KRISTEN: Previously on Top Chef...
CHEFS: Oh, my gosh!
-SAVANNAH: Welcome back. -[laughs]
We want you to create a dish
directly plated on a tabletop.
LAURA: From going through Last Chance Kitchen,
I feel very strong.
GAIL: All the flavors are beautiful.
And this is a mark up for taking a risk.
KRISTEN: Laura, Danny and Dan,
the three of you had our favorite tables of the day.
Yeah, I know.
And the winner is, Laura.
Oh, my goodness!
MICHELLE: That is not how I wanted to plate.
She bunched it all up.
TOM: This doesn't taste very good,
- collectively. - GAIL: No.
I do like the flavor of Manny risotto.
Yeah, the flavor's good, but the seafood's overcooked.
Michelle, please pack your knives and go.
***
Five 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.
***
MANNY: Being in the top five
has completely exceeded my expectations
because of how difficult the competition has been.
It is a roller coaster that the challenge can go
in anybody's favor at any point.
I am very proud of myself,
I want to make it to the top four.
- What's up? - What up, Manuel?
- How are you guys doing? - Good.
We're talking about before Top Chef match Top Chef.
MANNY: As we're creating dishes for our restaurants,
we're gonna get a little bit of like, uh,
PTSD I guess, like, what would Tom say?
[all laugh]
SAVANNAH: I definitely learned so much being here,
just, like, from the feedback and the challenges,
but so much from everyone that's been here, too.
DAN: I've gotten to know you guys incredibly well.
And it's cool to, like, come here not knowing anybody,
and then leaving with a bunch of new friends.
DANNY: And an uncle. Or a grandpa.
- [laughing] - DAN: Anytime, man.
Okay.
DAN: Much prefer Milwaukee, man.
What are we doing today?
Cooking.
DAN: I'm happy with that.
LAURA: Okay!
-Good morning, Chefs. -CHEFS: Good morning.
At this stage in the competition,
it does get tougher and tougher each time
to send someone home.
And there's no more room to hide
with so few of you left.
To help introduce your next Quickfire here in Milwaukee,
and your last, we've invited a familiar face.
Please welcome back local legend,
chef, restauranteur, Paul Bartolotta.
Ah! [laughs]
- LAURA: Oh, hi! - DAN: Hey!
- PAUL: Hi, guys. - Nice to see you again.
There's so few of you guys left.
If you're here, you're here for a good reason.
KRISTEN: Yeah.
Chefs, can anyone sense what's coming next?
***
Maybe you'll be needing...
- One of these? - No!
KRISTEN: Do you know what it is?
- Oh, yes. God! - KRISTEN: What is it?
Is it the taste challenge?
That's right, the blind taste test.
Fan favorite challenge.
I'm ----ing ready for this.
I feel like I've watched so many of these.
I have not actually practiced this,
but I know exactly what's coming.
As you guys know, the chef's palate
is clearly one of the most important tools.
In my restaurants, I spend a lot of time
on taste memory,
and by that it is the selection of the ingredients,
knowing that flavor,
and the balance of those ingredients.
For today's Quickfire,
we gathered a wide range of ingredients,
to test your tastebuds.
You'll each have five minutes to blindly taste
and identify 26 ingredients.
Ah!
[chuckles]
Are you okay, Laura?
This is stressful.
[all laugh]
After the blind taste test,
you'll then have to create a dish using the ingredients
that you guessed correctly,
along with a limited pantry.
The more you guess right,
the more options you'll have to work with.
Oh, Paul, does this sound like a two-part Quickfire?
Definitely a two-part Quickfire.
[chuckles]
I guess that means we're gonna have to give away
not just one, but two cash prizes.
- Wow. - Oh, that's cool.
The chef that guesses the most correct ingredients
will receive $5,000
and then the chef who creates our favorite dish
will receive $10,000.
So, that's a total of $15,000 in Quickfire Quick Cash.
- Let's go! - Let's do it.
- Yeah. - Let's do it.
Savannah, why don't you stay here
and everyone else can exit the kitchen.
Oh, God!
TOM: Good luck. [laughs]
- No pressure. - [Kristen laughs]
- You ready? - SAVANNAH: I am.
Here come your tasting items.
SAVANNAH: When I was a kid, I was almost, like,
legally blind in my left eye,
and so they covered my right eye with an eyepatch,
so I have a little bit of experience being down an eye.
The 5K is mine.
Savannah, we have five minutes on the clock.
- Ready? - Mm-hmm.
Anchovies. Next.
Bacon. Next.
Cheddar cheese. Next.
Dill.
I'm tasting, I'm smelling, I'm touching.
Edamame. Kalamata olive.
Lemongrass. Next.
But I don't know where I stand
on the scale of you're great or you suck.
Salmon. Next.
Um, beans? Cannellini beans? Next.
This is definitely not my favorite game to play.
I'm completely disoriented.
Oh, this feels weird.
Having my OCD, like, it definitely doesn't help.
I feel disgusting, like, my hand is covered
in whatever it's covered in.
That's definitely meat of some sort.
- Is it raw? - It's cooked.
It's bad.
Oh, it's beef. Yeah.
Lemongrass. Next.
Just put it on the floor, it's fine.
My strategy is to get it out of my mouth as fast as I can.
Let's try mussels. Next.
It's so dirty.
Weird. What?
Tuna. Next.
Jalapeños, next.
Jalapeños. I want water. Those are spicy!
Heart of palm. Next.
Oh, Jalapeño. Next.
Um... pass.
Pork. Next.
Okra. Next.
Salted plums. Next.
- Ooh, I know this. - [Kristen laughs]
Cherries, next.
I've got an incredible palate.
Octopus. Next.
I can win $5,000 in five minutes.
I just have to name the most ingredients.
This should be super easy.
Rosemary. Next.
Rosemary, next.
- Rosemary. Next. - Oh, rosemary. Next.
- That's an easy one. - Oh, God damn it.
Um, oregano. Next.
- I don't know. - Three, two, one.
- KRISTEN: Time's up. - Nailed it. Next.
***
Well, that was a highly entertaining challenge.
[all laugh]
Did anyone pick up on a theme?
You had 26 ingredients,
that all ranged from anchovies to za'atar.
- A to Z. - CHEFS: Ohhh!
They were in alphabetical order!
- [laughs] - Wow!
