Italian Empire

BURRELL: When top restaurants need an executive chef, they turn to me. Tonight four candidates will fight for a coveted executive chef position. Let's go! We have a dining room full of guests. We need some food. Something's burning over here. BURRELL: I'm going to test them to see what they're made of. Do you think this is gonna get you this job? Oh, my God. I totally just burned my sauce. I am screwed. BURRELL: The chefs will face the toughest job interview of their lives. DE PALMA: I'm feeling really stressed. I'm feeling the pressure. Stop talking and put [bleep] on the plate! This is "Chef Wanted." Today I'm in Salem, New Hampshire, on a mission to help find a chef for Tuscan Kitchen. Owner Joe Faro is a pasta pioneer. Two years ago, he sold his home-grown pasta company for $60 million and launched his flagship restaurant. With the company rapidly expanding, he needs a new executive chef to step right in. Joe! Anne! Buongiorno! Buongiorno, bella. [ Smooching ] I'm so excited to be here. I mean, this is where my heart and passion lies. I mean, I am an Italian chef. Fantastic. We have a tremendous amount of passion for traditional, regional ingredients, and we are looking for a chef that embodies the same passion. It is extremely important to find someone that can run this kitchen. I brought you four candidates. We've looked at their résumés, and I'm so excited for you to meet them. Let's do it. All right. Chefs, gather around, please. This is Joe Faro, the owner. And for one of you, he will be your new boss. Why don't you guys introduce yourselves to him? Hi, Joe, I'm Anthony De Palma. I'm an executive chef from Quincy, Mass. For five years, I owned and operated my own restaurant -- Dolce de Palma in West Palm Beach. I had accolades all over the restaurant. All of a sudden, the Bernie Madoff scam hits, decimated my clientele, and my business suffered a slow death. I lost my home, had to pack up my family. We have a baby, another baby on the way, and now I'm moving home with my in-laws. I need this so bad it hurts. I'm Valarie Carlone. I'm an executive chef from San Bernardino, California. I may be young, but I've traveled through Italy honing my craft, and I currently run a staff of 35. I am the executive chef of my own catering company. In this industry, there's a stigma with restaurant chefs against catering chefs. But it has given me the ability to be able to plate 350 dishes at one time. To make the jump into an executive-chef position in a restaurant of this size and caliber would be a dream come true. Hi, Joe. Jonny Giordani, an executive chef from Italy -- Rietta -- and I live in New York. I think I'm the perfect person for this job because Joe Faro is famous for his pasta, and my passion is pasta. I spent more than 20 years to make pasta -- white, red, blue, green -- whatever pasta it is, just give me pasta. [ Laughs ] I love pasta. Tuscan Kitchen is the place for me. I'm Scott Brandolini, an executive chef from Boston, Mass. I'm currently out of work, and I'm looking for a new home. I'm a Boston-Italian chef to the core. And I was cooking Italian food with my grandfather before I could even walk. It's crucial that I land this job. I have a 9-year-old daughter, Annabella, and I need to be able to provide for her. This restaurant is literally 10 minutes away from her, and this would just be amazing. If I don't get this job, then I have to start over and continue searching, and that just means more financial strain. I need this job. Joe and I have designed two grueling tests for you guys, and two of you will be weeded out. The remaining two will each get to create a menu and run a dinner service. It's a big opportunity. So, Joe, why don't you tell us about the first test? FARO: Growing up in a Sicilian family, we made everything from scratch. Today's test -- you are going to make a pasta, cheese, and sauce all from scratch. It is so difficult to get this done in one day, let alone a little amount of time. Almost close to an impossible task. If you can't create those Italian staples from scratch, you don't belong in my kitchen. At the end of this test, three of you will continue, and for one of you, the job interview will be over. You will have 60 minutes, and your time starts right now. BRANDOLINI: To make cheese from scratch, the first step is to bring cream and milk to a boil, and then add an acid. Then you got to separate the curds from the whey. This is a process that really should take a couple of hours. The dish needs to be ready in an hour. I'm making brodetto e cappelletti. For my sauce, I'm making a San Marzano tomato and lobster brodo. Cappelletti is a stuffed pasta that literally means "little hats." [ Singing in Italian ] Jonny, I can't hear myself