Previously on Top Chef...
This is Restaurant Wars.
- Whoa! - Yes!
This is not a challenge, this is the war!
- You ready to rock? - Let's do this.
Michelle has not come to say hi.
This is true. She has not.
I am feeling the pressure. I'm gonna give 'em a minute.
You're working a beef and a pork?
- All up to fire? - No, Chef.
I'm so sorry, we're waiting on another course.
Just check on it? Thank you so much.
We need to fire the judges' table.
- Okay. Give me a second. - I need salt in this pork.
- It's lacking punch. - This is for the W.
My plate is missing food.
The winning team is...
- Channel. - Yes! Yes!
You just won yourselves $40,000.
- Yes! - Let's go!
Kaleena, please pack your knives and go.
Eight chefs remain
to compete in the ultimate culinary showdown.
At stake for the winner,
a feature in Food & Wine magazine,
an appearance at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen,
$250,000 furnished by Saratoga Springwater,
and the title of "Top Chef."
- Today was a hard day. - Yeah.
It's hard to open up a restaurant
in six months, but in 24 hours?
Hard work.
It's something to remember that everyone
that's here is here for a reason.
I've been doing this for 15 years,
but to have the mental fortitude
to continue to push yourself
is the biggest part of this competition.
There's a reason that you keep getting to go every week,
and you should feel proud.
- Manny, you good? - Yeah, I just...
- What's up? - ...I feel I let her down.
And for her to be the one to leave,
it's a hard pill to swallow.
Kaleena leaving, I feel that I played
a big part in that, and it just sucks.
I just know what I could have done better.
I felt that if I was gonna make it to the top eight,
I was gonna be happier.
- Sorry, Manny. - You're still here, Chef.
They could have sent two people home, you know?
That has to mean something,
and there's both sides of that coin.
- Yeah, for sure. - Thank you.
When I left Mexico, I remember thinking,
one day when they talk about
Mexican chefs cooking outside of Mexico
and killing it,
I want my name to be in the conversation.
I have to stay focused.
Good job, guys. Congratulations.
Let's go. We gotta put Grandpa to bed.
That's a lot of excitement.
I have, like, the war mirror,
which is ideas for the challenges
I think that are gonna happen.
More than anything,
it's just to get myself brainstorming.
And it's hard, you really gotta, like,
mentally stay in the game, and for me, being inspired,
even if it's me inspiring myself, is helpful.
that.
- Oh, no, it's cranberries. - Yes!
- Cranberries. - Yes!
- Good morning, Chefs. - Good morning.
Oh, what's going on? It's a jacuzzi.
Yeah, I'm fairly certain
this was not what you were expecting
- to see this morning. - Not at all.
That makes two of us.
I feel like Tom looks most at home
standing in the cranberry bog,
although you can tell Gail is super into the outfit.
Should've had a belt.
I'm dreading finding out why they're here,
because I am not good at Quickfires.
Chefs, we're halfway through the competition,
and there is no more immunity on the table
- for Elimination Challenges. - Got the last one.
But, we're raising the stakes
- even higher. - Why not?
Gail and I usually only taste
your Elimination Challenge dishes every week,
- but that's all changing. - Oh, boy.
We'll be joining Kristen at the Quickfires
for the rest of our time here in Milwaukee.
Love that.
We've always determined elimination
based singularly on your elimination dish,
and now the game is changing.
Your Elimination Challenge dishes will still determine
who will be up for elimination each week.
But if you're on the bottom,
your Quickfire dishes will be taken into account
as we deliberate
- who needs to be going home. - Wee.
When you thought there was enough curveballs,
they throw five more.
To go home because of a Quickfire mistake,
it-- it sucks.
It's a whole new show now.
Wisconsin produces the most cranberries
than any other state in the nation.
Here to tell us a little bit more
about this versatile fruit
is a fifth generation cranberry farmer,
- Rochelle Hoffman. - Hi, Rochelle.
Hello, Chefs.
Contrary to popular belief,
cranberries don't actually grow in water.
They grow in soil, and only when we're harvesting,
we flood the cranberry beds, and they float.
For today's Quickfire, we want you to make a dish
featuring cranberries.
We don't want it just simply in a baked good
or simply in a sauce.
We need to see something original.
Cranberries, they can be tough to work with,
but you can play off that tartness
and do something really creative and fun.
Just don't get bogged down.
That was a great one.
She really is your best audience.
I like that one.
All right, so the chef with our favorite dish
will win $10,000 of Quickfire Quick Cash.
You have 30 minutes on the clock.
I would recommend we start getting out of the marsh.
Good idea, good idea.
Your time starts now!
Whoa!
Oh, my God!
You guys are monsters.
Here comes Grandpa walking around.
Soo, do you use fresh cranberries often?
No, I'm more of a canned cranberry guy,
I'm not gonna lie.
Cranberries, they are so tart.
Like having a Sour Patch Kid tart.
So, I do wanna grab some other berries
to kind of offset that tartness.
I'm gonna do cranberry-blackberry jam,
- beef tartare on top. - Sounds great, bub.
I'm gonna take the cranberries and make Thai-inspired chutney.
Quickfires to me have always been, like, roll the dice,
see what happens, but now it better be well thought out,
otherwise Tom's gonna rip it apart.
This is the face of unhappiness.
This is not something I've done before,
but it's something that I think will work really nice.
Get some more cranberries.
Last year I was R&Ding cranberries for two months,
so I'm gonna do a seared scallop with a cranberry hot sauce.
I think I'm gonna work with cranberry and beets,
some bacon, similar to like a borscht soup.
Have you made this dish before?
Hell no, I haven't made this dish before.
10K is a lot of money for a Quickfire.
I'm flying by the seat of my pants right now.
$15,500 is my total so far.
I have to blend up my base and then sear my foie gras.