- Yeah. - Damn it!
Tied for last place,
with 9 out of the 26 ingredients correct was...
- Dan and Savannah. - Yeah.
Me and Dan pulling in the back.
- Hi. - Hey.
I definitely would've bet money that I had 15 or 16.
In third place,
with 13 correct answers...
- ...Danny. - DANNY: Yeah. Yeah.
- Sounds about right. - Oh, my gosh.
It's between me and you, Manny!
The winner with 23--
- Oh wow! - No!
Out of 26 ingredients correct...
...is Manny.
- Oh, my God. I did it! - [chefs cheering]
- Let's go! - Good job.
After so long, it just feels great to win a challenge again.
You're were on a roll, just instant.
- Fast. We were shocked. - Instant.
MANNY: I just won 5K.
Next summer, I'm gonna be getting married,
so I'm super pumped.
My fiancé Molly has the words that help me just
keep pushing and discover who I was and what I wanted.
I wanna use that money for the honeymoon.
I cannot wait to get married.
KRISTEN: And, Laura, you got 15.
Okay, great.
All right, so, now that we've got the taste test
out of the way, it's time for you
- to give us a dish to taste. - Yes.
KRISTEN: Just as a reminder,
you only have access to the limited pantry,
and the ingredients that you guessed correctly.
You don't have to use every ingredient,
it's just an option.
Manny, you've got a lot to work with,
the rest of you, it's gonna be tough.
It will really require you to sort of focus
on how you build the flavor with fewer ingredients.
KRISTEN: Chefs, this is the last Quickfire
that could come into play if you're on the bottom
in the Elimination Challenge.
And also, don't forget, that there's still $10,000
up for grabs.
All right, Chefs.
30 minutes on the clock
and your time starts now.
On your left.
Oh! Oh! Okay.
Whew!
SAVANNAH: My nice, light tray.
***
There it is.
DANNY: You going with that onion dish or what?
I'm making my onion salad.
- With a side of onions. -[Danny laughs]
DAN: You got a lot of stuff, bro.
Yeah, I know, I want my edamame.
Oh, there it is, okay.
DANNY Manny crushed it.
He talks about his tongue scraper.
He's like, I scraped my tongue,
and that's why I can taste everything.
I'm like, get out of here.
Yeah, I like to think that my tastebuds
are where they need to be.
And I have so much sh-- over here.
Maybe that's one of the reasons I'm in the top five.
[laughs]
I'm gonna do an edamame-pureed salmon crudo,
with gooseberries and a relish to go on top.
- LAURA: How are you feeling? - SAVANNAH: Um, you know.
I feel great.
There's a little less wind in my sails at this point,
but in the limited pantry there's eggs,
mayonnaise and panko we can use,
and I think, like, fried pork, and Caesar dressing.
And don't look back.
Honestly, I work better if you give me some strict rules.
Danny, any ingredients you wish you would have had?
Yeah, I wish I had all the ingredients.
[laughs] Me, too.
I feel like this is gonna be a real tough one.
You got bacon. You got cheddar.
Danny, I got a whole-- a whole bunch of nothing,
and random stuff.
I'm struggling right out of the gate.
None of these things really work together.
I look at the flank steak, maybe that's a good idea.
I'm gonna cut 'em up, and then, you know, go from there.
Oh, man, I should just make breakfast.
Why is this the hardest one yet?
13 ingredients. Gooseberries, watermelon,
anchovies, I don't think I'd put any of these together, ever.
I'm doing something with steak. Something with anchovies.
My only protein is steak, so I'm using steak.
But I can't just serve a seared steak
with a piece of parsley on top.
20 minutes, Chefs.
I'm gonna make, like, a mussel escabeche.
SAVANNAH: Oh, okay!
I'm gonna use mussels, herbs,
I'm gonna use the yuzu, the plums.
I want to utilize as much of ingredients from the tray.
I'm making, like, a cracker with rosemary.
I feel like in the competition, I'm also known to kind of
mix different flavors that come together,
so I think it's gonna be a very interesting combination.
This is not gonna work.
I'm gonna have to make something with the steak,
so maybe a sauce would be a good idea.
Kalamata olives, watermelon, soy sauce
and some red wine vinegar.
Well, that's definitely a different flavor.
It tastes like trash.
DANNY: Watermelon and olives is not the way?
Did you think that was a good idea?
DAN: No, man! I don't have that much!
I'm going back to the drawing board.
- DANNY: Just go back. - Chefs, 15 minutes.
DAN: When I was working at Uchi,
we had this edamame puree that I loved.
DAN: Oh, you're making a little Uchi edamame puree?
MANNY: Yep.
That, on top of that?
What is my dish right now?
It's tough. There's not necessarily, like,
a through-line for these ingredients.
I have no idea what I'm doing right now. Genuinely.
I throw in a handful of gooseberries for some tartness.
I need sweetness.
I guess the watermelon can work.
Where'd I put the lid?
It's a unique sauce that only would ever be made
in the Top Chef Kitchen.
Yeah, okay. That's fine.
I'll do this one next and this.
What are you doing with the watermelon?
LAURA: Using it for garnish.
This is not normal for escabeche.
I'm just working with some sweetness.
- How's it going over here? - SAVANNAH: It's going.
I don't have cheese for my Caesar,
so they're gonna say, well, why didn't you use
the cheddar cheese?
I have a really nice cheddar,
and it seems weird,
but I need to continue to take risks.
I think that's where I shine.
I'm feeling alive.
Chefs, you have five minutes.
- Good, Dan? - DAN: No.
Not even remotely.
This should be good.
DANNY: Aha!
SAVANNAH: That's pretty good.
Scrambled eggs.
At least I'm gonna make something.
SAVANNAH: 1:30, Chefs.
Oh, wow.
These eggs are looking sad.
There are shells in them.
Oh, my God. Hide your shame.
Three, two, one. Time's up!
DAN: If you're on the bottom, they can use your Quickfire
as part of the judgement.
This could be the difference between
me moving to the finals and me going home.
All right, Manny, come on up.
23 out of 26. So, what did you make for us?
I have an edamame jalapeño puree on the bottom,
a salmon crudo, with a jalapeño, parsley,
and a gooseberry relish.
Anything you wanted to use
but couldn't get in there from your ingredients?
Uh, no. No, not really.
- Thank you, Manny. - Thank you, Manny.