think. He's a riot. Right now I'm making ravioli di vitella al porcini -- the veal ravioli in a porcini mushroom sauce. BURRELL: What's your cheese here? The cheese is the mozzarella. We're gonna marry with the veal inside the ravioli to make more interesting and tasty. You're the import here. We have very high expectations from you. I'm very excited. Good luck. Thank you. See you later. The only thing that I really worry is the time. I just move my butt. [ Laughs ] CARLONE: I specifically chose ricotta for this challenge because it is one of the faster cheeses you can make, and it's more forgiving than, for example, a mozzarella. Now I'm gonna be making an asparagus macaroni al faro. For my sauce, I'm making a grilled asparagus ricotta cream. Macaroni al faro literally means "a pasta spiral." It has an amazing ability to soak up the sauce, so your pasta's extremely flavorful. BURRELL: Knitting needles and all that kind of stuff, like, makes me feel like I'm right back in Italy. DE PALMA: This here -- I'm cutting up my cheese curd, getting ready to start making some fresh mozzarella. I want to cook a real traditional, simple, peasant pasta dish. I'm gonna make fresh tagliatelle all'amatriciana and fresh mozzarella. I've got this thing wrapped up. The essence of good Italian cuisine is simple cooking, so three, four ingredients, and we got a meal. BURRELL: All right, you guys, let's go! 13 minutes! Bring it on home! The addition of some salt to the mozzarella. BURRELL: Jonny was screwing around. He's dancing. He's singing. [ Singing in Italian ] BURRELL: But you know what? If he really wants it, he'll get it done. My hands are in boiling water in the midst of making this, and it's almost done. CARLONE: Right now, it looks like my cheese has a really good consistency. I think I'm gonna be happy with it. Flavor's good. It's holding up well. BURRELL: How's it going here? Is this your ricotta? It doesn't look like it drained very much. Where's the curds? Dude. I go back to my cheese, and it's still liquid. And I still don't see much curd. So I'm squeezing the cheesecloth, hoping there's gonna be some ricotta in the bottom. You are making me so nervous because right now I'm telling you this is not good enough. I am screwed. I have absolutely no idea what I'm gonna do right now. BURRELL: With a dream job on the line, the chefs lose control. I spend more time in the kitchen than with my own family. Oh, my God. BURRELL: Four chefs are in an intense interview for the executive chef position at Tuscan Kitchen. They're in the middle of their first test to create a dish using pasta, sauce, and cheese all made from scratch. Four minutes! Let's go! BRANDOLINI: [Bleep] I don't know what I'm gonna do. My cheese did not come together. I'm running out of time. I'm squeezing the cheesecloth, hoping there's gonna be some ricotta in the bottom. I am still definitely using this cheese, whether it's a finisher to the dish, or even a finish to my sauce. I get all the liquid out, and there's just enough. I'm adding the ricotta to the veggies. And we're gonna tie this together now. I was hoping to get more ricotta out of this batch. Not sure I'm gonna make it. That's your amatriciana sauce? This is the amatriciana. Amatriciana doesn't have garlic in it. DE PALMA: Italian cuisine's regional. I grew up with it in my sauce. All right, you guys. Two and a half minutes! Come on. Come on. Go, go, go, go! Go! All right, you guys. Let's go. Come on, come on! Let me see it! I have everything in the water. I'm gonna take it out in 30 seconds. In one minute -- Stop talking and put [bleep] on the plate! All right, 15 seconds. Let's go! They're counting down. 10...9... 8...7... [Bleep] with no timing, huh? ...3...2...1. That's it. Hands up. You are done! My plate look like [bleep] How are you, Chef? How are you, Joe? I've got tagliatelle all'amatriciana and some fresh mozzarella. The tagliatelle are good. I think it's a very simple dish. I love the texture of your mozzarella. So you obviously have done that before. You worked it beautifully. A nice plate of pasta. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Chefs. I made for you today a macaroni al faro with an asparagus sauce, some crunchy pancetta. I like the ricotta. The pancetta complements it nicely. I really like the way that you rolled the pasta, as well. So nice work on that. Thank you, Chef. Chef, tell us, what did you make? I created brodetto e cappelletti. A seafood stew, cappelletti pasta stuffed with homemade lemon ricotta, asparagus, and portabella mushroom. So the flavors in the sauce -- they're pretty pleasing. I like the texture of the pasta. The lemon ricotta is a little bit too acidic for me. I don't think it's great. I think it's good. Thank you very much. Hi. This is not-finished veal ravioli with porcini mushroom. Where do I begin? Um... the pasta is very doughy. The filling is mealy. I don't know that the sauce complements the filling well. The dish is a mess, to be honest with you. I know. It's a complete mess. I know. After what I've just tasted, why should I keep you in this competition? I don't know. Sorry. I appreciate that you show us that you care so much. It is a competition. Oh, my God. And, unfortunately, Jonny, it's over for you. Thank you. Thank you. BURRELL: It made me really emotional, and I feel horrible for him that this opportunity has just slipped through his fingers. Wow. That was a really -- GIORDANI: Aaaah! Whoa. Okay. I'm so sorry. Don't believe that this is at all a reflection on who you are as a cook. We all have days where it's just everything goes wrong. I'm so sorry. Thank you. I wish you the very best of luck. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I'm sorry. Wow. Wow. That was very emotionally charged. If you want this job, you need to fight for it. Test number two is gonna start right now. FARO: At Tuscan Kitchen, we feature a lot more than just Tuscan cuisine. We have dishes from regions all over Italy. For your second test, you will each be creating a dish that highlights a specific area of Italy. Scott, you'll get Southern Italy, known for fresh seafood, beautiful vegetables, and very rustic, peasant pastas. Valarie, you'll get Northern Italy -- known for parmigiano-reggiano and balsamic vinegar of Modena. Anthony, you'll get Central Italy, known for wild game, legumes, and other cured meats. You will be able to source all of your ingredients in our newly built Tuscan Market just next door, where we have assembled hundreds of authentic, imported, regional Italian ingredients. This will determine the final two, who will each get to write a menu and run this kitchen for an evening. You will have 45 minutes, and your time starts right now. DE PALMA: I know it's not gonna be easy, but my family and I have been through a lot this past year. I want to be a part of that dinner service tomorrow night. Imported salted capers. [ Speaks Italian ] Give me eight ounces, please. Central Italy's known for wild game, cured meats. The first thing I see is this long-bone, bone-in rib eye. I'm in heaven. I'll take two of them. I need to get some balsamic from Modena, 'cause I'm gonna do a balsamic glaze. After finishing culinary school, I traveled to Italy to learn all the different regional cuisine. Can I have a rack of lamb, please? I'm very familiar with it, and I'm ready for this test right now. I'm gonna need some swordfish. Southern Italy -- the islands -- fish, seafood -- that's right up my alley. Two each of the larger scallops. This is gonna be a piece of cake. DE PALMA: I want to show Joe that I have the knowledge and culinary expertise in regional Italian cuisine. This is copa, coming from Central Italy. These cured meats are used every day. Render the fat out, use the fat, sauté your vegetables. I'm making biscetta alla fiorentina. Preparing the dish to represent Central Italy, it's the farm animal. You've got this obnoxious piece of meat on a plate. That alone stands out in any dining room. CARLONE: I love lamb. Lamb is a very important staple in Italy. Since I have to make a dish from the northern region of Italy, I'm gonna make a rack of lamb with a polenta morbida. It's a good home-cooked meal. I'm making a balsamic glaze for my lamb because it's very traditional for Northern Italy. The first thing I have to do is get the balsamic vinegar on the stove so it can start reducing. BURRELL: Valarie with Northern Italian stuff -- like, she's doing lamb chops scottate dita, which means lamb chops with burned fingers. You're supposed to pick those up by the bones and say, "Ow! Ow! Hot fingers!" Or "Burnt fingers!" So they're very classic Northern Italian. BRANDOLINI: Southern Italian cuisine is known for its big flavors. I am making a quattro frutti de mare, which translates to "the four fishes of the sea." I have swordfish, shrimp, local scallops, and white anchovies. For my sauce, I chopped my salted capers and turned the anchovies into a paste. Why didn't you get cured anchovies, instead of... Those are the ones I saw right away. I was trying to move quick. BURRELL: He says he has marinated white anchovies, and he has salted capers. When you use salted capers, you need to soak them. He never soaked them in water to purge them of the salt. Big mistake, because it makes things just wind up so inedibly salty. All right, come on, you guys. Five minutes left! Five minutes! Come on, baby. Cook! What am I smelling? Something's burning up. CARLONE: Oh, my God. I have 10 minutes