You’re partially right about Camry changing the dish. He did it to go against Joel mchale. Cause she isn’t allergic to fennel she uses it in her family dish in the pilot

My speculation: Sydney does not have a fennel allergy; Carmy went rogue in that moment and for once prepared and served his version of the dish, as opposed to the one sanctioned by Chef Joel McHale (I know that's not characters name). If that's indeed what happened, then I see a parallel between Sydney serving her braised rib dish to a critic, and Carmy not really making a big thing out of it (it was Richie who was loudly criticizing Sydney, not Carmy). Also: the haunting music is written by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and two other chefs shown in the episode (aside from the lones played by Joel McHale and Olivia Colman) are Daniel Boulud and Rene Redzepi, both actual world-famous chefs IRL - at some point in season 1 there's a discussion about Noma, chef Redzepi's restaurant (that's possibly where Marcus goes to stage when he travels to Denmark? - a question mark since the name of the restaurant is not mentioned in that episode).

That is Tina's real-life husband, who is also an actor (David Zayas).