KRISTEN: Dan.
- No? - Mm-mm.
- Not happy? - No? Thank you.
- TOM: Come on. - DAN: I've done better.
So, steak and eggs.
Grilled flank steak, scrambled eggs
with the Hook's cheddar.
I made a sauce using some of the steak trim,
horseradish, red wine and sour cream.
Were you hoping for some more ingredients to use?
Uh, yeah, you know...
KRISTEN: Savannah.
Thank you.
I did a fried pork loin, but I made two sauces for you.
The first is like, a faux Caesar.
It has anchovy, egg,
cheddar cheese instead of parmesan,
and then, the other sauce is made with horseradish,
Kalamata olives, parsley, olive oil.
Were you going with cheddar for, like,
'cause I'm from Wisconsin,
kind of thing, working the judge?
One hundred percent. Yep.
KRISTEN: Danny.
- Thank you. - DANNY: 13 ingredients.
I did a little grilled flank steak
with a watermelon gooseberry jus,
a little anchovy, grilled okra,
with parsley, anchovy, horseradish cemolata, maybe?
GAIL: Tom, what do you think of that okra?
I heard it's your favorite thing.
KRISTEN: Thanks, Danny. Laura, come on up.
LAURA: I had 15 ingredients.
I made mussels escabeche using parsley, the dill,
all little bit of the ume, anchovies, some garlic.
I made a cracker with the rosemary,
and then, on top, onion, watermelon and gooseberry.
KRISTEN: Did you find it hard to narrow it down to this dish?
Yeah, you know, it was kind of a mix
of multiple things all in one dish.
KRISTEN: Great, thank you, Laura.
Thank you.
Paul, how do you think our chefs did
with their Quickfire today?
PAUL: I thought it was very exciting,
and really interesting.
Savannah, limited pantry, but I think it served you really well.
The pork chop was beautifully cooked,
the breading was light, crispy, not greasy at all.
PAUL: I second all that. I liked the sauce.
And not because you were playing to Wisconsin,
but I just thought it was really good.
Caesar with cheddar cheese?
- Really good. - Yeah. [laughs]
Laura, I thought it was really nice.
I like the herbaceous notes, and the sweetness you got
- from the watermelon. - Thank you, Chef.
I loved the contrast of the mussels and the gooseberries.
Really creative thinking.
- Thank you. - Danny, I don't know
how you made that watermelon A1, but I loved it.
That's what it reminded me of, A1 with watermelon in it.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - TOM: It was really good.
GAIL: My only little thing is, I wish I could've tasted
those ingredients a little more.
We did have a favorite dish today. Paul?
The chef that used the variety of ingredients
and did something delicious and very unique is...
Savannah.
KRISTEN: Congratulations, Savannah.
Three Quickfires in a row, yeah?
Yes, ma'am.
You just won yourself $10,000
thanks to the Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit card.
I win again!
In the beginning of this competition,
I felt like a little bit of an underdog.
Every challenge that passes, I get more confidence.
I definitely think I could win Top Chef.
That belongs on a menu somewhere.
- TOM: It's really good. Yeah. - Awesome.
Tssss!
KRISTEN: Paul, what'd you think of Manny's dish?
You know, I struggled a little bit with some things.
The salmon was a little bit one-dimensional,
it was just sort of sliced and put on the plate.
I know you have a palate.
You know, you got 23 of the ingredients.
You gotta taste the dish together.
As soon as you put the salmon in your mouth
it's not seasoned, it's like, you taste it right away.
- It's bland. - I understand.
Dan, just tell me everything that was wrong with your dish.
- It was a train wreck. - I know you can cook.
Um... you would never know it today.
There was a-- a smell that came up
that just didn't make me excited to eat it.
Oh, God. It was that bad? I didn't think it was that bad.
This was such an epic fail
that we all kinda had a really good laugh about it,
but the reality is
if I'm on the bottom of the Elimination Challenge
and I'm being judged because of this dish,
that's not good.
This was like, by far,
the worst thing I've probably ever made.
We won't hold it against you.
- Unless you're in the bottom. - Well, actually...
Unless you're in the bottom, and then we may.
All right, Chefs, who's ready to take a walk down memory lane?
Hm!
For your final Elimination Challenge here in Wisconsin,
we want you to take a look back on your time here
and give us a dish that shows us how you've grown as a chef.
Was there a breakthrough or an "aha" moment
or is there a dish that you know you'd crush now,
that you didn't early on?
We've seen you grow so much over these last many weeks,
we wanna see that on a plate.
Obviously, this is the dish that's gonna really determine
who's moving on to the finals.
Take all these experiences, what you've learned as a chef
and get it onto that plate.
Put it all out there.
I always perform better when I have, like,
a very tight box to work within.
So how does everyone feel about kind of having
no parameters at all?
Oh, my God, it's-- it's tough.
- It's harder. - Yeah.
So today, you'll each get $150 to shop at a specialty store.
You'll then have $200 to shop at Whole Foods Market.
Tomorrow, you'll have three hours to prep and cook
at Paul's restaurant, Harbor House.
You'll be serving, Gail, Tom,
Paul, myself, and a table of local chefs,
some that you might recognize.
Laura, as the winner of the last Elimination Challenge,
you'll get an extra 30 minutes
- to cook tomorrow. - Thank you.
But before we send you off shopping,
we could not let you leave Wisconsin
without enjoying at least one meal
at one of Paul's restaurants.
- No! That's amazing! - Yes!
We are celebrating our 30th anniversary,
and so it's our turn to cook for you this time.
CHEFS: Thank you.
All right, Chefs, make it past this next step,
and you'll be that much closer to earning the title
of Top Chef and $250,000
furnished by Saratoga Spring Water.
Anyone hungry?
- Always. - Always hungry.
[laughs] All right, Paul, lead the way.
- PAUL: Let's go eat something. - DANNY: Thank you, Chef.
We're coming with you, by the way.
Don't think that we're not gonna get in on this.
- Seatbelts on, everybody. - Okay, Dad.
I am hungry!
***
So, what do you guys think of this challenge?
How would you approach it if you were one of the chefs?
I would make my best dish and--
- End of story. - And end of story.
Okay, so, that's not gonna help us out.
- SAVANNAH: Oh! - PAUL: Right here.
- PAUL: We're goin' right in. - GAIL: It's so beautiful!