left. Okay. Oh, boy. CARLONE: Oh, my God. I have 10 minutes left. I totally just burned my sauce. Balsamic was the key ingredient of my dish. Now the one component that was supposed to tie my whole Northern dish together is gone. I have to come up with some sort of sauce for this dish. I don't have time to make a new balsamic, so I'm gonna make a lamb brodo, which is basically just a lamb broth. It's not what I wanted, but I have to improvise. I'm completely frustrated with myself. Let's go! Let's finish up strong! Do not let this opportunity pass you by! Time is winding down, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Anthony take a whole glob of butter into a pan. Take that butter out of that pan! Take that butter out of that pan right now. Oh, my God! It was, like, so great. If you want to finish it with fat, finish it with extra *** olive oil. Come on! There you go! Stay with me. Stay in Italy, really. How's it going? How's it going? Awesome, Chef. I'm ready to plate. Are you ready? Come on! I'm ready to plate, baby. BURRELL: Scott leaves everything to the last minute. Every time you're gonna leave it to the end like this? I got this. 10...9... 8...7... 6...5... 4 -- Let's go! ...3...2...1! That's it! Hands up! Oh, my God! You guys gave me a heart attack. Chef Anne, Joe, how are you? Tell us what you have here, Anthony? All right, I had Central Italy. I made for you today biscetta alla fiorentina. The white beans this time of the year, Swiss chard, heirloom tomatoes -- made a nice ragu. I think the way you spun it up with indigenous Tuscan ingredients is pretty unique, and I like it. [ Sighs ] Thank you, Chef. Thank you. Scott, okay. What I've made for you today is quattro frutti de mare over a tomato-and-basil-infused fregula. This represents the southern region of Italy, specifically the warm coastal waters. The anchovy and the capers are very powerful. They're salty. They're throwing me off, because I really like the fregula and the Swiss chard a lot. Your swordfish is cooked nicely. It's not dry. A lot of times, swordfish can get overcooked and dried very easily. For the most part, I think you matched the region. Overall, it's pretty good. Thank you very much. Okay, Valarie. I've created for you a Northern dish -- agnello grigliatta with soft polenta -- polenta morbida. I think, overall, the dish lacks pop. I know your balsamic burned. You really needed it on this plate. Very one-dimensional. It doesn't look very appealing, to be totally honest with you. And I'm not really seeing where you're getting your influence from. This crap on the outside of my plate is, like, one of my hugest pet peeves. Based on the three dishes that were presented to me today... your job interview ends here. Okay. Thank you, Valarie. I'm sorry. And very good luck to you. I just can't believe it. I'm shocked. Getting this job would have been a great, amazing opportunity. I know this isn't the last stop for me. I know I'm gonna be able to keep going. And maybe not this opportunity will come along again, but another one will. Congratulations, chefs. Thank you. You have made it to the final part of this interview -- the dinner service. You guys each will get to run this kitchen for an evening. I take this very seriously. Tomorrow we're serving our guests. This is where I'm gonna find out who really is worthy of being the next chef at Tuscan Kitchen. Scott, you will run the kitchen tomorrow night. Anthony, you will cook the next night. Are you ready? Absolutely. I'm not only looking for the next step in my career, but I need a better quality of life. Getting this job would put me in a financial position where I can provide better for my daughter and live much closer to her and her mother. I need to make it happen. We have a full menu to do tonight. We're gonna go fast. We're gonna have fun. You guys ready? Yeah. All right. Let's get it done. I've created a menu to represent all regions of Italy. My braised, hardy dish from the North. First thing I have to do here is sear the hell out of them. I have my seafood dish from the South. How long till fish on the plate? And my prosciutto-wrapped figs to represent Central Italy. Give me six figs on a sizzle pan in the wood oven as fast as you can. [ Indistinct conversations ] Where are the red-and-gold beets? Where is the salt and pepper? Where's the water you're using? Fry off two of these. Don't let the filling fall out. We're barreling towards pre-shift, and I'm not even close. Listen, let's just start getting food on the plate, all right? Go, go, go. Scott, let's go! You are late! My prep day couldn't have gotten any worse. Anne's screaming at me. I finally have these plates in the window ready to go to pre-shift. Team, I would like to introduce you to Chef Scott