Previously onTop Chef...
Each team must create
a brunch menu featuring maple.
Brunch is exciting.
In a team challenge,
any kind of downfall
falls on the rest of us.
I'm making tandoori
maple fried chicken.
This is
the quintessential brunch.
- Thank you, Chef.
- Oh, sh--.
- I have a big problem.
- The tart was underbaked.
I just don't think
it's maple-forward enough.
This oil is hammered.
I am worried.
The chicken
is the problem for me.
It's-- I found it to be dry
- and slightly crumbly.
-Yeah.
The winning chef
put the maple forward.
- Zubair.
- Thank you.
We didn't find that maple flavor
in either one of your dishes.
Bailey, please
pack your knives and go.
Thirteen chefs remain
to compete in
the ultimate culinary showdown.
At stake for the winner,
the largest prize package
in Top Chefhistory.
The grand prize of a quarter
of a million dollars,
furnished by
Saratoga Spring Water,
the official water
of Top Chef,
Delta Sky Miles
Diamond Medallion status,
and $125,000 to spend
on travel with Delta Airlines,
a feature in
Food & Winemagazine,
an appearance at the
Food & Wine Classic in Aspen.
And for the first time ever,
the winner of Top Chef
will headline their own
exclusive dinner
at the historic
James Beard House in New York.
And the title of Top Chef.
Good morning!
How you guys doing?
I woke up
missing home a lot today.
Like this morning,
I don't know what it was.
I just woke up
missing my wife and my dogs.
It's like that's the hardest
part of this challenge.
My wife and I,
we don't have children.
We have three dogs.
They're our dog babies.
We've been apart for like a week
at most, if I go visit my mom.
So you're hitting that point.
Usually, I'm home by now.
It would be
very nice to see them soon.
But not yet. Not yet.
- Let's do this.
- Yeah, let's go.
-Oh.
-Yeah.
- Okay.
- Yum.
Patties.
Oh.
Delicious patties.
The Top Chefkitchen,
it smells like East Flatbush.
- What's up, chefs?
- How you doing?
Please welcome your guest
judge for this Quickfire,
local chef, recipe developer,
Dwight Smith. Welcome.
Hi, chefs. As a Toronto native,
I'm super happy to have
Top Chef in my hometown.
I am esteemed to cook
for Chef Dwight Smith.
It's a reassuring feeling
to go to
a completely different city
that I've never been,
and see that
the diaspora's thriving here.
Today, it's snack time
in the Top Chef kitchen,
Toronto style.
Dwight, why don't you explain
what a Jamaican patty is?
Essentially,
a patty is a hand pie.
But you'll recognize
the flaky crust
from the distinct yellow color.
This is because
we typically add curry powder
or turmeric to the dough.
Jamaican patties became popular
here in Toronto
after Caribbean migrants
introduced it
in the '60s and '70s.
Dwight, can you tell us about
some of your favorites
that you brought today?
We have Fahmee.
I brought their spicy beef,
chicken, and veggie patties.
Next, we have
June Plum by Patois,
coming from
a Chinese Jamaican heritage.
- Nice.
- And lastly,
And lastly, we have
Kingston 12 Patty Shop,
beef and cheese, veggie patty,
as well as their famous
ackee and salt fish.
Chefs, for your
Quickfire Challenge,
we want you to create your own
version of a Jamaican patty.
You can fill it with
whatever you'd like.
Okay.
Because patties take longer
than 30 minutes to make...
Ooh, yes.
Feeling just
a tad bit generous today.
So first,
you'll get 15 minutes
to make your own
dough from scratch.
Oh, yeah.
And then we'll take
a little lunch break
to allow time
for your dough to rest.
And then afterwards,
you'll have 30 minutes
to make your patties
before time is up.
Dwight, any advice?
Most patty shops will
offer a little pepper sauce
on the side,
which is a Jamaican hot sauce.
But don't overthink it, chefs.
The winner of this Quickfire
will take home $10,000.
You guys can come up
and grab a taste.
Yeah!
All right. These.
Chicken.
I want some spicy beef.
Spicy beef?
Let me get
that curried goat, too.
I try the patois patty
with oxtail.
This is my inspiration.
There's oxtail, potatoes,
spice, everything nice.
Corwin, which one did you grab?
Beef and oxtail.
- It's good?
- Delicious.
- So is that the curry goat?
- Yeah.
It's really meaty,
but because of the flaky crust,
it's much
lighter than I expected.
All right, so I hope
you enjoyed your taste,
- because your time starts now.
- Wait.
- Oh, yes!
- Yeah.
With a napkin in my hand.
CÈSAR: Right behind.
Coming through.
-Grabbing the flour.
- I need lard.
Did somebody grab curry?
Oh, there.
-You have curry?
- I have curry.
I want to grate my butter
so it's nice and cold,
and so it adds nice
flaky layers to this.
I feel the pressure.
We got a Jamaican next to us.
Being Jamaican, I eat
beef patties on a weekly basis.
Everybody's kind of looking at
me like, you get a layup here.
Massimo, you need turmeric?
- Yeah, thank you, chef.
- I can play fair.
The hard part in this challenge
is getting your dough right.
That takes time.
You need to laminate your dough,
get some butter in there.
It should be flaky.
Jamaica,
it's just one way always.
Everybody uses, like, turmeric.
It's always a yellow dough.
I definitely don't know how
to make a Jamaican patty dough,
but I do know
how to make a really damn good
scallion pancake,
so that's what
we're going to go with.
Scallion pancake is
one of the easiest
laminated dough you can make.
Dough doesn't need
time to rest too long.
I'm trying to do a little
curry chicken in the middle.
I'm going to see if
I can do chicken and bacon.
- I don't know.
- Chicken and bacon?
Ever had
a chicken bake at Costco?
That sh--'s delicious.
Zubair, what you working on?
Almost like a roti dough.
In the restaurant,
we make a lot of rotis,
a lot of Indian flatbreads.
The joke in
our kitchen is that
if you make a round roti,
you're ready for marriage.
I'm married 13 years now,
so my rotis are round as hell.