LAURA: Thank you, Chef.
Welcome to Ristorante Bartolotta.
- CHEFS: Thank you. - I'm Maria Bartolotta.
You guys are in for an amazing treat tonight.
LAURA: Thank you so much.
- TOM: Thanks, Maria. - KRISTEN: Chefs.
Congratulations to the five of you, it's been an honor.
- So, cheers. - [glasses clink]
- ALL: Cheers. - MANNY: Thank you.
And Paul, I just want to say thank you for hosting us.
- Thank you for having us, Chef. - SAVANNAH: Thank you.
Ristorante has been in the same location for 30 years.
Any time you can have a restaurant around for that long,
you know there's a reason for it.
You feel the love in that space.
It's a special place.
My father actually did most of the cooking
when I was growing up.
He was from a village on the northern coast of Sicily.
And then I fell in love with cooking
because there's a restaurant right up the street here,
it was my first job.
To be able to earn money to take girls out on dates.
So, that was the-- the main thing.
And then, my brother said,
"Let's do something together."
He wanted to open a restaurant.
SAVANNAH: That's very cool.
30 years of this restaurant, has the food changed much?
In all the restaurants, it's always about change
and development, and pushing yourself to find your voice
in cooking, and for you guys,
it's gonna be really interesting to see how your personal voices
come through in your food.
- Mm, yummy. - GAIL: Oh, my God.
First course is traditional cucina palermitana.
We have fritto misto di mare, shrimp, calamari, octopus.
Enjoy, thank you.
CHEFS: Thank you, Chef.
SAVANNAH: It's so good!
Have you guys been able to digest
the emotional roller coaster
and the changes happening within you guys?
I feel like it made me grow way more.
Like, I'm also to learn about myself.
You know, because I have a style of cooking with my husband,
but also finding it, like, my own style, you know?
KRISTEN: For me, the biggest lesson on Top Chef,
it was knowing that I was good enough
and that I could trust myself.
And that will change the way you cook.
Yeah.
- Oh, yes! - Oh!
GAIL: It's a very elaborate setup.
DANNY: This is just for Manny, guys.
[all laugh]
For the main course, we have beef brisket,
veal tongue and pork portofino,
- and chicken. - TOM: Wow.
- TOM: Love it. - JUAN: Bon appetit.
DANNY: This is what I'm talking about.
Oh, yeah! Oh!
Danny, you're opening a restaurant
- when you get back home, right? - DANNY: Yeah.
Has this influenced at all what you're planning on doing?
Yeah, I think maybe focused a little bit more.
Just letting the ingredients be the star of the show
and doing less.
Yeah, finding your way is tough.
I opened Grammercy,
and it was complex and there was a lot of tasting menus,
and then when it came time to open Craft,
every dish, essentially, had one ingredient.
So, we did a plate of roast peppers,
it was a plate of roast peppers.
And it was like,
can I get away with just doing something so simple?
- That was a big evolution. - That's amazing.
Manny, where have you changed
and where do you see your growth?
So, I did a career change. I was in law school
before going to culinary school.
My first choice of a career was to be a lawyer.
I went to school for about three and a half years.
And then I realized,
it just doesn't go with who I am as a person.
I wanted to do something that makes people happy.
And at the same time,
I mean, I just wanted to be surrounded by food.
When I have felt the most comfortable
has been when I just go back to my roots,
and the flavors that I grew up with.
TOM: Mm-hmm.
- This one's on me. - GAIL: Thanks, Tom.
KRISTEN: Paul, thank you to you
and your entire team for having us.
- Happy to have you guys. - And, Chefs,
I'm very excited to see what everyone creates tomorrow.
GAIL: Just maybe, tomorrow,
we will see some of that learning in a very literal way.
- Good luck shopping. - TOM: Thanks, guys.
- CHEFS: Thanks. - TOM: See you tomorrow.
- LAURA: Incredible. - DAN: Oh, it's so good.
DANNY: All right, let's get it. Let's get it.
Snapper guy.
I need seven.
So, I'm making Huachinango a la Veracruzana.
That's a dish I had in my back pocket.
There are, like, five other things that I could've done,
including pescado a la veracruzana,
which is a dish that I can nail with my ----ing eyes closed.
My gut tells me, "I am your gut and I'm telling you
"that this is your chance to do it," and I was like, okay.
And also, that last challenge, I botched the seafood.
This time, I want to nail the fish.
Can I do six of the cod?
I wanna make this sobacha mushroom broth,
but the hardest part of this challenge
is developing this story.
Essentially, you can make anything,
but it has to tie in to your growth.
- I'm gonna keep it simple. - Yeah.
The one or two ingredient ballpark.
I wouldn't say the way I cook has completely changed,
on Top Chef, but I think I've definitely honed in
putting less on the plate.
And I've been doing well.
Danny, when your dish came,
everything in my soul and my being was like, [bleep] yes!
JUDGE: There can only be one winner!
Danny, you killed it!
Thank you. Amazing.
I'd like to stay in the lane of doing well.
I need none of this stuff.
DAN: Hey guys, we have eight minutes.
Can I get eight walleye fillets?
I'm thinking about throwing back to a couple different ideas.
I went with walleye and potatoes before.
Your smoked walleye, the flavor was fantastic,
the hashbrown was crispy, and it was hot.
I'm gonna do the walleye. I'm gonna do the walleye again.
- Are you smokin'? - Yeah.
So, I'm gonna get some walleye,
and then take some ideas from Frank Lloyd Wright,
like, kombu, leeks and potatoes together.
And then bind it all together with this lemongrass emulsion
taken from my love of southeast Asian food.
I'm just kinda looking around right now.
But I gotta kinda dial in a story here.
I'm having a hard time with the story part.
- Amazing. - Come on, kiddos, let's go.
This is my 30 pounds of fish for five people.
- [all laugh] - SAVANNAH: Let's go!
DAN: Last Whole Foods shop of the year.
- [all laugh] - Oh, [bleep].
I told you I was going hard right.
Come on, chop chop here, papi.
DAN: What's your inspiration?
Redemption? Or is it growth?
Growth, and trusting myself, and finding my flavors.
I'm thinking back to the first challenge
where I had to cook roast chicken for Tom.
I have a little bit more background in Japanese cuisine.
We don't do a lot of roasted chicken.
So, I've been buying some whole chickens, a lot of potatoes.