Hopefully walk away with 10K.
Keep it coming.
Manny, have you cooked with cranberries a lot?
No, you know, that doesn't really get used in Mexico.
The first time I ate cranberries
was cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving.
I'm gonna do pork tenderloin with roasted radicchio
and orange with a cranberry vinaigrette
and cranberry sabayon.
Turkey with cranberries? Not for me.
But I know the flavor profile, I think.
Coming down. You feeling good about it?
Definitely raised the stakes
for the Quickfires, you know?
Before we had everything to win
and little to lose.
Now, it's not like that anymore.
- 20 minutes left, Chef. - Jesus.
I like cranberries.
I really enjoy the Quickfires.
You have to make decisions fast
and you have to think with your instincts.
I'm making my sauce with walnuts.
I'm taking a risk with the walnuts.
They could be grainy if you don't cook them properly,
but it's going to stand out from the rest.
Danny, what are you doing back here, bubba?
Besides breaking the juicer,
trying to get some cranberry juice.
Hell yeah, bro.
Juicing cranberries has proven to be
quite the challenge.
Oh, come on.
I wanna make a cranberry butter to kind of cook my fish in.
What is this? Is this halibut?
That's Chilean sea bass.
Your boy's from New York.
We don't work with no Chilean sea bass, girl.
Danny is definitely going out on a limb here,
tearing cranberries and fish.
Balancing those flavors, that's not an easy task,
whereas my dish is going to be
a little bit more straightforward.
You know the deal. What do you got?
- Hoe cake. - Oh, yeah, nice.
Cranberry sauce and fried chicken.
Taking it to the South.
- Here I go. - Ten minutes, Chefs.
Hoe cakes. Please cook. Thank you.
Making a cranberry brandy sabayon for my pork.
Chefs, you have five minutes left.
The sauce is a little bit grainy,
and I know it needs to cook a little bit longer.
At this point, I just don't have time.
- I'm gonna plate, actually. - Tom's here,
so it's a whole different ball game.
Three minutes!
Mm! It tastes good. Okay.
It's a mess over here.
The cranberry sauce, it looks pretty basic.
I'm hoping that the flavor of everything carries me through.
Uh, shaky hands.
30 seconds.
Holy sh--, that's good.
All right, all right, okay.
Three, two, one. Hands up.
- Utensils down. - It's not pretty.
- Hi, Laura. - Welcome, Chefs.
Tell us what you've made for us.
I took the idea of fesenjan with walnuts and cranberries.
Inside is a pork filling with more cranberries in it.
- Thanks. - Great.
What'd you make for us?
So, I have a pork tenderloin
with brandy and a cranberry sabayon.
Made a cranberry and orange vinaigrette for the radicchio.
How was it working with cranberries?
Well, it's a Quickfire,
so you just gotta-- just gotta go.
I think that this dish could help me not go home.
I'm just, like, crossing my fingers,
crossing my arms, crossing my legs.
- Thank you, Manny. - Thank you.
What do you have for us?
I have some salt and pepper scallops
with cranberry red curry
and mint, dill, and cilantro.
I mean, it is your state fruit, right?
- It is my state fruit. - Do you cook with them often?
No.
In front of you guys, you have a beef carpaccio,
chutney with beets, blackberries, cranberry,
and a little bit of pasilla peppers.
- Hmm. - Great, thanks, Soo.
- Thank you. - Okay, thank you.
I have a cranberry poached sea bass
with cranberry panade, some fresh cranberry garnish.
I juiced the cranberries
and then cooked them in the cranberry juice.
- Thanks, Danny. - Thank you, Chefs.
- Ooh. - Wow.
I did a play on fried chicken and waffles.
It's a corn and cranberry hoe cake.
On the bottom is a cranberry sauce.
And what's in the cranberry sauce?
A little bit of maple,
a five-spice, cranberry, vinegar,
and some Tabasco to give it some acidity.
- Thanks. - Thank you.
What did you make for us?
Today, I made a cranberry and beet soup
with a piece of seared foie gras on top,
a little bit of maple mascarpone.
- It's like a cranberry borscht. - Yeah.
I have never had a cranberry soup before.
- This is a first. - Hey.
- Thank you, Michelle. - Thanks.
- Hi, Savannah. - Hi.
I did a seared scallop,
cranberry vinegar poached fennel,
cranberry-nori celery relish,
and then a cranberry hot sauce.
- Thank you, Savannah. - Thank you very much.
That was some of the most delicious cranberries
I have ever had, so thank you for that, Chefs.
Who do you think had our favorite dishes?
Dan, I think that you took
a cranberry sauce in terms of texture
and flipped it on its head.
Really bright, unexpected flavors.
Danny, your sea bass was perfectly cooked,
and I am really impressed
with your multiple uses of cranberries.
You were juicing your cranberries.
It's not an easy task.
Michelle, I love the fact
that you found sweetness in the beets.
I thought the foie gras richness
against the tartness was a nice combination.
Thank you.
Chefs, as you know, there can only be one winner.
The chef with our favorite dish
gave us something new and different.
And the winner is...
Danny.
Wow.
The fact that this dish could potentially save me
if something goes wrong, I love it.
And I'll also take $10,000 all day long.
Do you know what your total is yet?
- $43,000. - All right.
Well done.
We did have a few least favorites.
Laura, I think there were moments
where there was a little too much honey,
and the sauce ate a little bit sandy.
It had a bit of a grit to it, I guess, from the walnut.
Okay.
Manny, the salad with the cranberry vinaigrette,
I thought that went really, really nicely together.
I just got a little bit lost in the sabayon.
Amanda, the cranberry sauce felt a little expected.
I wish you had incorporated cranberries more creatively.
Sure.
I should have done more, and I didn't.
