PADMA: Previously on Top Chef.
Welcome to Restaurant Wars.
This might be, I would say, sh-- show.
CHEFS: Good luck.
MAN: Show time.
-Five for the judges. -Love the hat.
I'm impressed by their composure.
Four tartars coming.
I just maintain this quiet storm.
-Go grill it. -LUKE: I absolutely refuse
to have a fish sit here for 20 minutes.
You know, I'm really missing Jackson a little bit.
-Good evening. -MAN: Hi.
-Is he afraid of us? -TOM: He's afraid of us.
[laughs]
The winning chef today is... Ashleigh.
[cheering]
Jackson, please pack your knives and go.
Seven 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 Sanpellegrino,
and the coveted title of Top Chef.
♪♪♪
NICK: This is a small group right here.
LUKE: Now we're top seven.
I don't know. I'm just a little sad.
I thought we put out our best food.
At this point of my career,
I don't really get to hear all this feedbacks like that.
Fish was really fresh, it was nicely cut,
and the sauces tied it all together.
Thank you.
Every day is not a great day,
but every day I am making progress.
Well, what do you guys think's next, then?
-Yeah. -ASHLEIGH: Oh, God,
I don't know. I just need to enjoy
this moment for right now.
Yo, you soak in your win,
-I soak that I'm still here. -Oh, my God, right?
EVELYN: I was, like, give me a minute.
[upbeat music]
-Good morning, chefs. -Morning.
How does it feel to have survived Restaurant Wars?
-We survived. -Yeah, absolutely amazing.
Please welcome
your all-star guest judge,
a chef who has had not one but two of her restaurants
on Jonathan Gold's
101 Best Restaurants list.
Nyesha Arrington.
Hi, Nyesha. Welcome.
Happy to be here.
I am a huge fan of Chef Nyesha.
From what I know, she's the only Black woman
that has ever competed in Le Bocuse d'Or.
She's also a Top Chef alum.
I'm already thinking this is going to be a really good day.
Chefs, people have been eating vegetarian
and plant-based diets for centuries.
You may have noticed in recent years
that a lot more of the best restaurants in the world
are switching up their styles to celebrate the vegetable
in the center of the plate rather than animal proteins.
I've eaten a lot of meat since I've been here in Houston.
So today we're going vegetarian. And I'm very happy about it.
♪♪♪
Behind us you can see a bountiful display of ingredients
in all different colors. For your Quickfire Challenge,
each of you will only be able to use items
from one color
to create a monochromatic vegetarian dish.
It's time to draw knives.
EVELYN: Black.
I was super excited to get to work
with all these beautiful colors, and I pull black.
It's not even on the rainbow.
Let's see what we have.
-Red. -Yellow.
-Purple. -White.
-Orange. -Black.
-And Damarr. -Green.
You don't look too happy, Damarr, with green.
I thought I had my happy face on.
-That's your happy face? -[laughter]
This is my happy face.
I've never tried to make everything
the same color on a dish.
I mean, obviously, you usually try to make sure
there's a lot of contrasting colors on dishes,
so that's definitely difficult.
This is the challenge you're really going to want to win,
because this is the last immunity of this season.
Thirty minutes on the clock.
Your time starts now. Good luck.
Is it even fair that you got sweet potatoes?
[Nick laughing] No.
LUKE: Ooh, ooh, we're dropping stuff.
I love cooking vegetables.
It's always a challenge to be able to cook a vegetable
and to make you kind of forget that you're not eating meat.
Once you can do so, it's a beautiful thing.
[fast-paced electronic music]
I have red.
I'm going to make a homemade gochujang
with strawberries and hot peppers.
Strawberry's my favorite food.
My uncles, they're all farmers,
and I used to help them out picking strawberries.
I was a baby labor. [laughs]
Twenty-five minutes already, guys. Oh, my God.
♪♪♪
[Luke] What you got going on?
I'm gonna try to do a curried cauliflower puree.
Cooking monochromatically is something that I've never done.
I'm yellow. That's kind of orange.
But there's certainly no shortage
of yellow produce in front of me.
The objective is figuring out
how I can make these ingredients all sing together.
How fast can I cook these lentils?
♪♪♪
-I love this black garlic. -DAMARR: Yeah.
I'm thinking of making a soup with eggplant and some beans.
Unfortunately, most black vegetables
are black on the outside,
but inside tend to have a white flesh.
It's going to be very hard to create a black colored dish
without using any kind of powder or squid ink.
Nick got orange.
Like, sweet potatoes, is that even fair?
I feel great about vegetables.
I'm going to do some roasted broccoli steaks,
a little harissa glaze, and then definitely be a lot
of green herbs in my dish.
Fifteen minutes.
When you're making steak,
you would traditionally have some sort of sauce.
So, I have a broccoli steak
with the sauce being the puree of avocado
and the chimichurri being the chermoula,
which is a Moroccan-style sauce
that they put on meat, fish and vegetables.
♪♪♪
[tense music]
Thankfully, I got the white color.