Brandolini. Scott, we really don't have a lot of time because we have guests being seated in the dining room right now. Okay, well, good evening, everyone. We have two antipastis. First is the fiori di zucca fritti, and that's fried zucchini blossoms stuffed with a blend of herbs and ricotta. We have the arrosto fichi. These are wood-oven-roasted figs stuffed with gorgonzola, wrapped in prosciutto. That's not enough food, Scott. Okay. We're gonna have to do something else. You got to do a pizza. I got pizza dough in there. You can use it. You're just gonna have to put some things together, and we'll make a pizza. Okay? Okay. BURRELL: The antipasti are really tiny. Like, this isn't substantial enough for an antipasto. All right, first pasta dish -- we have squid-ink fettucine with sautéed calamari and a blistered cherry tomato sauce with fresh basil. For our second pasta dish -- this is cappelletti, and it's goat-cheese stuffed. It's being served with a roasted duo of beets. And here we have wood-grilled fresh halibut served over heirloom tomato and basil fregula. And my dessert -- we have little doughnuts, or zeppoles. We're gonna have two little dipping sauces -- a chocolate sauce and a wild-berry compote. That's my favorite dessert. I love zeppole. No way. I do, too. All right, you have a dinner service. It starts right now. Okay. Can I start you off with an antipasti? I'm gonna go with the figs. Fried squid pasta. That sounds interesting. Pizza -- you want a pizza to start out with? How the hell am I gonna make a pizza? Problem with it is it slows us down. I'm already behind. We are gonna do a prosciutto, taleggio, and then fresh cracked egg on top. Yes. There's guests in the dining room. I still have a million things to do. We're not even prepped for my menu. Are we almost ready for service? I'm nervous at this point. Okay, guys, get the first order. Let's get it going. Order -- two zucchini app. Four fig apps all day. They're three apiece. I'm not ready. The cooks aren't ready. Stations aren't set up. Order -- two more zucchinis, three more figs. Now I have to really, really fight to get back in the game. I still have a full night ahead of me. All right, guys, let's start picking up, please. I like the dressing on top. Oh, my God, this is so good. Starting to run long on those pizzas. Table 31's at a 20-minute ticket time. Table 9's another 20 minutes. I can't wait on the pizzas. I need it now. Get it in the oven. FARO: Seems like we're really starting to fall behind. People have been waiting for their appetizers. 15-minute ticket times are acceptable. 20-minute ticket times are a little bit long, but 30-, 40-minute ticket times do not work at Tuscan Kitchen. Give me two figs in the window right away. This is the stuffed figs, and they just -- the presentation just looks very boring. Scott! You are happy with this? This looks like it came out of the lawn-mower bag. Do you think this is gonna get you this job? No, Chef. All right, then make it better. We're starting to fall real behind here. I need four pizzas in the oven right away, okay? Give me some prosciutto on there as fast as you can. Why is the prosciutto so bunched up like that? It needs to be gossamer-thin slices. You can't let stuff like this go out of this kitchen. Are you paying attention or what? The integrity of the appetizers are going down. The presentation's not the same. I can't watch them go out. It's getting a little shaky. Guys, we have a dining room full of guests right now. We need some food, okay? Chef, what is he doing on the line? Your whole restaurant's going down. You're talking pastry right now? He's giving me bad news on the zeppoles. Well, that's not good. Can you fix it? Zeppoles are a classic Italian dish that happen to be Joe's favorite. The dough is a little tough, so when you fry it, it's not expanding like a zeppole should be. Unfortunately, this way, you can't fix it. I'd have to make a whole new batch. We're not doing well. Just be aware we might have to 86 zeppoles. Why? Pastry chef just came to me and said his dough's not working out. Is that his recipe? It's not his recipe. Whose recipe is it? It's my recipe. I'm not gonna get this job if the zeppoles don't make it. BURRELL: Chef Scott Brandolini has been given the reins of Tuscan Kitchen for one night to run a dinner service. His performance will determine whether or not he gets the job as their new executive chef. Guys, we have a dining room full of guests right now. We need some food, okay? The zeppole batter didn't work. Can you fix it? Try to get it done. I'm not gonna get this job if the zeppoles don't make it. I need table 6. I need table 3. I need table 4. The printer's spewing tickets out. There's a kite tail to the floor. Guys, we're