I'm just hoping my Elimination dish is really good,
so I don't really have to worry about how my Quickfire went.
Rochelle, I just wanna say thank you for sharing
your family's tradition with us,
and obviously bringing all of your cranberries.
- Thank you for sharing. - Thank you guys for having us.
Chefs, I think it's time we get back to the land.
Did you know that "Milwaukee" translates to "the good land"
in the language spoken by the Potawatomi,
Odawa, and Ojibwe tribes?
- Mm-hmm. - Let's go.
There are actually 11 federally-recognized
tribal nations throughout Wisconsin
that span across hundreds of miles
of woodlands, lakes, and rivers
where original and native ingredients are sourced
and are making their way onto the plates
of some of the best restaurants around.
Very cool.
Here to tell us about this modern movement,
chefs Elena Terry and Chef Sean Sherman.
Elena is the founder of Wild Bearies,
a nonprofit that promotes traditional farming techniques
and was named one of 2022's
Most Influential Native American Leaders of Wisconsin.
- Congrats. - Wow.
Hello, everyone.
I wanted to greet you in my language,
the Ho-Chunk language, and say welcome.
Thank you.
And Sean is from the Oglala Lakota tribe.
He's an educator, activist,
and three times James Beard Award winner.
Three times. , congratulations.
I just read Sean's cookbook before I came.
This is a huge honor.
Growing up on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota,
I became a very young chef and I had a great career,
but I realized the complete absence
of Indigenous anything in the culinary world.
So, it sent me on a path
to understand the food of my ancestors
to really bring Indigenous foods to the forefront.
Amazing.
Chefs, for your next Elimination Challenge,
we want modern dishes using only Native American ingredients.
For this challenge, you won't be cooking
with any dairy, wheat flour, cane sugar,
pork, beef, or chicken.
There's no shopping today.
Instead, you'll have access to a pantry
full of Indigenous ingredients
that Sean and Elena helped curate
from Native American farmers and markets.
- Okay. - Smooth.
To be working with ingredients
that I've never cooked with before,
it's definitely wild.
There's no hiding behind dairy.
There's no hiding behind soy sauce.
We're definitely gonna have to think
outside the box in this one.
Tomorrow, you'll have three hours
to prep and cook your dishes at Il Cervo.
Joining us at the table will be
enrolled member of Wisconsin's Menominee Tribe
and Chicago's first Native American executive chef,
Jessica Walks First,
and chef and owner of Miijim
and a Native of the Red Cliff Ojibwe,
Chef Bryce Stevenson.
Dan, you got excited.
Yeah, Bryce worked with us. Bryce is awesome.
To make sure you understand what we're looking for,
Elena and Sean have a little surprise for you.
- All right, follow us. - Follow us.
This is awesome.
- Thank you, Chef. - Wow.
Thank you, Chef.
- Oh, this is so cool. - Who's sitting where?
There's no better way to get to know a culture
than through its food,
and that's exactly what we're about to do.
- Oh, this is cool. - This is so great.
Yeah, it is family style, so help yourself.
Pass around those bean dips. We have some white bean spreads.
We used white tepary beans, and there's some walleye
that I smoked fresh this morning,
some masa chips,
some fresh raspberry, and some sunflower sprout.
We cooked wild rice
and made it into a patty with rosehip sauce
and then roasted mushrooms on top of it.
- Whoa. - Yeah.
It's important to note
there were very highly ignited trade routes
that existed across the Americas.
You know, we wouldn't have corn if they didn't exist.
You know, so, there were pretty significant trades
and travels that used to happen.
So, we have roasted sweet potatoes
and dandelion greens, cedar-braised bison.
The bison immediately reminded me of beef barbacoa.
Like, I wanted a tortilla, I wanted salsa, I wanted lime.
It was very reminiscent of home.
What do you use for acidity?
Yeah, we use a lot of sumac
and a lot of the tartness in the berries.
It's aronia berry, which is also known as chokeberry.
Pass the bowls down.
There's hominy that we made ourselves.
We used Mandan corn,
and we also have braised duck and some mustard green.
It's delicious.
There are other components that you can add too,
like smoke, which is a huge flavor contribution.
I cannot wait to cook with these ingredients.
I never had the opportunity before.
This is like going to a candy store.
For breakfast, what's like an usual breakfast for you guys?
My children love wild rice with berries
and a little bit of maple syrup for breakfast,
especially now it's ricing season.
I love it.
There's not a lot of Native American restaurants
across the country.
I'm just curious if any of you guys
have ever been to a Native American restaurant before.
- No. - Unfortunately, no.
- No. - Yeah, and that's a problem.
Yeah.
We should be normalizing Indigenous foods,
not just here, but on a global scale
and celebrating these diversities everywhere
instead of trying to homogenize everything, you know?
We definitely, in the culinary world,
see things through the lens of colonization,
and I think that the culinary impact of that
hasn't been thoroughly explored.
So, I'm really trying to take it all in
and learn as much as I can from this experience.
We also have bean cake
made with red bean flour and maple water.
There's a little bit of roasted squash glaze on top
and wild hyssop, which has kind of an anise flavor,
and underneath is a plum sauce.
Very cool.
It's really unlike anything
that I've ever eaten, to be honest.
Can I know specifics about baking this?
Was it, like, low?
Was there a water bath or anything?
I think we did 325 on that one.
Is anyone solidifying their ideas
or are the wheels still turning?
A lot of writing going on under the table.
A lot of notes being taken.
I don't even know what I would do.
Well, Sean and Elena, thank you very much.
I know that you've inspired this entire table,
so we'll let you guys get to your brainstorming
and we look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow.
Thank you.
See you tomorrow.
- Good luck, guys. - Thank you.
Woof.
So, what do you guys think?
- So many things. - I have so many ideas.
