I also think the episode was a bit of a dud, but mostly because it was another example of the contestants not really bringing their A-game.

A fish boil in 2024 is gimmicky but also simple and delicious. Midwestern staples of corn, potatoes, onions, and abundant whitefish from Lake Michigan, cooked hard and fast in salty water, doused in butter and lemon. It creates a dynamic plate of food and it's pretty friggin' tasty. Wisconsin has a huge Scandinavian immigrant history and they maybe missed an opportunity to highlight that (although the fish boil tradition may have started earlier in the 1600's by the Potawatomi). Either way, it's a history of serving hungry masses with the specific abundance of the region. It's a great competition criteria for Top Chef. You have to exert some real snob energy not to get it (*cough* Dan).

The issue is that no one actually did it. You can't French-ify the fish boil outside of covering everything in butter. The "creativity" was never going to be about cooking method, but about the flavoring of the broth, veg, timing, and accoutrements. It's frustrating because the show went out of the way to even train the chefs on the method and they all whiffed anyway. It was so lame that if one of them just did a fish boil, with the right amount of salt, corn and potatoes, they might have won.