Well, she never claimed to be the Oracle of Delphi.

Let’s go stand on the shore of the nearest Loch and scream.

Glenturret and Burn It

For the final stage of Semi-finals Week, the chefs were going on a fieldtrip to Glenturret Lalique in Scotland – the glamour shots of which are hilarious to me because they made the owner, Mark Donald, go and stand on the shores of a loch like the melancholy beach cow to accentuate the Sottishness at play

and the nearest loch, Loch Monzievaird, is like a 10 minute drive away <3 YEAH, I GOOGLE MAPS’D YOU, MARK

I’m sure it’s still very beautiful, but they did EVERYTHING they could to make you think it’s not directly roadside or that here’s an activity centre just across the road – for all your corporate team building needs!

nothing says “remote fine dining” like the distant screams of Julia from the finance department going down the zipwire.

It was the usual fine dining excursion with each of the chefs taking on a different dish to cater for a lunchtime service. The whole thing being kicked off by Georgia with a Langoustine dish consisting of a tartar in a buttermilk wrapper with 28 individually tweezed pieces of caviar atop it

the hardest part of which was having the resolve not to stage a dirty protest every time Mark shortened “Langoustine” to “Lango”

sir, go stand on the shores of the nearest loch and think about what you’ve done

Georgia did somewhat struggle with the workload come service time, HOWEVER! I have to assume that on any regular service, Mark Donald is probably not relying on one chef to do both the caviar bedazzling and put together his novelty lobster-shaped biscuits

those are two very separate jobs and I think Georgia was being a little set up here, especially compared to some of the other dishes being simpler in their presentation. It’s not really that surprising that Luke had a fine time of it with his Lobster Sandwich and Consomme

granted, he did have to then make sure his grilled lobster tails were ready in time to go out halfway through the diners eating the Lobster Sandwich

which is putting A LOT of faith in your diners eating their singular finger sandwich slow enough

there is absolutely no reason for this not to be one plate of food – diva, what are we doing? If you’re going to do that, at least fly it in by drone or something, the waiter just randomly appearing with a lobster tail as a gift feels like you forgot to put it on the plate. Why couldn’t Georgia send the jammie lobster dodgers out 3 minutes later while the waiters sang “Rock Lobster” to the room?

Gareth was also doing a fish course, having to fillet and stuff a Sea Bream with a mixture of Morteau (a smoked French sausage), Girolles, Pike Roe and Scallop

this? This I like. Mark, you are partially forgiven. Gareth went through the classic struggle of not being quite careful enough for the demands of a Michelin Starred chef, but ultimately ended up doing quite well. Caroline was much the same, with Mark having a real issue with the speed at which she was working

and she had a few minor errors in her barbecued venison dish to begin with

I mean… one could argue that a sieve full of peas needn’t be barbecued to begin with

and once again, Mark (Not Donald) was being Barbe-cucked over at the dessert station watching Caroline having to grill a sieve of peas while Dancing On My Own by Robyn blared in his ears

his enforced dessert being a Chocolate Mille Feuille and given that desserts have been a bit of a weakness for him, I think he did FINE

sure, they couldn’t use his cremeux because it was too loose (I think she’s just a modern liberated cremeux)

but the dessert supervisor, Kayleigh Turner whomst I would follow into war and support her coup of Glenturret Lalique if she gives the signal, had a spare one for Mark to use

she and this guy who had to roll 1 single barrel around the whole day for the BBC glamour shots are the backbones of this restaurant and you cannot convince me otherwise

Fly high, you crazy barrel-roller.

A Little Something Special

In order to decide which four chefs would make it to finals week and who would miss out on the opportunity to put “MasterChef Finalist” in their Instagram bio, was a challenge to create a dish inspired by someone special. Which, as usual, was mostly the chefs’ partners like Caroline’s Hot Husband (get it girl)

and Luke’s Wife Who He Likes To be Mean To Him

her demands were simple and exact: Goat’s Cheese Everything and Luke most certainly delivered with his… Dessert? I think? It was a Honey Cake Tartlet, Goat’s Cheese and Truffle Mousse with a Beetroot Sorbet so I have to imagine it’s a dessert

and Marcus went balmy for it and will fight Luke’s wife, Katrina, for his hand in marriage

I’m not surprised that it appealed to Marcus so much, it is a very fine dining ~experience~ of a dish in that it’s a collection of things on a plate tied together by motif rather than needed to be eaten together. That’s never going to be my personal favourite kind of food, I like it when a dish interacts as a whole. Something like Gareth’s Moroccan Lamb was much more my speed

it was inspired by the lamb tagine his Fiance, Catherine, had cooked him and the rosé they both got sloshed on

the rosé was a nice point of difference and not something I’ve seen utilised on the show alongside Moroccan spices and ingredients. I thought it sounded incredible and the only thing I might be tempted to order instead of it on a menu was Mark’s Pigeon Pithivier

It would be a dealbreaker if I realised I was only going to get half of the already small pie though but I guess that’s finesse because the judges were VERY pleased with themselves for finally forcing Mark to make a dainty plate of food at gunpoint. I hope he throws a tomahawk steak at them from across the room in the final. And because it was a sunny day, Mark was allowed outside to see the barbecue as a treat

he was using it to make his Succotash, a word I am unable to pronounce without doing a very poor Sylvester the Cat impression

the whole dish was inspired by Mark’s uncle, Dermot, who was his main influence for getting into food and especially American barbecue

nobody tell Marcus he had another narrow graze with a potential gourmet hotdog.

Caroline and Georgia were both doing seafood pasta dishes. Caroline opting for Langoustine Mousseline and Crab Agnolotti inspired by her husband’s childhood on the North Brazilian coast

it was a brilliant plate of food, let down only by her not making quite enough of the Lemon Verbena and Lemongrass Veloute

and Georgia was in similar peril for her dish looking really quite incredible – I love the daintiness of this plating and the way the mussels and clams look like butterflies

but the judges felt that some of the flavours weren’t being pushed as far as she could but it really got across her respect for Italian cuisine that her mentor, Fausto, had instilled in her and who the dish was inspired by.

An Unofficial Sentimental Dish Ranking:
1. Half a Pigeon Pithivier, a Pig ‘vier, if you will
2. Gareth’s Rosé Coloured Glasses
3. I’m Just feeling My Goat’s Cheese
4. That’s Your Agnolotti
5. The Oust’o of Fausto

Mark, Luke and John Gareth were all through to Finals Week with very little debate, leaving a choice to be made between Caroline and Georgia. Neither of them really did that much wrong to even warrant being eliminated and ultimately, I think it came down to the judges wondering who could potentially have the more interesting final menu. In which case I do think Caroline was the right choice to advance on as we lose Georgia this week

she may not be a finalist, but she’ll always have that trophy for being the first person to serve an eyeball on MasterChef and in many ways, that might be worth more.