They asked for a modern interpretation, right?
They're looking for, like, fine dining kind of thing?
I feel like they want elevated.
They want to see some sh--.
I'm glad she spoke about the smoke
because I, you know, love to get smoked.
- That's your jam. - That's my jam.
Executing this challenge has me a little bit nervous.
What's pinon? P-I-N-O-N?
It's a type of pine nut that's, like, pink.
Not having access to the ingredients
that I am used to having.
No milk, no fat.
Not having citrus, right, is interesting.
It's crazy.
I would feel a lot better
with a little bit of butter, actually.
Let's go.
- Okay. - Oh, man.
Get some menu planning done or what?
Hey, guys, I'm gonna make chicken with mole and rice.
- Thank you, Manny. - Thanks, Manny.
- Thank you, Manny. - Thank you, Chef.
I'm thinking about a dish, like, based on sunflowers,
so taking the sunflower head
and braising it like an artichoke.
We're relying on Native ingredients for this challenge.
I'm kind of excited about exploring a dish
based on one ingredient that nobody really uses.
Everything is, like, just from the ground.
It's pretty cool. Is anyone doing dessert?
I'm doing dessert.
You're gonna make a cake?
I don't know yet.
I have a few ideas.
I've never had formal pastry experience.
I'm a savory cook who learned pastry on the job,
but the last time I made a dessert,
it was one of the top three.
It could've been a pre-dessert.
It could have been dessert.
It just defied logic in a very good way.
Thank you so much.
So, I'm just gonna go for it.
You just do not know
- what's gonna happen tomorrow. - I agree.
So, I'm thinking about doing
a bison and venison tataki.
I went on my first hunting trip last year,
harvesting venison.
It was a really unique
and somewhat spiritual experience
to take an animal
all the way down into pieces,
and then I made a tartar tataki.
It'll be, like, super charred on the outside
- and then raw on the inside. - Oh, yeah.
Our dinner is ready.
Manny!
Soo, you lived in Korea?
First grade through the fifth grade.
- Oh, really? - Yeah, I got beat.
You got beat?
No, no, no, no, no.
As in, like, that kind of punishment in elementary school.
- It was, like, allowed. - Oh.
If you don't do your homework, or if you come to school late.
They smack you?
Life in Korea,
that was something else.
I moved to the States when I was in fifth grade.
I feel like everybody had to follow the same path.
I think that's why my dad and my mom sacrificed so much
to get us to the States, so we could have options.
Did you come by yourself when you came?
No, my mom and my sister, we all came together.
My dad worked in Korea.
It was tough, honestly.
I had big moments in my life
where he couldn't come,
but, you know, he provided us an opportunity
to live that American dream.
And I'm here now,
competing to be the next Top Chef.
How many of our significant others are chefs
or they work in the industry?
- Yes. - Yes, yes.
My superpower is actually
- having my husband. - You said in the restaurant,
you guys don't call each other's names, right?
He whistles, and you're like--
Yeah, yeah, we have a whistle,
and we read each other's minds.
Like telepathy.
My wife's a pastry chef.
How long were you guys dating before you got married?
She, like, wouldn't date me, for, like, the longest time.
She was like, "No, I'm only interested in talking
"to someone who's Muslim."
It was like six months in,
and it just clicked, I was like,
"We're gonna get married, I'm gonna convert."
She was just like, "Excuse me?"
No way.
It's incredible how receptive
my family has been to me converting to Islam.
Like, I grew up very Catholic,
church every Sunday.
Those were the non-negotiables in my house.
But my mom's a trip.
She was like, "Hey, you're gonna be Muslim?
"Amazing, I love that for you. That's your journey."
They embrace it.
We also acknowledge
Christmas and Easter.
We observe many things,
because it's important to both of our families.
That's a hard story to follow up.
I know.
I am stoked!
'Round that corner.
Sorry, guys.
- Oh, jeez. - I need nuts.
This is madness.
It's like being in a mosh pit, almost.
Don't push. I just grab sh--.
- Oh, that was my arm. - Oh, I like that.
You took all the mustard greens?
Where'd all the cedar go?
I don't want to have to push
anybody down to grab an onion.
- Get out of my sh--. - Those are yours?
I thought you were giving those away.
Hey, guys, does anybody have nuts?
What is this?
That's wild grapes.
Can I have some of
- the wild grapes, Laura? - Yeah.
I'm trying to grab as many, like,
naturally sweet items as I can.
I am getting my squash on for a puree for a squash cake.
Making a dessert with vegetables and no dairy
is actually more of a challenge.
My hands are shaking.
Who's got raisins? A little bit. Thank you.
Gotta get under here.
Elk?
I definitely never worked with elk before.
This is definitely out of my wheelhouse.
I think it's similar to venison.
It's not exactly what I planned.
I'm gonna treat it the same.
It's gonna be lightly smoked and grilled.
Elk caul fat?
Get the [bleep] out of here.
Caul fat is the stomach lining of an animal.
When you cook caul fat, it melts and binds things together.
Oh, it's a monster.
But I've never used elk caul fat.
Trying to figure things out right now.
Is that the aronia berry?
- Yeah. You can take it. - I'd love a couple.
Danny, what you got right there?
It's caul fat,
it's gonna tie my crépinettes together.
I just feel like I need to respect
these ingredients by elevating and doing something unexpected.
That's half the game of being a chef.
I like butter. I like fat and cream.
- This is, uh... - He's a dairy guy.
I'm a dairy boy. This is not my style.
Actually, I really like this cooking.
Like the idea of using a lot of things
that you don't have to manipulate too much.
I'm actually gonna make tamales.
Is this your first time making tamales?
This is gonna be a different tamale.
Duck tamales is, like, fancy tamales.
You guys have the food processors?
I'm doing polenta and squash with rabbit and mushrooms.