My wife is super, super smart.
She's in the tech industry.
She's the rock of the family.
Ten minutes, guys.
Henry, what you got
going on over there?
Making a little laminated dough.
I need to pound the butter flat.
It's very therapeutic.
I'm getting all my frustration
out on this dough right now.
Normally,
I'm in a better situation.
Oh, my God, $10,000,
I just want it.
- Guys, five minutes, yeah?
-Yes, chef.
I am going to braise my chicken
in some Madras curry spice.
I'm going to add some
coconut milk to it right now.
I got my dough resting already,
so I get my filling on,
which is amazing.
Braising chicken
obviously takes time.
What did everyone put for
their seasonings in their dough?
A little nori, a little sesame.
- Cute. I like that.
- Furikake.
You have a minute and a half.
Whatever you're doing,
finish it up, okay, chef?
I'm going to put my name on this
just in case anybody takes it.
Chefs, you have
less than a minute.
Finish your dough,
get them in the fridge, guys.
Let's go.
With pie doughs,
you don't want to overwork them.
And so I'm like,
trying to be gentle with it,
but it just
seems very off to me.
Five, four, three...
...two, one.
All right, chefs, that's lunch.
Got your dough done?
- I got my dough done, yeah.
- Good.
Time begins.
Let's cook, baby.
Let's cook.
Ha ha!
How's your dough?
I think it's
really good, honestly.
Looking good.
This dough is going great.
It's looking like a dough.
Yeah, it looks a little crumbly.
My dough is raggedy,
so I decide I'm going to
add more fat to it.
Can I have that grater?
Roll it out a couple of times.
Hope that it integrates.
Hey guys,
lotta on the line, right?
- No?
-All right, dad joke.
Tough crowd.
How we feeling?
Doing good, getting
the feeling going right now.
- Hell yeah.
- I'm doing, like,
- a toaster pastry situation.
- A toasted pastry?
Want to make
a lamb toaster pastry
with a strawberry glaze.
I like to
incorporate fruit a lot.
Anybody have salt fish
on their station?
Salt fish, salt fish,
never mind, found it.
How are you gonna
get this oxtail done, dog?
I'm gonna grind it thick.
-Uh-huh.
- Then I'm gonna grind it thin.
I want to do something creative.
I've only seen oxtail braised.
I've never seen oxtail grinded.
All right.
I'm having a bit of
a fight with the grinder.
At this point, I already
committed to the----ing oxtail.
For me, the concern
is getting this oxtail
edible within the limit.
All right,
not bad, not bad, not bad.
- What's that, bacon?
- Yeah.
With the filling,
I'm doing sweet potato,
roasted kimchi, bacon.
On the street in Korea, they're
usually roasting sweet potatoes.
People will literally unwrap it
as you're walking and eat it.
That smells amazing.
I can't breathe.
- Don't die.
- Next to him.
- You're k*lling me, man.
- It's fine.
This smells like home.
It's always a very fond
memory of this style of curry.
Your guys'
dough looking all right?
It's not great.
The dough is
melting a little bit,
and my shrimp and banana
filling is a little bit warm.
Now, there's like, too much fat.
At this point, I just
need to get them in the oven.
- César, where are you at?
- Right here.
- I'm going in.
- Space down here. Temp 400.
-Ten minutes, guys.
-Ten!
I see everybody
scrambling to try
to get their dough into
the fryer and to the oven.
I'm gonna use the pizza oven.
I think it's
a really bold strategy.
I want a little bit of smoke
for my curry
spiced chickpea patty.
Corwin, may
I have a couple chives?
- Yes, take them.
- Thank you.
I'm making a yellow
hot pepper kewpie sauce.
Oh, my God,
my patties are a disaster.
Chefs, you have five minutes.
My patties,
they're not baking properly.
My ratios were way off.
So, I pull them out and
I throw them in the fryer.
They're just falling apart.
Just not a good execution.
Do you, do you.
Yeah, I like it.
Ooh, almost dropped that.
Chefs, you have one minute.
Paula's behind.
Patties.
You know, it's not the prettiest
things I ever made, but...
Twenty seconds.
Now or never.
Think I'm good.
Wanted a sauce for it.
I'm not gonna do
a sauce with it.
Woo!
Yas, queen.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Time's up,
hands off your dishes.
-My dough is so bad.
-Oh no, sorry.
-No, don't say that.
- But it is,
you can look at it, Anya.
Shuai, you wanna start us off?
Oh, yeah.
Perfect, thank you so much.
Tell us about your patty.
I made a scallion
pancake hand pie with
a Malay-style
chicken curry inside
and a curry buttermilk dressing.
- Little bit of togarashi.
- Did you deep fry?
I did deep fry, to give
that extra little fluffiness.
Perfect day to wear a corset.
All right, Anya?
I made for you today pirozhok,
which is a Russian version
of a meat pie.
The ground beef has
a little bit of ajika spice.
Amazing.
Kat?
I have a patty that's filled
with curried shrimp
and banana,
and cilantro, chili, hot sauce.
Did you find
the time to be enough time?
I would like more
time to do my dough over.
Massimo?
Oxtail patties with
the world's quickest pikliz.
So, it's just pure
oxtail in here, chef?
Pure oxtail, beer,
and the fat of the oxtail.
Zubair?
This is a salt fish and
vadouvan patty
that I made for you,
with a piquillo pepper
hot pepper sauce in the ramekin.
- What went into your sauce?
-Ginger, onion,
and then some green Thai chilies
for some spice spice.
Corwin?
So, I made a dough that has
three different spices in it.
Garam masala,
Jamaican curry powder,
as well as a little vadouvan.
My filling is curried
chickpeas with coconut milk.
Very nice.
The dough is made with
fenugreek and turmeric,
and then the filling
is a char siu filling
- with mushrooms, onions.
- And you deep fried it?
I baked it and
then I deep fried it.
- Oh, I see.
-Tristen?
It's called
"After School Beef Patty."
So underneath is
a ketchup vinaigrette,
along with a taleggio-mounted
beef patty filling.
And you said
after school beef patty?
