Christmas Eve at Bobby’s Place Is a Chateaubriand Battle With All the Beefs

As Food Network’s best-known father-daughter duo, Bobby and Sophie Flay have all kinds of shared history — as a general proposition, of course, and surrounding the holidays in particular. Sophie brought a whole stack of those memories to unpack with her dad when she arrived to host the Christmas Eve installment of Holiday Throwdown. “You’re such a nerd when it comes to the holidays,” he teased her. “The Christmas tree goes up right after Halloween,” she replied. "The Christmas music starts in September!”

Sophie was also keen on honoring a legacy of trouncing her dad through proxy battles in the kitchen. “Tonight, it’s about Christmas Eve traditions around the world, and actually, I’m undefeated here,” she reminded him. “I won last time with the [Season 2] holiday brunch battle, so it’s on!”

The Meatball Meetup

Bobby had some moves of his own to counter Sophie’s bag of tricks — which, for the first round of competition, offered up the Mexican machinations of chef Claudette Zepeda and her dad’s erstwhile Tuscan teammate, chef Gabe Bertaccini, who’d helped him pull off a major upset last Christmas. (“We had never made samosas before, but we did it, and [Indian chef] Maneet [Chauhan] is still crying about it!” he recalled with glee.)

Riffing on the idea of unwrapping one present the night before Christmas, Bobby “gifted” his would-be challengers different ingredients. The tiny stocking Claudette chose to open offered up sugar plums she’d need to feature in her dish, while the massive one that went to Gabe revealed Indian holiday market spices: he’d be cooking with turmeric, red chiles, black mustard seeds, cardamom and cinnamon. “Just make a samosa, you’ve got it!” Bobby joked as Gabe’s shoulders slumped.

Instead, the competitors lobbed meatballs at one another. Claudette created koftas with onions, parsley and five-spice, then mixed up an Asian-inspired sugar plum sauce to dress her dish and serve beside a roasted version of the fruit. Gabe groused that circumstances were turning him into an inadvertent Indian-cuisine expert, but he acquitted himself well with his ingredients: His Indian-spiced meatballs with tikka masala and tomato sugo over Israeli couscous got him one step closer to beating Bobby (and stepping out of the “Samosa Brothers” spotlight). “I’m not here just to be Bobby’s sous chef,” he said. “I’m here to win!”

The Lamb That Roared, the Cod That Flopped

The next holiday guest, chef Brooke Williamson, hoped to serve up payback she’d been simmering for Bobby through three(!) visits to his kitchen, including a split decision last Christmas that haunts her like Jacob Marley’s ghost. “Bobby won by a hair; I will say, [the judges’ decision] was not unanimous,” she recalled. “All I want for Christmas is for Bobby to lose against me, finally.”

Brooke chose a mystery package that opened to reveal a rack of lamb, and she seasoned her protein with many of the same Indian spices that haunted her opponent so effectively. Gabe was able to take the salt cod he received in a more European direction. “Oftentimes, we do the Feast of the Seven Fishes [as] a Christmas Eve dinner, so this is a little bit on brand,” he said. Alas, he frittered away that advantage by overwhelming his fish with pulverized potato and breadcrumbs; by playing it safe to ensure his creations would survive the fryer, he detracted from the ingredient he’d been tasked with showcasing. Brooke’s perfectly prepared lamb chops carried her past Gabe and on to the boss battle she’d been craving.

Fourth Time’s the Charm?

“Brooke, you’ve been here before; it hasn’t gone as well as you’d have liked it to have gone in the past,” Bobby noted.

“I actually disagree,” Brooke countered.

“I know you think you won,” Bobby said, “but you didn’t.”

Brooke opted to pay Bobby back for each of those losses by challenging him to a signature dish with three distinct parts. “You’ve been so generous by giving us our own gifts, so I’m going to give you three gifts,” she explained. “My signature dish is chateaubriand, potato latkes and a dessert souffle. And you have to make all three of those. How do you feel about that?”

“I, ah — it’s a lot of work,” he replied.

A Beatdown by Besties

Brooke cherished both Claudette’s longtime friendship and her handiness with pastries, so she enlisted her pal’s help in taking Bobby down. “I have actually cooked both latkes and a souffle against Bobby, and I still think my souffle was better, so this whole night is a rematch for so many things,” she said.

“[It’s] kind of the best of both worlds,” Claudette observed. “I do still get to cook another round with someone that I love and hopefully bring the win for her!”

Brooke dove into a classic approach for her chateaubriand by treating the beef tenderloin with a dry porcini-powder and fennel-pollen rub, then building up a crust in a cast-iron pan and chucking the whole roast in the oven. She planned to heap her latkes with Osetra caviar, then trust her partner to serve up a delicate chocolate souffle topped with a rum-and-passionfruit crème anglaise.

You Win Samosa, You Lose Samosa

That meant Gabe was, yes, Bobby’s sous-chef once again, a fate he accepted with admirable equanimity. “I’ve been talking about cooking with Gabe for the last year because he’s such a good cook!” Bobby exclaimed.

“It was very fun,” Gabe confirmed, diplomatically.

Bobby dubbed his trio of dishes a “study of chile peppers” and encrusted individually portioned chateaubriands with espresso powder, smoked paprika and ancho chiles; he then instructed his Italian teammate to whip up latkes studded with black truffles and topped with both goat-cheese-spiked sour cream and green chile sauce. The souffle he’d bring to the table this time around would feature chocolate, cinnamon and red chiles.

Brooke was unimpressed; chateaubriand should be served as a whole roast, for starters, and Bobby’s button-mashing with hot peppers was old news. “Lean on those chiles one more time,” she taunted. “Let’s just take [that] to the finish line for the rest of your life!”

Brooke and Claudette’s Tag-Team Classics

Brooke couldn’t contain herself as she took her first moment-of-truth slice into the chateaubriand: “Oh my God, look how perfect that is!”

She knew she and Claudette — whose souffles came out of the oven looking flawless — would have Bobby and Gabe on the ropes. “Technically, a chateaubriand is a whole roasted tenderloin; Bobby has literally made filet mignon steaks," she noted. “Maybe it should be taken into consideration, I’m just saying. Words mean things!”

“We got everything done, it’s very simple, clean, straightforward,” she continued. “Exactly what it should be. I’m just going to listen to what the judges say and let the chateaubriand bite him in the butt.”

Bobby and Gabe, Bringing the Heat

“I have to say, it looks very pretty,” Bobby observed.

Gabe was less diplomatic this time: “Oh my God, it looks beautiful!”

“Like Mexico City [on] Christmas Eve: chiles everywhere,” Bobby continued. “But if the judges don’t like spicy food, we lose. We can go home right now.”

The Judges’ Infuriating Verdict

In the final analysis, the dueling chateaubriand formats were something of a red herring. As judge Karen Akunowicz noted, “I thought they were both outstanding. But the latke [with] the sour cream, the goat cheese and the green chile sauce — I think that was a standout for all of us.” Bobby and Gabe were victorious, again.

“Was it unanimous?!” Brooke asked.

“Yeah,” Sophie said, prompting an unprintable response from Brooke. “Dad, by the way, who made the latke on your team?”

Bobby pointed at Gabe. “We’re undefeated! I’ll take him every year!”

“Gabe’s coming to Christmas,” Sophie predicted.