Have you worked with rabbit before?
I have worked with rabbit before.
You definitely don't want to overcook it.
The first thing that I need to do is get the rabbit cooking.
Beautiful.
This pressure cooker, it's not something
that I utilize on a regular basis,
but I know that it creates a lot of juice.
Hey, Soo, how are you using the Native ingredients?
The rice will be the carrier of my huitlacoche sauce.
Huitlacoche, it's an ingredient
that I've never worked with before.
So, I just start to decorn it,
or de...
What's the word for it? I don't know.
And hopefully, it'll give it the texture
that I need for my wild rice gnocchi.
My whole dish is going to be vegetarian, actually.
Oh, I like that.
This guy's going to town over here.
Like a pirate.
Well, I'm going to roast this,
so I can just use it for flavors.
Violence is not the answer, Chef.
I don't want this to be a meat dish,
but I do want that backbone flavor to it,
so I'm going to use it to fortify
the flavor of my sauce.
Nice sunflowers you got there, Dan.
Thanks, brah.
I'm going to pick the leaves off
and then I'm going to braise them
like you would an artichoke.
They're in the same family
as the artichoke and the sunchoke.
Two hours!
Yeah, two hours!
You know how to turn this on?
Yeah, uh...
Oh, mother----er.
I'm smoking my mushrooms, onions,
and rabbit livers with oak.
I definitely smoke a lot of things,
uh, food-wise.
I'm going to try to make the rice cake
- that we ate yesterday... - Uh-huh.
...with mustard greens, duck, and plum.
That sounds great.
This is a very daunting challenge.
We have to honor the ingredients and the culture.
I just want to get ahead on this one.
On top of that,
double elimination is still on the table.
The judges are taking the Quickfires in consideration
for the elimination and I did not win.
Keep adding it to the pile of stress.
Come on, get hot.
- Hey, Chefs. - Chefs, how you doing?
Hey, Soo, how's it going?
What do you have going on here?
I got inspired by the rice cakes
you guys made yesterday.
I'm going to take the rice, overcook it,
cut it into little gnocchi-sized pieces,
and treat it like a pasta.
- All right. - Smells great.
Thank you, Chefs.
Pine nuts.
Chefs, how are you? Nice to see you.
- I'm making tamales. - Nice.
And then on the side, I have the idea
- of a haroset sauce. - Yep.
You know, with apples.
I'm using a little bit of gooseberries.
The Quickfires now are taken into account
for the Elimination Challenges and I was at the bottom.
I feel like I need to push harder
and make something very different and new.
So, it's, like, mixing of different ideas
and different techniques.
Okay. Sounds good.
Great. Thank you.
Let's see what Gail is going to say
about the haroset.
It's like a Jewish tradition sauce.
- Hey, Amanda. - Hi, Chef.
- How's it going so far? - So far, so good.
- I'm making elk tataki. - Oh, nice.
- And you have some masa there? - Yep.
I'm making some tortillas to go on the side,
so you'll scoop everything into the tortillas.
- Beautiful. - Wonderful.
So, let me ask you about the Quickfire
and how that can figure into
- the Elimination Challenge. - The whole thing?
- How do you feel about that? - I'm a little bit nervous.
I feel like it wasn't my best Quickfire.
But, you know, I'm just going to go hard
in the Elimination Challenge and hope that you like it.
- Don't worry about it. - Yeah. Yeah, thanks, y'all.
Thank you.
Hey, Savannah. How you doing?
- Good. - What are you making?
A squash and ginger and maple cake
and then a plum and grape jelly.
And your inspiration?
I love squash and I'm inspired by
what was left in the pantry.
So, um, you know.
- Okay. Sounds good. - Thank you, guys.
- Let you get back to work. - Thank you.
This is not going to be, like, a birthday cake.
I'm envisioning that this is going to come out
half cake, half jello.
Who knows, right? That's my guess.
The chef seems to be really jumping in with both feet.
- This is really exciting. - Yeah.
There's so many different styles
going on back there, so I love the creativity.
With Soo, any issue at all with taking the wild rice
and trying to make a gnocchi out of it?
The tricky part is if they try to poach it afterwards
because it could fall apart.
Amanda, she was doing this tataki of elk.
I hope that I can tell that it's elk
and that the uniqueness of that beautiful protein
- isn't covered. - Right.
And then we have Savannah.
Yeah, and cooking without wheat flour,
butter, or cane sugar, like, it's a challenge.
- But that was the point. - Yep.
- We gotta get ready for dinner. - Let's do it.
Oh, my hands are going to be, like, death to me tonight.
I'm taking the bulb of the sunflower
and I'm treating it like I would an artichoke.
You just have to cut away all of the black buds on top.
I have a curvy one if you want to use that.
No, I mean, it's not really the knife
as much as it's my fingers.
Kennedy's disease, you know, it's tough.
Uh, my legs start dragging, my fingers stop wanting to work.
It's one of those things that I've been able to
so far push through,
but this competition is getting long.
I'm just getting tired.
40 minutes, Chefs.
I don't know how I'm gonna----ing do this.
Ruined the consistency somehow.
- Sh--. - Hey, Soo, how you doing, dude?
Trying to have some uniformity in these "gnocchis,"
but this might be a bad idea, we'll see.
Some of these aren't really holding together.
I don't think I have enough time to pivot.
I might get sent home on this "wild rice gnocchi."
Sh--.
- It's beautiful up here. - It's so nice.
It's stunning.
Oh, what a beautiful room.
Wonderful setting.
Thank you everyone for joining us
at this very special meal.
Sean and Elena, you left a lot of inspiration
and points of reference for our chefs.
- I'm excited. - I think
the challenge will be, can they do something
that really keeps the simplicity,
the beauty, and the integrity of the ingredients?