I was a latchkey kid,
so it was something quick
I could heat up.
So today I did spiced lamb patty
with a little goat cheese,
and the sauce on
the bottom is called aji casero.
It's a very traditional
sauce from Ecuador.
So, this is a lamb toaster
with a Jamaican curry
strawberry glaze and
lamb fat powdered sugar.
- What's the dough?
- It's a turmeric dough,
but I just had a little
issue with the baking.
Yup.
- Lana?
-Hello, chef.
I'm calling this a crabby patty.
Inside is crab dip,
the dough itself.
There's Cajun seasoning and
a little bit of tomato powder.
Ah.
The dough is
toasted nori and sesame,
and the filling is sweet potato,
roasted kimchi, and bacon.
- A whole bottle of hot sauce.
-Of course.
I wanted to take you
on a trip to New York,
so we have
a chopped cheese patty.
And then what's in
your filling other than cheese?
Ground beef,
some onion, pepper, adobo.
- Thank you very much, chef.
- Thank you.
I thought overall
you guys did a fantastic job.
I was really impressed
with the variety of flavors
and the different textures
of dough.
There were a few
that fell a little bit short.
Kat. The shrimp
and banana was fantastic,
but you fell a little
bit short on the dough.
Yeah.
Massimo, we just found
the filling a little bit tough.
The effort was there.
I got into
a fight with the grinder.
All right, and who had another
one of our least favorites?
César.
The dough just
obviously fell apart.
'Kay.
Now, it's time
for some good news.
Who had one of
our favorite patties of the day?
Katianna. Your patty was
tremendously flavorful,
and the dough was
really nice and light.
It had this nice balance of
tender and flakiness
at the same time.
It was really nicely done.
All right, who else had another
one of our favorite patties?
Zubair. The combination
of the two sauces,
I thought it was very creative.
- Thank you.
- I also really appreciated
- that you brought the saltfish.
- Yeah.
We had one more favorite.
Shuai, with
the scallion pancake.
Unbelievable.
You were able to bridge
the gap between
a scallion pancake texture,
which is very different than
a Jamaican patty texture.
-Yes.
- Thank you, chef.
All right,
who won our patty w*r?
The winning chef
today gave us a great patty
with delicious filling.
Katianna.
Katianna, congratulations.
You just won $10,000
in Quickfire Quick Cash.
Let's go, big money.
Yes. Yes.
Now, I have 15 grand,
and that's substantial.
This is something
I can tell my daughter about.
I already told her
she could go to Disneyland
when I get home,
so she'll be very pleased.
Dwight, thank you for being
here and lending your expertise.
Thanks for having me, chefs.
Thank you very much.
If you thought
that Quickfire was difficult,
you definitely won't be able
to skate by on this next one.
I'd like to
introduce you to someone
who is a total
rock star on the ice.
Professional hockey player
and two-time
Canadian Olympic gold medalist,
Natalie Spooner.
Yeah!
Hi, thank you so much
for having me.
I'm so excited to be here.
I've been watching
female hockey since 2010.
It is such an intense sport.
Natalie Spooner,
she's a----ing badass.
For your Elimination Challenge,
like the surface hockey
is played on,
we want each of you to create
a dish that is best served cold.
So on ice, in ice,
cold as ice, it's up to you.
- Okay.
-I'm really excited.
My repertoire of cold dishes
is really rich.
I love the cold so much
that I even go swimming
in San Francisco Bay
at 50-degree water.
Cold is definitely my element.
Natalie, I kind of guessed
that there might be
a little connection between
our world here in the kitchen
and your world on the ice.
There is.
In our world, a dish is a pass.
Tom could dish the push to Gail,
Gail could go top cheddar,
score a really nice goal
on the top of the net.
We're gonna try this.
I'm still learning
English phrases,
and I'm not ready to pick up
hockey terms just yet.
I think I have a little
bit more to learn there.
But of course,
this is Top Chef
and you can't just
make whatever you want.
There we go.
Cloches, five, four, six.
- There's a lot of them.
- Seven?
- Whoa.
- Okay.
So, we have seven cloches,
each with a different
definition of a hockey term.
That will equate to a food item
that you'll have to work
into your dish.
Go behind whichever
cloche interests you.
- Do not lift it up.
- All right.
Go ahead.
Woo!
I'll just get out of the way.
Goalie is unable
to stop an easy shot.
My first impression is
that it's going to be
something round.
So, it could be
a fruit or an egg.
A lemon or something, I guess.
I don't know
what any of them mean.
It's like a foreign language.
It's a Russian roulette.
No pun intended.
All right, Vinny,
what do you think a puck means?
- Not a clue.
- Go ahead, lift it up.
- Oh!
- Ah.
-Biscuits.
- I love a biscuit.
All right, Corwin,
you stood behind "An assist."
- Ah!
- An assist is called an apple.
It's like if you just pass
something, you say, nice apple.
Apples.
Massimo and Zubair, you have
"A shot that should
have been stopped."
Oh, muffins.
You like, "sh**t a muffin at the
net," it's not a very good shot.
Oh!
I don't particularly
like muffins.
I can't remember the last time
I ate a muffin.
Muffin is actually a word
I use in the restaurant
when I'm trying
to avoid swear words.
A [bleep] muffin.
All right, Tristen,
Shuai, and Anya,
standing behind
"Game ending in zero."
- Any thoughts?
- A goose egg.
Goose egg?
Okay, lift it up.
- There it is.
- Ah!
This is great.
Eggs are super versatile.
I can bake them,
I can fry them, I can boil them,
I can do,
oh, all that is hot.
Henry and Kat, you have,
"When the goalie is unable
to stop an easy shot."
It's actually
I feel like something soft.
- Soft? Okay, go ahead.
- Yeah.
-Oh, grapefruit.
- Grapefruit.
Nailed it.
It's like bigger than a puck,
like you say grapefruit,
it's like pretty bad.
If you can't stop a grapefruit.
Now, it make sense.
Katianna and César, you have,
"Taped wrapped around
the end of a hockey stick."
- Any guesses?
- Wrappings reminded me of
like noodles.