I still have no idea what I'm cooking,
but there has to be a dish somewhere in there.
It's a heavy cart. It feels heavy.
DAN: Oh, no! There's no lemongrass. That's a problem.
Lemongrass was the basis of the sauce I was gonna make.
How's your shop going, Chef?
- Good. How's yours going? - Terrible.
Without the lemongrass, it kind of doesn't have a purpose.
So they have lemongrass and turmeric paste. I'm so scared.
SAVANNAH: I'm missing some items.
DAN: Got ten minutes.
I'm not stressing.
I don't wanna overthink it
because the issue with my dishes usually have,
like, too many components.
GAIL: I love the idea of this yogurt soup,
but then she added meatballs and then she added mushrooms.
Way too much happening here.
I can't really pick the flavors apart.
So, I should just probably stop shopping.
Trying to show my growth with a dish is not an easy concept.
My growth, it's about my mindset.
I always try to push myself to do more
and more and more and more.
- This is the lamb? - MAN: Yeah.
LAURA: But it's okay to take a step back
and don't do too much on the plate.
- Thank you. - MAN: You're very welcome.
LAURA: Hey, I'm done.
- DANNY: Time is running out. - 195, 198.
Yeah, that's it.
[exhales] Just have to think.
I have mixed feelings of leaving the store.
[Laura laughing]
***
DAN: You could feel that there's a purpose.
Everybody's kind of amped up to go.
This is the end of the road in Wisconsin.
There's only gonna be four of us left after tomorrow.
We just gotta cook our asses off today.
***
DANNY: Last day, boys.
SAVANNAH: Now that I'm one cook away from the finale,
oh, my God, I just want it so bad.
Oh, yeah, me too.
All right, guys.
All right, 350. What are those at?
DANNY: Four hundo.
[Dan grunts]
Corner.
- [object clatters] - Yep. Didn't need that.
SAVANNAH: How you feel, Manny?
I'm ready. Let's go!
DAN: Last cook in Milwaukee!
I'm excited, you know?
Just focusing on keeping it simple and delicious.
So what I'm making is manti lime dumplings.
It's almost like a ravioli.
You know, manti is just like, simple, beautiful pasta,
but also has bold flavors.
I make a lot of pasta.
DAN: Turmeric lemongrass.
Oh, man, this smells delicious.
Okay.
You know, going through my thoughts
and my journal about the challenges,
my dish kind of was born overnight.
[Manny chuckling]
SAVANNAH: I really had to pull something together.
I'm doing a potato pavé and, like, a chicken sauce reduction.
I'm trying to show that growth takes time.
Building a pavé takes time and a lot of finesse.
I'm making a pavé in three hours.
You would normally make it and press it overnight.
I'm using the sea salt to flavor my cream for my pavé.
I'm literally just putting potato at the forefront
and everything else is kind of playing a backseat role.
For me, growth is about building confidence.
To make it this far, I think I proved a lot to myself.
Uh-huh.
I think it's very risky to serve the potato as a main dish.
You gotta make it perfect.
I'm leaning back into my roots.
The flavor that I know, the flavor that I like.
- Okay. - It doesn't matter how much
we grow and how much we evolve,
we should never forget where we're coming from.
Manny's story sounds a little muddled.
It's not really specific to this challenge
and what we've learned here on Top Chef.
It seems like he's just doing something
that feels comfortable.
You can take the man out of Mexico,
but not Mexico out of the man.
[Savannah exhales]
Ten minutes behind here.
DANNY: F-U-N, baby.
***
How'd your lemongrass pivot turn out?
The sauce is sort of a new thing,
so it's gonna be a little bit before I actually know.
You know, I would've rather just had straight lemongrass,
but, you know, here we are.
DANNY: I'm making some cod with some deliciousness.
That's what I'm calling it. "Cod with deliciousness."
I'm just making good food.
- I'm having a blast, dog. - Good.
DANNY: Oh, yeah. Soba cha's seeping.
Yeah, baby!
Soba cha is a Japanese tea. Basically toasted buckwheat.
I kind of botched tea service at Restaurant Wars,
so I wanna rebuttal myself there.
I'm almost looking at this challenge in two parts.
It's a little redemption of my tea
that I made at Restaurant Wars.
WAITRESS: I'm just gonna start you off
with a little sparkling soba cha,
which is gonna be a buckwheat tea.
DANNY: But from a growth side of things,
this is how I've pared back my dishes.
So all these mushrooms have different flavor,
depth of flavor.
They're big flavors, but at the same time,
I also want this play on subtlety.
2:15, baby.
[Savannah sighs]
- MANNY: How you doing, Dan? - Dan: Sweating.
I'm a little behind.
There's a lot of layers to this.
There's a lot of layers to a journey of growth.
This is taking a little bit longer
than I thought it was gonna take,
and I thought it was gonna take a long time.
I just don't really know until I get to check it, you know?
I was originally concerned
with not having enough time to press it
and now I'm just concerned with it being cooked.
All right. It's going in.
DANNY: Guys, two hours. Two hours.
Laura, we're on the flavor train, girl! Whoo!
LAURA: I love it, Danny.
DAN: I am slightly behind schedule.
DANNY: Come on, Dan.
If you're not having fun today, you might as well just go home.
DAN: Oh, we're having fun! [sighs]
SAVANNAH: Oh, yeah. Gonna burn some onion today.
Make, like, a black onion puree.
I'm doing a little bit of lamb
because I wanna use the lamb stock
with the guajillo in the sauce.
This is gonna be like lamb barbacoa dumplings, basically.
The food that I cooked is, like,
eastern Mediterranean. That's it.
I never put any Mexican flavors into my cooking
at my restaurant or on my daily basis.
I made this dish before, but never like this.
I just wanna tie those two together somehow.
I'm excited for these flavors.
MANNY: Savannah, how are you feeling on time?
My pavé is in, but I'm not gonna have any extra time.
This is gonna be like my cherry jam relish situation.
And I've always liked cherries, but I definitely gained
more of an appreciation for them here.
MANNY: Definitely.
My cherry onion jam, I like the tartness and the sweetness
and the onion really brings out, like, a bittersweet note.
- That's really good. - DAN: Bro.
Here. Turmeric, lemongrass, brown butter.
DANNY: I get all of that.
- DAN: It's ----ing good. - DANNY: Yeah.