Indigenous foods, you rely on the natural flavors
to work together,
so I really want to see if they can capture
the essence of all those ingredients.
I am taking some of the rabbit off the bone
for my last little touch.
My rabbit is perfect, but just for some texture,
I get the rabbit in the pizza oven
to try to crisp up a little bit.
That's beautiful.
Just frying some rice.
I'm going to use it as a garnish on my crépinette.
, coming down, coming down, coming down.
Anybody have any extra eggs?
I might have two whites, but I need my yolks.
- I'm sorry. - No, don't be sorry.
Yeah, I really don't want to get sent home
on a wild rice gnocchi,
so we're going to reinforce that binding
by adding a couple of duck eggs.
Hopefully it'll get to the consistency
that I need it to be.
All right, buddy.
Ten minutes, Chefs, ten minutes.
This is my squash and polenta cake.
Just going to cut them into portions,
get ready for our plating.
This masa tastes pretty good.
- Can you taste it, Laura? - Yeah, it tastes good.
My vision for the tortillas is to utilize them
to help cut through the pipián sauce.
I ideally wanted to serve two tortillas per plate,
but I'm feeling the time crunch.
I'm in the tortilla weeds.
Two minutes, 37 seconds, Chefs.
Very hot. Ah, sh--.
This rabbit is a little bit on the drier side,
so I decided not to do the jus as a pour
and just go ahead and pour it into the bowl.
Hoping to bring some moisture back into the dish.
Trying to get there.
Two seconds.
Hands up, hands up! Let's go, Chef!
Thank you so much.
Thanks, y'all.
Thank you.
Michelle, tell us about your dish.
I did a acorn squash and polenta cake
with roasted rabbit,
smoked onion, and smoked mushrooms.
- Amanda? - I made for you
an elk tataki tartare with confit mushrooms.
There's also a pipián rojo on the bottom
and some fresh tortillas that also have
the matsutake oil in them.
Fantastic. Thank you, Chefs.
Thank you so much, enjoy.
Sean, what do you think of Michelle's dish?
I think that the texture of the cake
is a little bit soft
just because it bleeds out a little bit.
I think the rabbit is really tasty.
I see how she sort of crisped it up a bit,
which makes pieces a little bit dry.
There's tons of flavor,
and the mushroom flavor is really nice.
I was looking forward to the smoke,
and I think that the salt just overpowers
- that flavor a little bit. - Yeah.
This was harder than it looks.
Elena, what do you think of Amanda's dish?
I'm not too sure what she had wanted to do
with the corn cake because
it is a little bit not, like, crispy.
I did love the mushrooms,
especially when I ate them on their own.
They had a little bit of a pickle and a brightness,
and I think that helped with the dish a lot.
I felt like it was really disjointed.
Is it a tataki? Is it a tartare?
Is it a taco? Is it a mole?
It's a tartare tataki taco.
Holy alliteration, Batman.
- How'd it go, guys? - I feel like my dish
tastes pretty good.
Taste this, it tastes like a vegan pumpkin muffin.
Yummy.
It's not really, like, cakey,
so I'm going to lean into that.
That's a new idea.
Lord have mercy, here we go.
Little tamalitos.
I feel good, this is very good.
Oh, Nelly!
I cut into my pheasant crépinettes,
and I realized that the caul fat is incredibly chewy.
I'm just not happy with the cook on it.
I'm kind of hoping that the mole
and all the other flavors help me out here.
Give them as little as possible is probably the way.
Ten seconds, Laura, feel the burn.
Keep it straight as much as you can, please.
This is how the guests should see it.
Danny.
So, I have a pheasant crépinette
with mole and roasted sunchokes.
Laura, what did you make?
It's a tamal wrapped in mustard greens
with huckleberry sauce and haroset.
- Haroset? - Yeah.
- Ah, interesting. - Okay, great.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
I think in Danny's dish, the sunchokes were beautiful.
There was a lot of flavor in the dish.
He said he wanted something modern, and we got modern.
It's really good, the pheasant was beautifully cooked.
The pheasant's beautiful, you just can't taste it as much
or the berries because of the sauce.
Fun times.
I almost felt like Danny was just trying to get
as many ingredients into the dish.
It's hard not to want to do it all.
- Speaking about doing it all. - Yes.
Talking about doing it all.
Tom, what did you think of Laura's dish?
Just way too much happening here.
You know, the things I think about
when I think about haroset, really didn't come across.
Maybe one of those pieces could have been a really nice garnish.
I can't really pick the flavors apart.
It's not making sense for me.
I'm going to try to blanch these in hot water.
Hopefully it holds its shape.
Thankfully the rice was overcooked enough
that it's kind of holding together.
Adding a little bit of egg, it worked out.
Man, such a relief.
Oh, la, la.
15 minutes.
It's good.
Oh, yeah.
- Five minutes, Soo. - Let's go, baby.
Me and you, baby.
Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Oh, really? That's funny.
- What's up, man? - How's it going?
I haven't seen you in so long. Your hair got very, very long.
- It does that. - Good to see you, bro.
All right, Dan.
I went with sunflowers,
so I used pretty much the whole part of the sunflower
from the seeds to the flowers,
plus some braised goose.
Then we have aronia berry purée.
Dan, I'm wondering, what's the foam on here?
That's made from the goose stock.
Soo, can you tell us about your dish, please?
I took inspiration from Elena's breakfast
that she cooked for her kids.
Roasted butternut squash,
huitlacoche purée and wild rice gnocchi.
Are you sure you want to say gnocchi?
Uh, wild rice dumplings.
There it is, that's the one. Thank you, Gail.
Thank you.
Elena, I feel like I have to start with you
being the inspiration for Soo's dish.
I'm actually really enjoying it.
I like the brightness that
that little bit of berry sauce is bringing.