Oh, okay.
Go ahead and lift it up.
Licorice knobs.
- Not noodles.
- Not noodles.
Last but not least,
Paula and Lana,
"A shot puck that hangs
in the net for a second."
-Oh, yes.
- Nice. Peanut butter.
I love peanut butter.
Take a shot top shelf where
mama keeps the peanut butter.
So, you score
a really nice goal.
- I love that actually.
- Yes.
You'll have to incorporate
these ingredients
into your dishes.
You can use heat
while you're cooking
through the preparation,
but when you go to serve it,
- it must be served cold.
- Heard.
Today, you'll have 90 minutes
to prep here in
the Top Chef kitchen.
Then tomorrow, you'll have
an additional 90 minutes
to finish your dish
before serving Natalie,
another professional
hockey player, Sarah Nurse.
- Oh, nice.
- Top Chef master,
Lynn Crawford, and your guest
judge, Hunter Lewis,
editor-in-chief of
Food & Winemagazine.
- Wow.
- Good luck.
- We'll see you tomorrow.
- Thank you.
So, what's everyone making?
I don't know if I want to do
a dessert or savory.
- But do you have eggs, right?
- I have eggs.
My favorite way to eat an egg
is scrambled or a deviled egg.
Holy sh--,
deviled egg is cold.
Shattered deviled egg yolk.
You basically make
a deviled egg yolk mixture
and then nitro freeze it
and then shatter it.
Ooh, I like that.
That's tasty.
I'm feeling inspired
by the grapefruit.
I really love grapefruit a lot.
The hardest part about serving
cold dishes, salinity,
acidity, even sweetness
changes when it's cold.
You have to adjust
that accordingly.
Massimo and Zubair
are doing muffins that's cold.
Muffins.
I was like so nervous.
I couldn't even guess.
I'm like, Zubair,
he's got a hot hand right now.
I'm going to stand behind him.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Paula, muévete.
Anybody have seen
the peanut butter?
- Anya, what's your dish?
- I can't tell you.
It's a secret.
But it's going to be cold.
Really, really cold.
Found the Asian aisle.
- Oh, international?
- International aisle.
Being adopted, I don't
have memories of Korean dishes.
I learned about Korean food
through my husband
and my in-laws.
Korean cold noodles was one
of the first Korean dishes
that I fell in love with.
Might do some soba.
My hockey term means
licorice knob.
I haven't worked
with licorice knob.
I don't know how strong it is.
So, I'm going to get
some licorice candy
as well as some Pernod,
which is a licorice liqueur.
Vinny, what are you making, bud?
I'm doing a riff on
a strawberry shortcake.
Ooh.
Biscuits, as much as you want
to eat them and enjoy them
fresh out of the oven,
piping hot.
That's not
what the challenge is.
I think I can make
strawberry shortcake
into an even colder dish.
Incorporate some ice cream.
I do love some ice cream.
That's for damn sure.
If they want biscuits,
I'm gonna give them biscuits.
Hell, give them biscuits, chef.
I don't see
black mustard seeds.
How do you use
a muffin
in a cold, savory dish
or a cold dessert dish?
Not feeling uninspired, but
it's just kind of a random food.
I am super glad
that I have immunity.
I have a blueberry muffin,
because I love sweet and savory.
I'm gonna dehydrate them
and make them into
a crumble on my crudo.
- CÈSAR: Hey, Zubair.
- Yes, chef.
CÈSAR:
Do you know the muffin man?
I do know the muffin man, yes.
Anybody else have any jokes?
Grabbing Granny Smith's
A whole lot.
Might make a granita,
might make a sorbet.
Cold food preparations
can be difficult
for one main reason, seasoning.
So, I'm thinking
big bold flavors.
Where's the Asian section?
Like an Asian,
Caribbean feel on this plate.
I want to get yuzu ponzu,
white soy, scotch bonnet.
Who is the apple of my eye?
Ready to go?
Oh, my God,
this is a picture moment.
- $199.99.
- Stop it.
Are you kidding me?
Waa! Yes!
I came on Top Chef
to cook muffins.
Are you gonna make
any muffins, chef,
or are you just gonna
use the cloche stuff?
No, chef.
What about yourself?
I'm not making
- ing muffins.
What kind of beef
did you get, chef?
- I got some dry aged beef.
-Oh, nice.
I just kind of
want to celebrate the egg
a little bit in
a couple different ways.
So the tartare is
a cool vehicle for it.
Hear that, man.
So what's inspiring
you, what you're doing today?
I really do enjoy
a semifreddo.
If you don't know how to make
ice cream, you make semifreddo.
Anya, what you making, girl?
Well, I'm starting ice cream.
When I think of cold and egg,
I think ice cream and cake.
Want to infuse it
with pine needles.
We'll find out
if it tastes good in ice cream.
I make essentially
a creme anglaise
and add pine needle powder.
I wanted to make things from
the forest and the fields.
You can taste
the forest now, chef.
I also want to use
sea buckthorn.
It's just such a beautiful berry
that I want to highlight.
I only have dehydrated
sea buckthorn powder,
and I think I'll experiment
and throw it in the cake.
Hey, girl,
what you doing over there?
Making a chicken broth.
- Chicken broth.
- With some licorice roots.
Doesn't smell super strong, huh?
No, but I think
when you start cooking them.
- Kat, how you doing?
- I'm good.
So, what ingredients
did you get again?
I got grapefruit.
Grapefruit is
an inherently bitter citrus,
and I just want to have
a nice scallop tartare.
What was your inspiration, Kat?
One of my favorite drinks
is a Paloma.
I'm going to make
an aguachile with mezcal based
on the Paloma c*ck.
- You like cold dishes, Kat?
-Hell yeah.
L.A. girl, I like my raw fish,
you know?
As I'm making the cake,
the consistency is really weird.
I'm just trying to fix it.
I'm not even
measuring ingredients.
I'm just adding them in,
and I'm mixing it.
Anya, what you trying to get
done before we leave?
Hopefully, I can bake a cake
and put it in the refrigerator.
Just under 43 minutes, guys.