MANNY: One hour left.
- That smells good. - SAVANNAH: Yeah!
I don't know if it's fair to call it a jus,
but my chicken sauce reduction.
MANNY: I have a little side of saltines.
I don't wanna serve just the saltines,
so I'm gonna put some olive oil, dry oregano, bacon
and then I'm gonna start searing the fish as we get closer.
Perfect.
It takes a lot of effort and a lot of care
making all these, like, little, tiny dumplings.
Laura's lamb manti, I mean, it's bold.
She's gotta just nail that pasta.
Whoo! Guys, just 30 left.
***
GAIL: Gorgeous.
It's a pretty, pretty restaurant.
Well, we've made it to our final meal
and challenge here in Wisconsin.
It's really lovely to see some familiar faces.
Paul, thank you for hosting us. Hunter.
- Great to see you again. - Happy to see you.
- GAIL: Welcome. - KRISTEN: And welcome
to the table, Milunka.
Thank you for having me.
We've asked the chefs today to really make a dish
that represents their time thus far.
GAIL: They've all had real high points.
I was excited to see that Laura
was the one that came back from Last Chance Kitchen.
Turned out to be super stoked to see Dan,
being a hometown guy.
And I'm also really excited to see Danny
and see how far he can take it.
Savannah just coming off a little bit of a Quickfire high.
You know, she kind of came out of it strong.
And I'll never forget the early dish that Manny had made,
the pozole, really intense with flavor.
So each of them have had their moments.
It's gonna be really exciting.
They all have a story to tell. This should be good.
SAVANNAH: Okay. We're doing it.
Potato pavé gods, if you're listening, please.
Okay!
Oh, my God!
- SAVANNAH: All right! - LAURA: How are you, Dan?
DAN: Just making my gnocchi right now. Holy schnikes.
I did potato gnocchi and was on top during the cheese challenge.
I think this is just another nod to another challenge.
But I don't know how this dish is representing my journey.
I feel like I'm forcing square pegs into round holes here.
I'm so close to getting to the finals.
I want to say that I'm Top Chef.
SAVANNAH: Oh, my God. I'm just, like,
kind of on the edge of my time here.
Little bites, little bites, little bites, little bites.
I hope they like my story.
I like my story and I believe in it.
MANNY: Ooh, that looks nice!
I feel the weight of all of these challenges
kind of coming off of my shoulder in this exact moment.
[timer beeping]
Thank you very much.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
TOM: Ooh.
GAIL: Oh.
Hi, Savannah. So what did you make for us?
Potato pavé, a chicken sauce reduction,
a jam made of burnt onion, cherry.
I think that potatoes have everything
that they naturally need to make a pavé,
we just have to add heat and pressure.
And so heat and pressure of this competition,
I realized I naturally had everything I needed,
I just needed these experiences to bring it out.
- Well said. - Yeah.
Thank you, guys. Thank you.
That's probably one of the best deliveries
and explanations of a dish that I've heard.
She's very articulate.
- Very thoughtful. - Great storyteller.
And make a pavé in that amount of time?
- That's hard. - Yeah, that's not easy.
- Usually, you press overnight. - TORY: Right.
And it's a nice pavé.
It does take a lot of guts to use the pavé as the star.
And I just adored the sauce.
The cherries and the caramelization of the onions,
I just thought it was a lovely pairing.
KRISTEN: And I feel like storytelling
is the thing that separates good food from exceptional food.
I love a potato pavé
and I love it even more now
that Savannah told us why she made a potato pavé.
- Yeah. - It shows growth.
- I mean, that's-- that's it. - No question.
DAN: I would like to be a little bit further ahead of schedule,
but such is life.
MANNY: [bleep] Too hot, too hot, too hot.
One of the pans got a little bit too hot.
Portions of fish got darker than I would have wanted.
Then, you have the ----ing backup one. Jesus Christ.
I'm gonna sear my fish right now,
finish it in the oven so all cooks are the same time.
I'm down to the wire. Am I not gonna make it to the plate?
What the [bleep]? Come on, come on, come on.
MANNY: Come on, come on, come on.
This fish is not cooking.
Ugh.
I'm hoping that the fish carries over.
I'm not ready to go home.
[timer beeping]
Okay. [exhales]
All right. What we got here?
KRISTEN: Thank you.
Love a saltine.
- Hi, Manny. - Uh, so I have a snapper
a la veracruzana with creamy potatoes and saltines
just because that's a way that I will eat it back home.
I wanted to reach back to my roots,
which is when I have felt
the most comfortable in this competition.
I wanna make sure I keep honoring
the cuisine of my people.
Great. Thank you, Manny.
Thank you. Enjoy.
Delicious. You know, the fish is beautifully cooked.
I like the little tartness of the tomato,
the creaminess of the potato. I think it's good.
- PAUL: Really? - Oh, no!
- Mine's, like, right-- - Wow, yours is beautiful.
PAUL: Like, beautiful. Like, literally spot-on.
Mine's perfect.
Aye-yi-yi.
I think when you do a dish that's this seemingly simple,
all of the details matter.
I'm happy that he showed us
something that was personal to him.
There is a piece of me that wonders,
did he fit the dish to the story or the story to the dish?
I think Manny's dish has nothing to do with
the journey in Wisconsin at all.
TOM: No. This essentially gave it away, yeah.
It's a good dish. The potatoes are nice and creamy.
It's just, that's a pretty major flaw.
[exhales]
DAN: Whoo! I love me some smoke.
Yep! Let's get it.
I really want to impact the fish with flavor.
To get the smoke really quickly,
I'm going to do this hot and fast.
We got this, no, Danny?
DANNY: I mean, I'm hoping so.
The fish is cooked really nicely.
The flavors balance each other really well.
Mushroom puree is rich, it's fatty.
This dish, I think it's gonna take me to the final four.
[timer beeping]
Let's go.
KRISTEN: Wow.
That's beautiful.
What's up, chefs?
Hi, Danny. What did you make for us?
I made a soba cha mushroom broth with mushroom broth,
cod and a little furikake on top.
So, what's the inspiration behind this?
There's kind of two points.
One, just redeem myself a little bit for the terrible tea
that I served you at Restaurant Wars.
And then subtle dishes typically get lost here
in the Top Chef Kitchen, so I wanted to do what I interpret
as a subtle dish with a lot of nuanced flavors.
