
- Flathead croquettes with dill aoli
- Prawn bruschetta with avocado
Main
- Lightly seared salmon with pickled vegetables and aoli
- pizza with mushroom rocket and cheese
- pizza with bacon blue cheese and pear
Dessert
- Chocolate mousse tart with slated caramel and hazelnut crumb
- Lemon pana cota with mixed berries.
The entrees were good, the mains, almost perfect with the pizza’s nice and golden base. The pana-cota was perfect, Matt Preston described it as “sexiness” with the perfect wobble.
The blue team made a total of $1952 for the service and the red team made $2477.
The winning team was the red team. They are safe from elimination