When I saw the peanut butter,
we have pasta de maní
back at home,
and that's usually what
we use to make our ceviches.
One of my favorite ceviches
back in Ecuador...
The broth is very peanut-forward
and very intense.
For this dish,
I want to make sure that
the peanut's still there,
but it's nice and balanced.
Cèsar, how's your licorice?
- It's not much flavor, huh?
- It's kinda hard to get it out.
The root is not very flavorful.
I'm really struggling
to extract some flavor
from this licorice root.
I really need to take
a look at the candy
and the liqueur
I bought and decide
how I'm gonna incorporate those.
I have candy. I'm glad I got it.
- Five minutes!
- Five.
My ice cream, it's not
as cold as I need it to be.
The risk with ice cream
still being hot is that
when it freezes,
it would just become a brick.
When the cake comes out
of the oven, it's a brick.
So, I'm now concerned that
my ice cream's gonna be a brick
and my cake is a brick.
Woo, gotta get through it.
I'm honestly just freaking out,
but at this point,
there's no time to fix it.
I'll figure it out tomorrow.
All right, guys, let's go!
- Straight out.
- Let's go!
Hi, how's it going?
Still trying
to get my foot in, so.
Okay. You know
you can smile a little bit.
You didn't sleep?
I mean, I just woke up.
I am really, really close
with my mother and my stepdad.
We talk every single day.
Russell,
who's this on the phone?
- What's up?
- Tristen, what's up, man?
- What's going on?
-All right.
When I was
a really young teenager,
my stepdad, Russell,
came into the picture.
They have been basically
kind of my rocks.
In my high times
and my low times.
I feel good. I feel like
I'm making them proud right now.
Don't worry about
anything. You got it.
All right.
- Love you guys.
-I love you.
- Goodbye.
- Bye.
- Wow, it is an ice rink.
- That's lit.
Oh, my God,
it's an actual ice rink.
I love the commitment to theme.
Yo, who's getting laid out?
Shall we do a triple axel?
Okay, ready?
- Boom!
- Yes!
Yes! Yes!
Chefs on ice.
Yay. Back to reality.
All right, guys.
Puck drop, 90 minutes.
Let's do it.
Any changes from
your game plan last night?
No, no, I'm feeling
good. I'm going for color.
Since I'm using Granny Smiths,
I want this dish to be green.
Love that.
And I'm gonna use
scotch bonnet.
The scotch bonnet is to infuse
Caribbean products
into the dish.
So it's like, this is
your Chef Corwin dish.
That's him.
I know he's here on his plate.
Hour and eight minutes.
Yes, Chef! Ha ha.
Got a lot of stuff
to get going.
- Amazing.
- And I am on my way.
We're going muffin everywhere.
Muffin cremeux.
Muffin speculoos.
Muffin cigarette tuiles.
I thought I could get
a beautiful
muffin-flavored ice cream out
of infusing muffins overnight.
Anya, how you looking?
It's not great,
but I think it will work.
I feel really anxious
about my dish.
The ice cream gets too hard.
You got your ice cream on yet?
Yeah, yeah.
I gotta melt my ice cream
and then refreeze it
to make it fluffy.
And I have to redo the cake
so it's lighter.
I'm gonna put less flour.
At this point,
I am not thinking.
I'm just reacting.
Everything is gonna be cold,
so I feel like
I'm following the challenge.
Two torches is better than one.
How you doing, Katianna?
I'm going to use the candy
and try to make a vinaigrette.
I left the licorice root
in there overnight.
With cold dishes,
you need to up the intensity
of certain ingredients
for them to actually come out.
That adds just more pressure
to this dish.
Steeping it overnight work.
Nice and sassafras.
I haven't walked into
this entrance yet.
- It's very nice.
- It's very exciting.
Wow.
Feeling ice cool.
I've never been in a hockey rink
in a kitchen before.
- No, well--
- Neither of us.
Neither of either of us. No.
Oh, I love it.
Hi, chefs and judges.
Cooking in front of the judges
as acclaimed and amazing
as they all are, you can't
let it get in your head.
It's just cooking.
Welcome, everyone.
This is, I think,
the very first time
that there's been a ice rink
in the Top Chef kitchen.
We've chopped ingredients out
of an ice block.
That was about the closest
thing we've come to this.
Lynn, welcome back to Top Chef.
Thanks, it's good to be here.
Sarah, thank you for being here.
Happy to be here.
I was a hockey sister,
so my brothers played.
It makes me so excited
that there's a professional
women's hockey league.
Last season was
our first season.
We fought hard for it,
but it finally is here,
and all those little girls
can now have the same dream
as little boys and know that
they can have a career in it.
It's amazing.
Is everybody okay?
- Is everybody okay?
- Yeah.
Sharing a table with
Massimo is like
being in the middle
of an earthquake.
Chef, do you have
Two, no, Chef,
I don't have any butter.
- I'm so sorry.
- Yeah, no worries.
Soap goes into my butter.
I can no longer make my muffins
to get a tuile.
Going with our muffin ice cream,
salted muffin ice cream.
That's okay, though.
I think I have
enough muffin components
to be able to pull off
successfully my dish.
You know what this
ice cream tastes like?
- Muffins.
-There you go.
One minute.
Cruising into the finish line.
I'm confident with
everything I did.
Hopefully I went top cheddar
with my biscuit today.
Good push.
-Thank you very much.
-They're cold.
All right, Vinny, what was
your term and what did you make?
So my term was a puck,
which translates to a biscuit.
I encourage you to go ahead
and break the ice, pun intended.
So just go ahead and break
the tuile on top.
See what I did there? So I did a
play on a strawberry shortcake.
So, I had a biscuit-infused
soft serve ice cream,
fresh strawberries,
a strawberry soda,
- some chunks of biscuits.
-Corwin?
My term was "an assist,"
which dish an apple to your
teammate and they score a goal.
I decided to make a scallop
and apple aguachile
and then variations
of apples in as many ways
as I could possibly think.
So you have compressed pickled,
raw diced aguachile,
apple ponzu.
There's also an apple gel
on the plate as well.