So, you think this is subtle?
[judges snickering]
I think it has some restraint to it, yes.
- Restraint. Okay. - DANNY: Yes.
Great. Thank you, Danny.
Thank you, Chefs.
It's not subtle.
Nothing subtle about this.
It's a good dish, but it's clearly not subtle.
I love the Japanese aspects of it.
I love the way that the furikake brings the ocean
back into the fish, but I'm not necessarily reading
the tea aspect of the dish.
KRISTEN: You know, if tea is gonna be
your main point on the storytelling,
why isn't it just swimming in this, like,
gorgeous bath of tea?
I mostly tasted the mushroom. The fish was just sort of lost.
The fish is buried in a lot of big flavor.
- Yeah. - That said, it's--
it's a good miss.
LAURA: I have a brown butter sauce
that I'm gonna pour on top.
Brown butter, you have creaminess. It's like comfort.
Like the tomato with the guajillo,
like the barbacoa sauce.
DAN: Oh, man.
Son of a bitch.
Unfortunately, I let time get away from me a little bit.
Just great.
I am worried that this is over-smoked.
Just about ten minutes out here
and trying to get it all worked out.
A little worried at this point.
Well, here we go.
Right now, I'm playing Russian roulette
with my stay here on Top Chef.
Almost there.
If I don't nail this and I end up going to the bottom,
and then they take into consideration
my Quickfire from yesterday, you know, I'm screwed.
[timer beeping]
- Hi, everybody. - Hi, Dan.
- Hey, Dan. - See some of your friends?
- I do! - [all laughing]
My dish here is gonna be smoked walleye, lemongrass, turmeric,
brown butter emulsion, potato dumplings, and then some herbs.
Basically, my growth here is I was learning
to just kind of cook from a sense of place
and that's the backbone of this dish,
is all about Wisconsin.
And then from there, I refused to and put myself in a box.
Therefore, I love the idea of global influence
with stuff like turmeric.
I just went for it.
KRISTEN: Great. Thanks, Dan.
- DAN: Thanks, guys. - Absolute maximalist.
[laughing] Yes!
It's a lot of everything,
but many of these elements work.
I love smoke. I'm finding that all I'm eating is smoke.
I like the contrast in that smoky flavor to the richness
and depth of the broth, but it needed something fresh.
It was really heavy for me.
It feels to me like the story and the dish from Dan
were a little bit muddled.
There's something about the dish that I like.
I'm not getting turmeric, I'm not getting lemongrass,
but the flavor that's there is good.
There's just a lot going on.
[intense music]
Twelve minutes.
I use every second of those extra 30 minutes.
Actually, it was a little bit difficult
not to add more things.
Great, great, great.
But no, I wanna focus on that simplicity.
- [timer beeping] - Let's do it.
Oh, wow. Thank you.
Oh, a little bit of beurre noisette on top of there, huh?
Beautiful.
TOM: Can we take a snap of this one?
LAURA: Hello.
- KRISTEN: Hi, Laura. - LAURA: Hi.
This is a lamb manti, an eastern Mediterranean pasta.
I made a barbacoa,
blended that with a little bit of guajillo and some tomatoes.
Usually on my dishes, I was putting too many components
that were not making too much sense.
Top Chef actually taught me how to do it in a more focused way.
- Great. Thank you, Laura. - Of course. Thank you.
HUNTER: The dumpling pasta is pure love.
TOM: Yeah.
The pasta and the lamb inside is a delicious bite.
I appreciate the guajillo in there.
I like the balance that it had.
I think back to the challenge with Elena.
A dish with 17 ingredients.
But here, her dish is focused. Her plating is beautiful.
It's really hard to overlook the technique behind her dish.
It's good. It's really delicious.
We're wrapping up our time here in Wisconsin
and I just wanna say thank you to the pillars of the community
for welcoming us, for teaching us all about
your beautiful state and sharing all your time and talents.
It's been a pleasure.
We are heading into the finals
where we can only bring four chefs, so we should get to it.
***
Oh, man.
[Savannah sighs]
MANNY: Last challenge in Milwaukee.
DAN: Last challenge, guys.
LAURA: Oh, my goodness.
For me, the fish, there were two,
maybe three that were rare instead of medium rare.
Ah.
I wish I did not have it on the back of my head,
but I cannot stop thinking about it right now.
***
This was one of the challenges that you really had to pin
the challenge to the dish.
Some chefs definitely told a much better story.
It's clear that all of you have really grown a lot
since being here in Wisconsin,
but there is one chef who really demonstrated
that perfectly in their dish.
The winning chef today told a wonderful story
and also executed a dish with precision.
And the winner is...
Savannah.
Oh, buddy!
Congrats!
Congratulations, Savannah. You're moving on to the finals.
Oh sh--!
And you won yourself an advantage
going into the next Elimination Challenge.
- I'm so stoked. - [laughing]
Sorry. Whoo!
Not only was it a wonderfully tasting dish,
as soon as you said it takes heat and pressure
and you related that to your dish, everything just clicked.
TOM: Your story was just--
You had a beginning, you had an end and it was all right there.
Great intensity.
You added, you know, Wisconsin cherries,
a little Rush Creek on top of it.
And pavé in that amount of time? What were you thinking?
And yet, boom, you nailed it.
You guys, this is so frickin' crazy. Like, oh, I'm so excited.
I'm not just going to the finals.
I'm going to the finals with the most wins in Wisconsin.
I feel like I'm the one to beat here.
I'm realizing it and I think other people are too.
Thank you so much.
[intense music]
Laura...
you're also moving on to the finals.
Oh, my God!
KRISTEN: Congratulations. [laughs]
Thank you.
I'm gonna go to the finale. Oh, my goodness.
As soon as those plates hit in front of us--
Yes, it's beautiful, but also the amount of work.
When we first tasted the dumplings, you know,
it tasted like love.
We knew that work went into that,
we knew care went into that, and finesse, too.
I really loved you showing us this idea of focus.
We have seen your dishes with too much added,
so this dish pushed all of that aside, and it was beautiful.
Savannah and Laura, congratulations.
You can step to the side.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
***
Danny, Dan, and Manny...
two of you will be moving on to the finals
Danny, let's start with you.
Can you just give us a little bit of background
of how you arrived to this dish?
My first thought was bringing soba cha to the dish.