working on 40-minute apps, 50-minute ticket times. I apologize for the wait. Thank you. People are just kind of antsy. They really want their food. I don't understand why it's taking so long. Oh, my God. BURRELL: Scott is in a huge, huge hole. If something doesn't go right for this guy, he's not gonna get the job. Chef, I got the zeppole batter to work. Oh, that's awesome. Pastry chef made a fresh batch of dough. His recipe was a little off, but everything's okay now. And they look awesome. Wow. This changes everything. Fire all the pork. Fire all the halibut. Now that I know that zeppoles are gonna be on the menu, time to finish strong and show Joe and Anne what I'm made of. 22. Go. 20. Go. 28. Go. The cooks are hanging in there. Good with those desserts? Yes, Chef. Awesome. Keep it up. I can see the finish line now. Guys, believe it or not, you're almost there. Guys, we're almost to the end of this. Two more and we're done and we're out of this. Just get it right in that window. Go, go, go. Oh, my gosh. This is phenomenal. Phenomenal? Yes. How's the squid-ink pasta? Fabulous. Wood-oven-roasted figs -- they were amazing. This is wonderful. The service was really rough, but even though they had some long ticket times, the food looked good. BRANDOLINI: I'm relieved that this interview is finally over. I feel that everything I did today represents me as a chef, and I'm hoping that I get this job for my daughter. Just finish cleaning, and we'll get out of here. Chef. Hi, how are you? I'm good. You survived. I'm relieved. I bet. It was a rough service. But I just want to say I thought your food was really delicious. Congratulations. Thank you very much. All right. We'll see you tomorrow night. Okay, we'll see you. DE PALMA: Today's the biggest day of my culinary career. My family needs a change. I don't just want this job. We need this job. Guys, I'm gonna be your chef tonight. I'm looking forward to a great service tonight. We're gonna have a lot of fun. We got a lot of work ahead of us. Let's go. Come on. We have work to do. Rinse these. Put these in some water. Purge them. My strategy tonight is keep a real simple menu. I got to find some faro. I want to get through this test. I want to prove to these people that I can get food to the table. These all need to be de-veined, peeled, and [bleep] The shrimp was frozen. We finally got it thawed about an hour later. I'm feeling really stressed. I'm feeling the pressure. Chef, what's going on? How are we doing? Very good. Very good. Do you have two seconds? I sure do. I wanted to talk to you about a section of your menu. My family is actually coming in tonight. Wonderful. And I would really love to do something special for them. So I would love for you to just create something on your own and just something unique -- something special, all right? Very good. Just when I thought I was on top of everything, now I've got the pressure on me to prepare a special meal. Here we go. Listen, I got to do a little special dinner for Joe's family tonight. They're coming in. Beautiful. I see they had a pig. My eyes lit up. I'm like, "Perfect opportunity for me to bring something to Joe's family with my mark on it. I'm gonna put this in the rotisserie and let it cook for the next few hours. Something's burning over here. [ Groans ] Who left the tomatoes in the oven? [Bleep] Man, we can't use those. Pre-shift's coming at me like a freight train. I'm getting ready to derail. Down to the wire now. Stay focused. Time is just flying by. Minutes are going by like seconds. We have a couple minutes left. We have to get this thing completed now. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Ohh. BURRELL: Chef Anthony De Palma is interviewing to become Tuscan Kitchen's new executive chef. He's about to begin the most important dinner service of his life. Hello, Tuscan Kitchen team. I want to introduce to you Chef Anthony De Palma. He's prepared a beautiful dinner service tonight. Chef Anthony, Tuscan Kitchen team. Joe, thank you. We're gonna start with one of our first antipasti. Ribollita soup -- Tuscan re-boiled soup, some white beans, carrots, onions, celery. Second antipasti's gonna be a northern-style beef tartare. We've diced up some beautiful beef tenderloin. First primi this evening's gonna be a stuffed tortellini. We stuffed it with a little bit of Arborio rice, some sautéed shrimp, a little bit of garlic, white wine. Second dish is a homemade pappardelle with a cinghiale ragu. We finished it with some pecorino. For the secondi, I've got a grilled pork chop, sautéed broccoli rabe. A little bit of olive oil, toasted garlic. Dessert's a pineapple upside-down cake. We've got semolina in there. I truly look forward to working with you all this