I like the heat to that.
What's the heat
in the aguachile?
- Scotch bonnet.
- Thank you, chefs.
This one's got some kick to it.
Yeah. Corwin put together
a really nice dish.
It's really well balanced.
The apple comes through.
It's also ice cold and
that was part of the challenge.
It had to be cold.
He's got a bushel of apples
in there
and he really played on that.
I really liked the amount
of heat coming through
with the scotch bonnet
and the flavors were there.
I mean, that
was a restaurant dish.
I got every component
I wanted to.
I thought Vinny's ice cream
was very good.
I like that the strawberries
weren't too overpowering.
For me,
the biscuit element of it,
I would've liked to maybe
seen a little bit more of that.
I just wish there was
a surprising flavor
outside of strawberries
and biscuit.
Kat, what are you working on?
It's like
a grapefruit mousse snow.
I see that the ice cream
is far away from freezing.
This did not work.
I may have to do an ice
cream with liquid nitrogen.
I've never made liquid nitrogen
ice cream, but I have no choice.
Feeling good.
But first.
My ice cream's not freezing,
so I decided to pivot
and use liquid nitrogen.
It's a hard time
getting it to freeze.
It's not working.
Bro, it sucks, man.
You kidding me?
-No?
- No.
It didn't set?
Woo, second round.
Great. Thank you.
- All right, Massimo.
- I got muffins.
So there is
a banana muffin cremeux,
a chocolate muffin ganache,
a speculoos tuile, a meringue,
and a roasted muffin
and banana ice cream
that, chef, it's not that easy
to make ice cream
with liquid nitrogen.
If you were smart about this,
you wouldn't tell us
it was an ice cream.
You would say
it's crème anglaise.
-Zubair?
-I made for you guys
king salmon crudo with
a fennel jalapeno achar
and a little lemongrass gel
on top
with a buttermilk broth
called chaas.
And Zubair, your muffin is just
incorporated in the top crumble.
Yeah.
- Thank you, chefs.
-Thank you.
I feel like that was
a hard one, muffins.
Are you getting muffin,
Natalie, in Massimo's dish?
The muffin is
definitely hidden in there.
The muffin was so camouflaged.
You had to hide it,
it looked terrible.
You had to hide it.
Texturally,
it could be a lot colder.
Clearly, the creme anglaise
is a little weird.
That was a mistake.
It is kind of a mess,
and what I would've done
is turn it into an eaten mess.
We're eating a mess.
Yeah.
Moving over to Zubair's dish
where the muffin
is less muffin-y.
If you had said to me that
that crumble was a muffin,
I would've probably disagreed.
I did like the crumble, though.
It added that spice.
As a standalone dish,
it was perfectly fine,
but why that was all he could
think to do
when the main point
of the whole dish
was supposed to be the muffin.
But he has immunity,
so he's safe.
Well, honestly,
it's one of the prettiest plates
I've ever put up,
but I didn't use the muffin
in every single part of it.
How you doing, Katianna?
Does it taste like licorice?
Um...
As I tossed the cucumbers
and the sauerkraut with this
licorice vinaigrette,
it's getting lost again.
It didn't really
release a lot of flavor.
I need an extra Pernod.
I do have some, you want some?
Yeah, a little bit,
if you have it.
I decide to reduce some
Pernod licorice liqueur
and dress my noodles with it.
For some extra licorice flavor.
One minute.
You have got a lot of
nice variations of grapefruit.
Henry, do you feel like you
have a lot of good grapefruit?
Yeah, I put it in
every part of my dish.
All right, Henry.
I made you a grapefruit
leche de tigre
with a charred avocado
marinated in grapefruit juice,
cured the salmon
with grapefruit zest
- and then a grapefruit sorbet.
-Kat.
I made a grapefruit
and scallop tartare,
a aguachile inspired by
a spicy mezcal paloma
and then
grapefruit mousse snow on top.
-Thank you, chefs.
- Thank you.
Kat's dish
was absolutely stunning.
It's like a fireworks
of different flavors.
I like that the grapefruit,
the bitterness comes through.
I think
she did a great job here.
I do think some of
the elements get lost
to the bitterness,
like the scallop.
Feel like a song of fire
and ice, if you will.
Woo, you know I love it.
Henry's dish,
my nose is starting to run.
I think Henry's dish
was beautiful.
The char
on the fruit especially,
but the other flavors
were so muddled by the spice.
That's a lot of sauce.
It went well, man.
I loved everything that went on
the plate.
- Less than a minute.
-Less than a minute.
They said this needed to be cold
and this is like really icy.
I'm just hoping that
the licorice flavor
really comes through.
Thank you.
So the term was
like tape wrapped around
the end of a hockey stick,
I think?
Licorice knobs.
But this is a chilled chicken
and licorice soba
with cucumber and daikon.
So, I made a broth with
chicken and the licorice root
and the noodles are tossed
in a reduced Pernod.
César?
So, I did
a chilled shrimp salad.
It's got licorice tea
as well as licorice cream,
cucumber, mandarin segments
and some fresh garnishes.
-Thank you, chefs.
- Thank you.
Hunter, what'd
you think of Katianna?
This was a dynamite dish.
Really subtle and elegant.
Tossing the noodles
in the reduced Pernod
was a really smart way to
bring that anise flavor forward.
The broth is so rich.
That's a lot of developed flavor
in a very short time.
Katianna's dish is
intentionally made to be cold
for the dish to work.
And that's why I think
it's so successful.
Whatever you think, it might be
the opposite, so I don't know.
Natalie, what'd
you think of César's?
I thought it was a nice
kind of back and forth
between the shrimp noodle
and the citrusy
of the cucumber and orange.
I am super into
these shrimp noodles.
I love the texture.
They were surprising.
He just put together
a really nice dish.
All right.
Tristen,
what you dropping in there?
This is my deviled egg
filling in nitrogen.
It is time to try this
shattered deviled egg.
I'm out of eggs,
so I guess you could say
I've put all of my eggs
in this one basket.
I think they're pretty good.
Nice texture.
- Peanuts.