And I like the huitlacoche.
It's a very intimidating ingredient.
I can tell you this wild rice came from my reservation.
It's kind of reminding me of home.
There was a beautiful simplicity
to what Soo made.
As long as he just dropped the word gnocchi,
it all made sense.
I always get star-struck anytime I'm around any of those judges,
so I say about a quarter of the things I want to say.
I know Dan's style pretty well.
I really enjoyed the honor of one ingredient.
I've never imagined myself saying this,
but the foam actually serves a purpose
because it melts into the sunflowers.
Texturally, it's such a fun bite to eat.
I loved the use of the sunflower choke.
People should be eating more of them.
There are a ton of them.
That's such a pain in the neck.
It's so much to clean.
- How'd it go? - It's impossible to tell
because you never know, but it did feel great.
- Manny, five minutes. - Five minutes.
I definitely feel good about my dish,
but I am wondering
if they're going to like the textures.
- This is six o'clock, please. - All right, thank you.
Manny, the right, willing to bet.
The protein and the sauce.
Manny, can you tell us about your dish?
We have duck breast with braised mustard greens,
rice cake, and an ancho,
guajillo, and plum sauce.
Savannah?
I made for you a squash and maple jelly cake.
Next to it is a jelly made from the aronia berries,
grapes, and plums.
How did you make the cake, Savannah?
I was inspired by the jelly
that we had as the dessert, going for as much of a cake
as I could get with those components,
but it kind of turned into a jelly cake.
I was really pleasantly surprised.
You invented a thing.
Hopefully it's a good thing.
- Thank you, Chef. - Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The----ing dessert is--
- Yeah. Yeah. - It's amazing.
- That's it. - Nailed the brief.
We'll get to Manny's in a second,
but Savannah's, everything about it felt--
Sorry, it's just very exciting.
When I start swirling everything around,
taking bites all together, it comes together
- really beautifully. - We've given everybody
a hard time about using a lot of ingredients.
She did too, but she did it in a way
where it's all very subtle.
We saw her in the kitchen
and she was letting it tell her what it wanted to be,
and it came out to be something really nice.
I am, like, scraping my plate here.
It's actually really good.
"It's actually really good."
Jessica, what did you think of Manny's?
I liked the rice cake.
I think the greens worked well with it.
The duck, I wasn't so fond of.
It was too chewy for me.
It all felt very separate to me,
and maybe it's because Manny has given us
so many similar dishes, the sauce, the thing,
- the meat. - It's his style.
And I don't know if he's able to break out of it.
Yours is----ing delicious.
I like it.
The fact that this challenge happened
shows us our culture is becoming more mainstream,
and to me, that's always a beautiful thing.
Jessica and Bryce, thank you so much for joining us,
but the rest of us do need to get to Judges' Table.
Thank you for having us.
You betcha.
I want a beer. Beer me.
Can I get a champagne of beer?
- Done. - This challenge was
a little tougher than I thought.
Not tougher, I don't even know how to explain it.
Very different limitations than what we're used to.
I'm a realist.
I know that there were some parts
of my dish that wasn't 100%.
This challenge, it was such a big deal, too,
because there's so much honor and there's--
So, you want to do right by it.
But at least my Quickfire dish was really, really good,
and that could be what's saving me today.
Sean and Elena, how do you think our chefs did overall?
I thought there was a lot of amazing creativity
because I knew this was a difficult challenge.
I knew that you guys would be seeing some ingredients that
you weren't going to be sure what to do with.
And there definitely were several bites
that I would love to try again.
All right, Chefs, we would like to speak
to Savannah, Soo and Dan.
The rest of you can step to the side, please.
You three had our...
favorite dishes of the day.
Jesus! Don't knock me over. Come on.
Are you guys surprised, or--
No. I think I did good.
I thought my dish was good.
Yeah, I thought it was good, too.
- Thanks. - I find foams to be useless
- 99.9% of the time. - Yes, totally.
- My wife calls them spit. - Yeah.
However, that was an application
in which I was like, "This makes sense in a foam."
- Right. - Just texturally,
it was incredibly fun to eat.
I just wanted to keep building flavor, like,
using the sunflowers in four different ways
and then just keep building that flavor on there.
One of the Indigenous values that we really look at
is being resourceful, and I think
the utilization of all those pieces
- really came through. - Thank you.
Sunflower was one of my favorite ingredients.
You didn't disappoint, Dan. I really enjoyed the bite.
- Thank you so much. - Soo, I love the idea
that you're working with three or four ingredients
you've never worked before.
And you treated them all really nicely,
which is hard to do, but I thought
the star of the show was the squash and the glaze.
I thought that was just brilliant.
I wanted the squash to play the role
of almost like a protein.
I wanted to give it that texture.
As soon as Jessica bit into your first dumpling,
she said, "This rice was harvested
"from my people on our land."
She said it tasted like home.
- So, you know. - That's so awesome.
To be able to make that connection,
- it was very special. - Thank you guys so much.
Savannah, I liked the simplicity.
With Indigenous foods and really eating from the land,
you want to be able to allow the food to tell a story.
Knowing it would normally look like this,
but it kind of is reacting this way,
I just was definitely on my toes the entire time.
The first bite I got was this mix
between pumpkin pie and gingerbread,
and then once you incorporated all the sauces in there,
then it became something completely brand new.
I liked the brightness of your dish.
- It was a really nice bite. - Thank you so much.
Sean and Elena, as our guest judges,
you have the honor of announcing our winner this evening.
The chef with the winning dish tonight really gave us something
that was special and something that we haven't had before.
And the winning chef is...
Savannah.
Yeah!
Let's go, let's go.
- Congratulations. - Thank you guys so much.
I had so many nerves going into this
and I was unsure of it every step of the way.
Congratulations, Savannah.