evening. Any questions you have, any special requests that you have, please feel free to come back, ask, get back there with us. If you want to help out, I'll enjoy any type of help you want to give us this evening. Enjoy your night. Hi, ladies. How you doing this evening? How are you? Great. My name's Laura. I'll be serving you tonight. Jeff, I'm gonna have you do the pastas. DE PALMA: The feeling that I have going into running this restaurant is beyond me. I mean, this isn't just about me anymore -- my wife, my two kids. I want sauté pans hot. I want plates in the window. We need this opportunity so bad. Beef tartare. Yep. I'll have the soup. I need two tartares, two soup. Where are those crostinis at? My first two antipasti items -- the tartare has to just go onto a plate, and it's out the window. The soup's warm. I don't want to waste any time. I want the food in the dining room. WOMAN: I absolutely love the tartare. It's nice and moist. It's delicious. MAN: I think that this is one of the best things. It's unbelievable. I need more toast points, guys. Come on! How is your ribollita? It's a little bit bland. Can I make another one for you? Absolutely. Fantastic. FARO: Table 5, okay? They said the soup is bland. BURRELL: This does not look at all like it did during pre-service. It doesn't have any color in it. It doesn't have any, you know, like -- This looks like something that came out of a cafeteria. Can I get some more bowls for soup, please? A ribollita is kind of almost like a bean stew, really, more than a soup. This looked sad. It looked pale. It looked like something that they would serve in a prison just to kind of try to keep people alive. DE PALMA: Anne doesn't like my soup. I got to make an herb puree. BURRELL: Much better-looking, all right? Come on. Keep it together. FARO: Chef, we're backed up on soups right now. Let's get them out, okay? Parmigiano, parmigiano. Put it on like you care! I mean, are you gonna lose this job over a damn bowl of soup?! No way. All right, then. Then plate it like you care! For your primi? The pappardelle. The pappardelle? I'm gonna try the wild boar. I need a full tortelli, full pappardelle. Let's go, guys! Let's go! I'm so focused on getting this soup fixed, I can't even show my guys how to plate the first pastas. Now I feel like the train wreck's starting to happen. BURRELL: These plates are a mess. All right, Anthony, try to stay on these guys. Let's plate it up a little bit neater, please. Absolutely, Joe. Okay, thank you. Sorry. Thank you. Some herbs. I want to see some parmigiano on that pappardelle. FARO: Anthony is trying to get the soup back on track. It made it very difficult for him to manage the pasta course. The presentation was very sloppy and just lacked. A little parmigiano, and that's how I want you to send it out, okay? That's how I want to send it out. Hi, folks. How's your pasta? A little not hot. Is all of yours cold? It's not hot. All right. It's not hot. These are cold. What is the problem with you and pasta?! Show your pasta cooks! Teach them what you want from them! DE PALMA: Why is this pasta water not boiling?! Let's go, guys. Come on! BURRELL: He's just trying to sling hash and get things out the door without paying the attention to details. And this is absolutely unacceptable. Are you kidding me? It matters how food goes out. This -- This... Are you kidding me with this?! This is like the fourth plate of pasta I brought back to you! Get your pasta cooks in line! Show them what you want and tell them you want it like that every single time! Oh, man. What's going on? This is blowing me away now. Now I'm realizing I've got cooks that don't know what they're doing. This is screwing up my opportunity to prove to Joe I can lead his kitchen. Yeah. Just keep cooking them. Just keep cooking them. FARO: Hi, guys. How is everything? How are the pastas? [ Indistinct talking ] What? Chef, Chef, 51 does not have their pasta yet. That's my family. They don't have their pasta yet. Ooh. You don't want people to wait, much less the owner's family, because you guarantee the owner's mother is definitely gonna be telling him if she's waiting for her pasta. Listen, they've been waiting for like a half an hour for their pasta course, okay? Here I am now trying to explain to my mom and dad why they're sitting around looking at each other. I'm really concerned. Chef, I got to bring those pastas right now. DE PALMA: I thought I was just getting out of this. Now I've got the Faro family to deal with. All I can think about is my interview's coming to an end, and I'm going home with no job. FARO: Chef, 51 does not have their pasta yet. That's my family. They don't have their pasta yet. What? Joe's family's table hasn't gotten pastas