- Where's the peanut?
- Right here.
- Oh, in the sauce?
Yeah.
I wanna add more broth
because the ceviches back
at home are more brothy.
I'm happy with this.
I'm excited just
to share a little...
Woo!
A lot of
here.
Yeah.
All right, Paula.
Since we got peanut butter,
I decided
to do a ceviche jipijapa.
It's a very traditional ceviche
from the province of
Manabi in my country,
which the broth
is based on peanuts.
A sablefish with
a cucumber tartare,
avocado cream,
and some fried quinoa as well.
-All right, Lana.
- So, I have
a chilled peanut soup
with pickled shrimp
and a suya oil,
candied peanuts as well.
-Thank you, chefs.
- Thank you.
Sarah, what'd you
think of Paula's dish?
I didn't love the dish.
I feel like I didn't
get peanut really at all.
I just thought the broth was,
there was too much of it.
I think the fish
actually needs salt.
It's a little bland.
Too much broth.
The sauce is the weakest part of
the dish,
so then everything
just washes over
and it's hard
to really understand it.
I always feel nervous.
Lana showed
a lot of restraint here.
Peanut butter came through.
That was the star.
There's peanut in that soup.
She got the assignment.
Yeah, yeah, she did.
I've never
had pickled shrimp before,
so that was my first time
and I was pleasantly surprised.
Woo. That'll never get easy,
I don't think.
Anya, you just raw-dogging
that dry ice with your hands?
You know,
you gotta do what you gotta do.
That's right, chef.
Anya's from Russia.
She takes
whole glaciers down in Siberia.
- Are you kidding me?
- Five minutes, guys.
God help me.
My heart drops.
My ice cream, it is really soft
and the new cake is too hard.
I do not want to take
this dish to the judges.
-Six seconds.
-Heard.
Time's up.
- Oh.
- Aw.
It's giving Canada.
-You have an egg, an egg,
-And an egg.
-And an egg.
- All right, Tristen.
I really wanted
to celebrate egg,
so you have a dry-aged beef
tartare with New York strip,
some crispy potato chips,
and then on top, you have
four different egg preparations,
garlic toum, shado beni aioli,
egg yolk jam,
and then shattered
doubled egg filling.
Shuai?
Today, I made
a sweet corn semifreddo
with a sweet potato mochi,
a cardamom creme anglaise,
ginger graham cr*cker,
and a meringue.
Shuai, are you normally
a dessert person?
- I am terrible at desserts.
- Oh.
Anya.
-I made a soft-serve
pine needle ice cream
on top of pine needle crumble,
beet powder toum,
and sea buckthorn cake.
- Thank you, chefs.
- Thank you.
Sarah, what'd
you think of Tristen's tartare?
I really loved the deviled eggs.
I thought that was like
the star of the show.
I think it had
the perfect mustardy taste.
I really enjoyed it. I thought
the chips were great with it.
What made the perfect bite for
me was the frozen little bits.
When it melted on your tongue,
it really worked.
The challenge to make
a cold dish
is dialing in that flavor
at that temperature
that it's meant to be eaten.
That flavor
was really comforting.
I set out to do
what I wanted to do.
-Yeah.
- I hope it translates.
I love that Shuai
was honest about dessert.
It's not a comfort zone for him,
but I like
the flavor of the semifreddo.
I wanted the texture to be
a little on the creamier side
and less on
granita-like iciness to it.
He came up with a new dessert.
-Yeah.
- Granitafreddo.
Yeah, exactly.
It was funky and weird
and really playful.
Felt pretty good.
You know, I think I put
a lot of eggs on there.
Sarah, what do you think
of Anya's dessert?
The presentation,
it was like a frozen pond,
maple leaves on the pond.
I'm ready to go skating.
And then you just
fell through the ice.
Yeah, we fell through the ice.
Ice cream didn't set out.
The cake is not made properly.
There's no flavor in it.
It's like a cross between
a pancake and a sugar cookie.
But it's neither.
I was overthinking it.
I had perfectly made ice cream.
It's like,
just put that on the plate.
I do think the chefs,
maybe the exception of Zubair
trying to hide his muffin,
everyone embraced the challenge.
Trying to come up
with a sports analogy,
specifically hockey,
but I don't have it right now,
- but some slap for the moon.
- You're thinking a slapshot?
But fell in the ice.
- A slap-- slap-- slap shot.
- A slapshot moon shot.
A slapshot--
Let's get off the ice.
Shall we? Zamboni it?
I'm taking
my hockey puck with me.
Oh, yeah.
Tom, how do you think
they did overall?
There's a couple mistakes
and we'll get into that
a little later.
But overall,
I thought really, really tasty.
Good to see you guys are cooking
at a really high level.
I'm a little jealous
of this trio up here
because I think you're in
for a great season ahead.
Tristen, Katianna, and Corwin.
Can you please stay here?
Everyone else move to the side.
The three of you
are standing here
because of you had
our favorite dishes of the day.
Congratulations.
You never know.
There are a lot of good dishes,
but you three
definitely stood out.
Corwin, I want you to talk
a little bit about your apples.
I wanted to use different
variations of apple
that I think highlighted
the dish very well.
That was beautiful.
It just felt fresh and clear,
not just in its flavor,
but in its vision from you.
Yeah, Corwin, I think your dish
was restaurant ready.
Thank you.
Katiana, I have a question
about your broth.
Can you go through that process?
Because it really did
have a great depth of flavor.
It was chicken, daikon,
all of the licorice roots.
Very, very simple.
On the first bite, I was like,
well, where's this licorice?
And then as we all sat there,
you were left with this
really subtle,
but still
very prominent anise flavor.
Yeah, it kept coming.
It was nice.
-Yeah.
-I agree.
So much cooking nowadays is ramp
up the heat, ramp up the acid,
and it was the nuance
and the subtlety of that dish,
and it's something I'm gonna be
thinking about for a long time.
Thank you.
And Tristen,
what made you decide
to freeze your deviled eggs
in liquid nitrogen?
The only thing I could
think about that's like,
a cold, enjoyable egg
was a deviled egg.