That's kind of where the puree came from.
The broth developed with the tea elements.
It kind of all mixed together, so I don't know
that I actually tasted the clarity of what you said was,
like, the focus.
DANNY: Showing restraint is really what my dish was about.
TOM: That was as intense
- as flavor as I've had. - Yeah.
So this idea of subtlety,
if that's where your growth was, to get there, you're not there.
KRISTEN: Dan.
I thought of this as a way to kind of showcase ingredients
from Wisconsin, but also be able to use some global influence.
The smoked walleye got away from you a little bit.
It did.
After the first or second bite, all I got was smoke.
DAN: I cured the fish and then I portioned it.
As soon as I cut it into little bite-sized pieces,
I just created a bunch of smoke.
KRISTEN: I can't help but compare
your Restaurant Wars dish and this dish.
This dish, with the same ingredients, same kind of vibe,
but it was less successful.
So, then the growth kind of just goes,
"Wait. But this was already great."
Yeah.
KRISTEN: Manny, how was the day in the kitchen for you?
I felt organized until the cooking of the fish.
You thought some of the fish was undercooked?
Yes, Chef. The bigger portions.
There were three of us, including myself,
that got raw fish.
Not undercooked. Mine was completely raw.
HUNTER: The dish was very comforting,
but I think when you do a recipe that is seemingly so simple,
every element has got to be perfect.
If your story was you wanted to showcase something classic
from your heritage that you have mastered,
I just wasn't sure how that played into
what that means here
in relationship to the last several weeks.
Chefs, we have a lot to discuss
and your Quickfire dishes could come into play
during our deliberation.
We'll call you back when we have an answer.
Thank you, Chefs.
DAN: [bleep]
[Dan exhales]
- That sucked. - That was terrible.
LAURA: Congratulations.
- SAVANNAH: Thank you. You too. - DAN: First off--
DANNY: Congratulations to you two.
DAN: ...congratulations to Savannah.
- DANNY: Big win. - That's awesome.
Yeah. It was a good day.
Laura coming in hot too. Congratulations.
DAN: Congratulations, Laura.
Thank you so much.
DAN: What about you, buddy?
I don't know. I think I got in my own way.
Tried to make this very simple dish.
There was a lot of flavor behind it,
and, like, I botched the story.
I keep thinking back to Danny's dish,
the lack of restraint in flavor and in feeling of the dish.
He couldn't explain that connection at all.
It was a very mature dish,
developed and evolved technically
in terms of how he thought about it,
but I go to taste and I thought it was kind of salty.
DAN: I don't wanna leave
and I'm bummed that I didn't do more today to solidify myself.
With Dan's dish, the last thing you tasted was smoke
and it lingered on the palate.
I didn't get an overabundance of smoke.
I think there was a lot of different pieces
with different smoke.
Some of them were darker, some of them were lighter.
I thought it was overcooked.
- It was dry and over-smoked. - Yeah.
I think it was very inconsistent.
I told you guys,
"I think there were two or three pieces that I'm not sure about."
Super rookie mistake.
Oh, ----ing idiot.
KRISTEN: When I look at Manny's dish,
the fish that I had was properly cooked.
Yeah, it was a safe dish, but it had layers of flavor.
Yes, yours was cooked well,
- but three weren't. - Correct.
- This was raw. - Yeah.
If you chose a dish that you knew and then, quite honestly,
you didn't get the protein right...
KRISTEN: Let's talk about their Quickfire dishes.
Yeah.
I thought Danny's was a better dish than the other two.
KRISTEN: I would agree.
But then Manny's, the salmon that was not even salted,
and the relish, it was not enough
to actually save the fish from itself.
Dan's Quickfire dish, I thought was actually terrible
and he knew it.
But was that a worse flaw than
the raw fish in Manny's elimination dish today?
I think we have our answer.
- We do. - Yeah.
Yes.
***
You know, Chefs, this is the point where you need
to lay it all on the line.
In each case, there were several mistakes made,
mistakes that you can't make at this stage in the competition.
***
Manny...
please pack your knives and go.
Brother, I love you so much.
I love you too.
It's okay. I'm at peace.
You know, Manny, great job all season, but it was really hard
to get past those three fish dishes.
100%, Chef.
I served raw fish in Top Chef on the top five.
I'm taking ownership of what I did wrong.
Thank you so much
- for the opportunity. - GAIL: Thank you, Manny.
Absolute pleasure.
MANNY: ...for the feedback. This is highlight of my life.
KRISTEN: So lovely meeting you. Thank you.
I will never forget the pozole.
- MANNY: Thank you so much. - JUDGES: Thank you, Manny.
MANNY: Being part of Top Chef has changed me
as a person and as a chef.
I cannot put it in words. I just feel it.
Guys...
- Love you, brother. - ----ing win.
Wholeheartedly, it was so ----ing worth it.
Good job, you two.
- Congratulations. - Congratulations.
You made it to the top four and the finals of Top Chef.
DAN: Holy ----ing sh--!
Thank you.
Who's ready to find out where we're going for the final?
Yeah, man! Let's go!
- Come on. - Let's do it.
[laughing]
Make sure to pack your sunscreen,
'cause we're going on a Caribbean cruise.
- [bleep] - Shut up!
I've never been on a cruise.
This will be a Top Chef first.
KRISTEN: Go home, find your sanity again
and we'll meet you in a few weeks in Curacao.
Curacao?
I don't know what Curacao is.
Find it on a map.
I'm just so happy, I don't care.
[laughing]
This last stretch isn't easy.
There's only three challenges left
between you and the title of Top Chef.
Let's go, baby!
Top four, final four. I'm playing to win.
- I'm ready to rock. - Thank you guys.
- TOM: See you soon. - KRISTEN: Bye, Chefs.
DANNY: Holy sh--.
LAURA: We're going to the Caribbean.
KRISTEN: Next time on Top Chef...
GAIL: Welcome to Curacao.
Cheers to each and every one of you
for making it to the final four.
Sh--'s about to get real.
Whoo! Let's go!
Welcome, Chef!
This is great. This is the last challenge before the finale.
GAIL: The fresh fish was well-cooked and delicious.
It was comforting. It just made me feel good.
You should all feel really proud of what you've done so far.
I'd love to see all four of you in the finale,
but obviously, only three can go.
[tearful] It's a fantastic moment
that you are going to remember forever.