yet. Listen, table 51 -- I need 51. Let's go, guys. Come on! Please! This is not good, Anthony. Make sure these plates are clean. Come on, this is for Joe's dad. Is this my family's pasta? Yes, it is, Joe. Come on, guys. Let's go. Let's get this food out. I need one more pappardelle now! FARO: Pappardelle? Fantastic. Here's a pappardelle. Pappardelle. DE PALMA: Folks, I'm very, very sorry for the delay. It's my fault. I tried to make it up in the dish. All right, I hope everything tastes well. At this point, I have to take a step back. I need to take a breath of air. This is not how I run my kitchen. I have to get my guys regrouped. Oh, boy. Let's get through this right now. Let's go, guys. Come on. Three pork. One more trout. I get a blast of energy. I see the light. I got three pork chop, right? Right now, please. Right now. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. BURRELL: Once he kind of, like, got over his crazy, like [Gasping] I think he sort of dug his heels in, and things started going out much better. DE PALMA: Let's go. I need two more right now. Come on! Come on! Come on! I need porks plated right here. Get the polenta on the plate. The pork chop is very moist. It's very flavorful. It's flavorful. I've never had anything better than this. This is awesome. DE PALMA: Now that I finally have dinner under control, I have one last opportunity to impress Joe. Coming around hot. Coming around hot. I just want to present the special meal I've prepared to Joe's family. I want this thing in the dining room looking dynamite. I knew you were coming in. We had to make something special for you. The pig's out in the dining room. The whole dining room's cheering. [ Cheers and applause ] It was, like, the pinnacle of this opportunity for me. All I can hope right now is that Joe is able to see my true passion come out in all my work. Anthony. Whoo! Chef. That was rough. I got my *** kicked. You know, today was a crazy situation, but, you know, just in general, you know, being a chef is also being a teacher. Absolutely. There was definitely some rough patches, but I think overall, it was successful. It was an honor being here tonight. So, Scott dinner service -- I mean, the guy had a million things that went wrong for him tonight. FARO: Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong for Scott. But his food is delicious, though. Kid's got a great palate. Yes, he does. There's no question about it. I want this bad, man. I'm not working right now. I need a new home. I really need this job. Anthony definitely had some pitfalls. The whole pasta-cooking thing, it makes me very nervous. I think sometimes he gets flustered and then kind of loses himself, but I think when he walks into a kitchen, you feel that he's a chef. He commands respect. I think he leads the staff. Man, I don't know what you've been through in your career, but this is the toughest day of my life. I got two kids at home. I lost my business down in Florida. This is super, super intense right now. Either of these chefs could be a good fit here. I think, honestly, that I know which way I need to go. BURRELL: All right, chefs. We've put you guys through a series of grueling tests, but at the end of the day, a decision has been made. Scott, you have a great palate, and you put out wonderful food. But your time management is a definite concern. Anthony, I love your passion and knowledge of Italian cuisine. But at times, when you get overwhelmed, you can tend to miss some details, and the food suffers. Congratulations... ...Anthony. You are the new executive chef at Tuscan Kitchen. Thank you, Joe. It's an honor and a pleasure to be working with you. Chef Scott, you got a great soul. Joe, thank you very much for the opportunity. Thank you. Thank you, Scott. BRANDOLINI: I'm upset I'm not gonna be the new executive chef at Tuscan Kitchen. But I'm proud of what I cooked yesterday. Now I have a couple more days off to go spend some time with my daughter, Annabella, and then it's on to the next one. BURRELL: [ Laughs ] Unbelievable. What does this mean to you, man? This means the world. Not only have you helped me, but you've given my family a great opportunity. Thank you so much. Chef. Congratulations! [ Laughs ] Yeah! Look at that! FARO: At the end of the day, I see a lot of my same passion in Anthony. I think we're gonna make for a great team. DE PALMA: Julie? JULIE: Yeah? I've got some news for you. We'll be celebrating tonight. Oh, congratulations, babe. Thank you so much. Tuscan Kitchen's my new home. Wow. I'll see you in a little bit. I love you. I am the executive chef of Tuscan Kitchen. BURRELL: To find out how Chef Anthony is doing, go to... -- Captions by VITAC -- Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.