It was fun.
It was everything you
expect out of a tartare
just kind of reworked.
It was all
in just different places.
Potatoes, egg, beef,
you made them sing.
Just a perfect little trio.
Well, Hunter,
as our guest judge,
you get to announce
the winner of this challenge.
The winning chef today
made a very memorable dish
and incorporated
the hockey term in a smart way.
And the winner is...
Katianna.
Katianna, congratulations.
You just won immunity in
the next Elimination Challenge.
-Congratulations.
-Yeah.
I'm honestly shocked
because it's a dish
that I've never made before
and I literally had
to just work out in live time.
So, that gives me
a little confidence
that I should
trust my instincts.
Thank you.
I mean,
Quickfire and now this.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
You can step to the side.
Thank you.
Now we'd like to see Anya,
Paula
and Massimo.
Chefs, the three of you
had our least favorite dishes,
and one of you
will be eliminated.
Massimo, let's start with you.
The dish sucked.
I'm embarrassed, okay?
I don't usually
have performance issues.
So, my ice cream
never came together.
I had to
just put it on the plate.
The plating lacked refinement,
for lack of a better word.
This is great. We don't
even need to say anything.
I know it was bad, chef.
You're k*lling me over here.
The thing that you had going for
you, Massimo,
was that it tasted
like a muffin.
My mind is a little blown.
That liquid nitrogen,
it is the easiest way
to make ice cream.
Yeah. What happened?
It's instant.
Usually pour it in,
it instantly freezes it.
And if it's not getting frozen,
you add more and more.
No excuse.
Anya, you had the same problem
with the ice cream? Sort of.
I had a perfectly set ice cream,
and I thought
this might not be fluffy enough,
so I decided to fluff it up.
I have redone the cake as well.
It was supposed to be
a sort of a chiffon cake,
and I just used
the sea buckthorn powder.
Have you used that before
in a cake?
I have not.
I'm wondering if that
really threw off the texture.
There's probably anti caking
stuff in there, like cornstarch
or something else in there.
That explains the texture.
It seems like the pressure to
bring forward these ingredients
that represent your culture got
in the way of proper technique.
Yes.
Paula, were you happy
with your dish?
I thought it was balanced,
but I think the broth would
have a little bit more peanut.
- Mm-hmm.
-It didn't have
a whole lot
of peanut butter flavor.
That was a soup, right?
It was supposed to be a soup.
No, it was a ceviche.
-A ceviche?
- Yeah.
So there was so much sauce,
everything got
kind of drowned out.
Usually, ceviches is an Ecuador
a little more brothy.
It puts so much emphasis
on the liquid.
It put more pressure on
the flavor of that,
and I think
what we were looking for
was a little more depth there.
Yeah.
All right, chefs, we'll
call you back in a little bit.
Thank you.
Congratulations, guys,
on the top.
Congratulations.
Congratulations to Katianna.
-Yeah.
- That dish sounds dope.
I wish I would have tried it.
How are you feeling? Paula?
What did you think
about just being too much sauce?
I mean,
that's a correctable thing.
I could have
put less lime for sure, I guess.
It like breaks my heart
because when you know
you did something wrong
and they know what they
did wrong, I feel for them.
Well, I think in both
Anya and Massimo's case,
they knew
they were coming up here.
I don't think Paula knew
that she was going to be here.
She distinctly said, no,
this is very much a sauce,
which makes sense
to the amount of acid.
I don't think it was
the worst thing we ate today.
Yeah. Her dish doesn't come
close to Massimo or Anya's.
Never thought an ice cream
would be sending me home.
Well, you don't know yet.
Hasn't yet.
But, uh...
You know,
Massimo's dish made no sense.
It was pureed muffin
with some crispy bit.
I don't know what he did to it,
but he essentially
took a muffin,
added some stuff to it,
and made a muffin.
I mean, it was a bit of a mess.
It's embarrassing because I know
I'm capable of so much more,
so it's like you just look
like a----ing idiot.
When we look at Anya's dish,
her ingredient was egg.
It wasn't
a highlight of the egg.
Anya was trying to
represent her culture
through these ingredients,
but she was so focused on the
actual ingredient coming forward
that the technique
didn't back it up.
- No.
- Please, can we go?
- Can we just get it over with?
- We want to know.
All right,
I think we have our answer.
Let's get the chefs out here.
Chefs, as long as we're in this
kitchen or your kitchen at home,
at some point
you'll make a mistake.
And the question is how
you deal with those mistakes.
Can you pivot?
Unfortunately, tonight,
one chef just couldn't
make it work.
Anya, please pack your knives
and go.
Anya, we'll see you
in Last Chance Kitchen.
So, you have a chance to cook.
You can make
that pivot and make it right.
- Thank you. Thank you.
-I'll see you there.
Thank you all.
Even though I expected it,
I feel stunned and heartbroken.
This was my one and only chance
to be on Top Chef
and tell my story.
It's me today.
No.
I was able
to show Russian cuisine
as something soulful,
as something that has a heart.
This journey was
for a good reason.
Tonight, Anya's hockey
just sent her
toLast Chance Kitchen.
That's a good hat.
Can she glide past
the reigning champ?
- Cutting this one real close.
- Oh, my God.
Watch now on Peacock
or bravotv.com.
Next time onTop Chef...
Please welcome Michael Cera...
Amy Schneider
and Mattea Roach.
We're going to play
our own little trivia game.
- Battered.
- Panko.
- Toro?
- Toro is correct.
For your Elimination Challenge,
you'll have to incorporate
these Canadian sweet treats
into your dishes.
But not in the way
that you're probably thinking.
This is Top Chefafter all.
Colonel Sanders ain't got
sh-- on my 13 herbs and spices.
After a few bites,
I was kind of tired of it.
- Yeah.
- My anxiety through the roof.
- No.
- Yeah.
Kind of want to stand up
and clap.
Oh, sh--.
Time runs out.
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22x03 - Best Served Cold
Watch/Buy Amazon Merchandise
Show features chefs competing against each other in culinary challenges.
Show features chefs competing against each other in culinary challenges.