- Thank you so much. - First win?
First win.
Maybe I should make more savory desserts.
I want this to be the first win
of many more to come.
You know, I want to keep
showing up for myself and showing
everyone here what I can do.
You took a lot of risk there,
and I thought the result was really, really good.
- Thank you very much. - Yeah.
So, Savannah, that means you win
an advantage going into
the next Elimination Challenge.
I'm so excited.
Next, we'd like to speak with...
...Michelle, Amanda and Laura.
The three of you had
our least favorite dishes of the day
and either one or two of you
will be eliminated.
Michelle, let's start with you.
Talk us through your dish a little bit.
I braised a rabbit down.
- The rabbit, you dried it out. - Yeah.
The intent was to get that flavorful jus into the cake.
The cake was supposed to be
a little bit firmer than what it was.
I liked that you used the corn,
but with the softness of the cake,
it did rather quickly fall apart.
You said that you had smoked.
I was really looking for that flavor
and it just kind of got lost.
Amanda, did your dish
come out how you wanted it to be?
Not exactly.
I thought that the sauce
was a little bit heavy for the elk.
Yeah, you're doing our job for us.
- Yes, Chef. - That's exactly right.
The sauce was good. Just overpowered the elk.
- Yes, chef. - You say it's a tataki,
but then it comes out a tartare,
and then there's a taco form,
and we weren't really sure
exactly where to go with it.
Like, if it was just a tataki-style piece of elk,
it would have been amazing.
Laura, could I ask you, where did that dish start?
Yeah, it actually comes from, like, a tamal.
- The masa, basically. Yeah. - Got it.
The haroset, you know, the cooked component of it
just softened everything, so it just felt, texturally,
like one soft scoop.
- I understand. - It felt like there was
a few different dishes going on all on this one plate.
If you had focused a little bit more
on just a couple of them, you could have had
a really beautiful dish in there somewhere.
Thank you.
Chefs, we have a lot to discuss,
because we will be taking your Quickfire dishes
into consideration as well.
Thank you.
- Does anybody want a beer? - I guess I'll have one.
- No, thank you. - Thanks, bud.
- Savannah Banana. - Congratulations.
- Thanks, guys. - Savannah!
Oh, my gosh!
- Long time coming. - I've never had a win.
- This one feels really good. - Definitely.
I think it's gonna be me.
- No. - I feel it.
- We don't know. - Who knows, right?
But I have a feeling.
For Laura, it was as if she thought
the challenge was just how many ingredients
- can you get into a dish? - Right.
And I think she missed the point
of letting them speak for themselves.
It just had all gotten
- kind of muddled. - Yeah.
I think the elk was really good,
and I should have just let it shine.
Amanda... ...you know,
you have a beautiful ingredient like elk,
and it's hard to taste it when you cover it with so much sauce.
Too much going on.
Good intentions on each of the pieces,
but nothing to tie it all together,
and it was just shooting off in all these directions.
I knew when I took that rabbit out,
I had let it go on too far.
The thing about Michelle's,
it did give me a homey,
comforting feeling.
And you could tell she knew that
she wasn't executing it the way she wanted to.
If I go out on this challenge,
I'm not mad at myself at all.
The same thing, I feel proud, too,
of my food and, like, how far I've come.
- We've come a long way. - Yeah.
It sounds like we're split on who should go home.
We can send two people home. Is this the time to do it?
Let's talk about their Quickfire dishes.
- Okay. - Michelle made a play
on borscht and cranberry,
and then did a piece of seared foie gras,
and it was actually really quite delicious.
Very nice.
Her Quickfire dish saves her, I think.
Laura had made this pork-stuffed pepper
with this sauce on top.
Laura's cranberry sauce,
I found to be a strange texture
and really just coated everything.
Amanda did a play on waffles and fried chicken.
She made this cranberry sauce to go with it.
- It wasn't very inventive. - It was just a sauce.
It wasn't integrated into a dish.
Do we all agree on our decision?
Yeah.
Chefs, today, we were given
an incredible Indigenous pantry,
and in three cases, we got dishes
that just weren't really
either well-thought-out or well-constructed.
I just want to let you know that your Quickfire dishes
did play into this decision.
Laura...
and Amanda, please pack your knives and go.
Thank you.
- Thank you, Chefs. - Thank you.
We'll see you in Last Chance Kitchen.
- Thank you, Chefs. - Thank you.
You know, of course, the emotion is happening.
These circumstances make you push in a different level.
It's-- it's intense.
But that makes me be a better chef.
No! - Me too.
- Two. - Wait, but two?
- Both of us. - Oh, sh--.
- Oh, no. - What?
- I know. - It's the two of us.
- Seriously? - Both of us. Yeah. I know.
I feel like I let myself down.
Don't make me cry.
It's okay.
I made a bad choice, and those decisions are on me.
But I do have one more life to live
in Last Chance Kitchen.
I'm going to go as hard as I possibly can.
Tonight, Amanda and Laura enter Last Chance Kitchen
where they will face off against the reigning champ
in one of Top Chef's most exciting challenges.
Come on, everyone. Let's go.
Let's go!
Watch now on Peacock
or wherever you stream Top Chef.
Next time on Top Chef...
It's a meat raffle.
Okay.
Here we go.
We'll see what happens here.
You're in flames, is that okay?
Yeah, we're cooking.
What is this?
Gregory Gourdet and it's Mei Lin.
- Holy sh--. - This is madness.
Have you ever heard of a fish boil?
Whoa!
Woo, that is hot!
This is physically the most demanding challenge
I think we've had all season.
This is the first time I've ever deboned a fish
- using my hands. - That is charred, baby.
The fish is cooked really nice.
This salad is good enough
- to steal. - Yeah, it is.
There's six chefs now. Tonight, there will be five.