If you want to understand what makes Tim Mälzer tick, you have to send him to Minori on the Amalfi Coast. Because that’s where everything comes to light that the TV chef doesn’t usually show. His sensitive, his emotional side. His foster father was born in Minori, the one who taught him how to cook: Gennaro Contaldo, who paved the way not only for maltsters, but also for Jamie Oliver. “Without Gennaro, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” says Mälzer in the clip.
René Frank, who was voted the best pastry chef in the world in 2022 and runs a two-star restaurant in Berlin by only preparing menus of desserts, met Mälzer im Mark. On his emotional journey in Minori, the TV chef tells that he actually has everything you need to be happy. And yet sometimes he feels lonely.
The first tasks that the cooks have to fulfill in the second episode of “Kitchen Impossible” have one thing in common: the height of the fall. It lies in the simplicity. Mälzer has to prepare aubergine in chocolate, Frank a rice pudding cake in Belgium. And neither of them want to make a fool of themselves. “I want Daddy to be proud,” says Mälzer on the Amalfi Coast and doesn’t want to disappoint his cooking father Gennaro Contaldo in his native town.
Those were the tasks
In Minori, Tim Mälzer is sent on an emotional journey and has to prepare aubergine in chocolate. A dessert invented here on the Amalfi Coast.
His second task takes him to the legendary two-star restaurant “Mugaritz” in San Sebastián. The original chef is Andoni Luis Aduriz, his style is a mix of avant-garde and traditional Basque cuisine. In this case, Tim is dealing with three variations of squid.
René Frank is to prepare a “tarte au riz”, a yeast dough cake filled with rice pudding, in Verviers in Belgium. The recipe is protected by the brotherhood, the “Seigneurie du Verviz-riz”. Tim Mälzer has René Frank, who has cooked up two stars with his dessert restaurant, bake a cake!
Frank’s second assignment takes him to Porto, a city known for a very special sandwich: the Francesinha. Mälzer hopes that Frank will fail with such a simple sandwich, because the point here is not to understand the pastry craft, but to correctly interpret the culture and traditions.
The biggest challenge
Art on the plate is something that Tim Mälzer doesn’t really like. He is more the one who favors simple cuisine. But Frank doesn’t care. He sends maltsters to the “Silicon Valley of Culinary Art” in San Sebastian, to no other restaurant than “Mugaritz”. It ranks among the best restaurants in the world. Frank wants Mälzer to learn structure and order there. A challenge that Mälzer will have a hard time with.
When Mälzer found out that he had to cook in the restaurant, which was ranked 14th in the world, his heart sank. “They invent techniques here that I can’t do at all,” says Mälzer.
That was fun
Letting the best pastry chef in the world cook a banal dish is chutzpah. Mälzer sends Frank to Porto and lets him cook Francesinha, the famous Portuguese sandwich packed in cheese and topped with an egg. “I’m speechless,” says Frank. “Yes, it’s a banal sandwich, but heart cooking,” replies Mälzer.
So Frank has to layer a sandwich of sausage, ham, steak, cheese and a fried egg and is outraged! “I really blame him [Mälzer] for that,” says Frank. Later, however, he is purified because he has understood that there is someone behind the banal sandwich who takes it seriously. He even admits that he has come to love Francesinha.
The most annoying moment
“This arrogance of the culinary experts” as Tim Mälzer put it in a nutshell. René Frank is a master of his craft, without question. Nevertheless, one should pay respect to the traditions from time to time. Frank wants to improve the Francesinha.
“What I did allow myself is to use a different cheese in the middle so that there’s a little more spice in there.” But the task is to come as close as possible to the original. Here Frank gambles away valuable points and maybe also sympathy points with the viewers.
The winner
You could say that Mälzer now has a home advantage. So often he was faced with an unsolvable task. But the TV chef keeps weaving his way up. He just beats the best pastry chef in the world. With perseverance, with exaggerated self-confidence and with a lot of heart and soul. In the end he made “Papa Gennaro” proud.
The eighth season of Kitchen Impossible started on February 12th and will be shown on Vox every Sunday from 8:15 p.m. This and later all other episodes of “Kitchen Impossible” can be streamed on RTL.