Cauliflower and cheese, very classical combination.
Cauliflower and cheese can be quite heavy,
so it's important to introduce acidic flavors into the dish
and that's going to be pickling different vegetables
that I'll be putting on the plate.
In restaurants, it's 80% meat.
It's very exciting to work with vegetables.
I love cooking with vegetables.
I've definitely cooked a cauliflower
like this before at Noma
and it's really hard to beat,
so I'm going to roast a cauliflower in butter,
then I'm going to throw in lots of fresh herbs--
sage, thyme, rosemary.
I think it's a very important one to win,
especially because I haven't done very well
in these Quickfires, you know.
If you win this Quickfire, you get the last immunity.
Anybody would want to have that.
And, you know, I feel a little bit more in my element.
I'm just having a lot of fun.
-Sorry. -Whoa, aye--
I didn't know you were coming back that quick.
BUDDHA: Come on, Luke.
Come on. There we go.
This challenge is dear to my heart.
I started a non-profit
going into public schools in Jackson, Mississippi
just to encourage kids to eat more vegetables.
Fried rice is a great way to get kids to eat veggies.
Coming through. Hot.
Chefs, you have five minutes.
-Eh. -At the last minute,
I, like, find myself trying to add something a little sweet,
and I've got these yellow peaches which are freeze-dried,
so they're adding this crispy component.
[suspenseful music]
JAE: Behind you.
One minute.
♪♪♪
Time's up.
[sighs]
Let's start with you, Buddha.
-Thank you, chef. -You're welcome.
-I love a good hot plate. -Thank you.
So, it's cauliflower and cheese
with vadouvan and salted grapes.
How did you treat the roasted cauliflower?
I wood-fire roasted it
with some butter, garlic and thyme.
Mm. Very nice.
I have roasted cauliflower with cabbage
and purple potato puree with brown butter carrots.
PADMA: Did you enjoy this challenge?
I absolutely enjoyed this challenge.
It shows. Great. Thank you.
I made curried vegetable puree
with marinated curried vegetables.
NYESHA: What do you have in your puree?
Maitake mushrooms, yellow cauliflower,
and there's some lentils in there.
-What are the crunchy bits? -Freeze-dried yellow peach.
I tried to find as much yellow as I could find
and just make it taste good.
Thank you.
Nice.
I did a harissa glazed broccoli with a chermoula
that has hazelnuts and Romanesco shaved inside it,
and there's an avocado puree underneath.
There's so much brightness and acidity coming off
this sort of salsa that you have on top here.
-Thank you. -You guys are really doing well.
Making our jobs harder.
I made 20-minute strawberry gochujang glazed beets
-and walnut puree. -Mm.
This is a vegetable fried rice.
I did a kumquat and peach hot sauce,
some charred papayas,
pumpkin and some charred orange cauliflower.
You used pumpkin?
I used pumpkin, sweet potato
and also cauliflower for the rice.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
-PADMA: Ooh. -Gorgeous.
I've made a charred eggplant and black bean soup
with black lemon and black garlic.
And on top we have a dill yogurt
and a black radish and walnut crumble.
-It's delicious. -Thank you.
-Thank you, Evelyn. -Thank you.
Good job.
Wow, my palate is blown away.
-You guys did an amazing job. -Everything was delicious.
It looked fantastic.
I feel great. It is really lovely.
There were a couple less successful dishes.
Nick.
The ingredients on the plate lacked a bit of cohesiveness.
Sweet potato and pumpkin have very similar textures,
and the flavor gets a little confused.
Who else?
Ashleigh, you brought those yellow hues and tones to life.
The flavor didn't match that visual.
Now for some good news.
Who had one of our favorite dishes?
Buddha, phenomenal dish.
-Very elegant. -I think that is menu ready.
It was all beautifully done. Really, really high art.
-Thank you. -Thank you so much.
Damarr, there was a clear vision in the supporting ingredients
to your roasted broccoli, which is very important.
Everything worked very well together.
Thank you.
I love that avocado puree
on the bottom.
It was so creamy.
-It looked fabulous. -Thank you.
Evelyn, first of all,
I have to say super bold of you to make a soup.
And it was just impeccable.
That eggplant lent such a nice,
round, full flavor to the black beans.
-I loved your soup. -Thank you.
I also want to give an honorable mention.
Luke, welcome to the party, man!
I'm so glad I got to taste this dish from you.
I want to see more of this food in your elimination challenges.
Absolutely.
But there can only be one winner
of the last immunity of this season.
Nyesha, who's it going to be?
[tense music]
of the last immunity of this season.
Nyesha, who's it going to be?
[tense music]
Damarr.
[clapping]
DAMARR: I'm kind of, like, in shock.
You know, everyone put up amazing food today,
so I'm super grateful.
-Congratulations, Damarr. -Thank you.
Now that's a happy face.
Nyesha, I want to thank you
-so much for joining us. -Thank you for having me.
You really inspired these guys today.
-NYESHA: Good luck, chefs. -Thank you.
Kill it.
That was a fun challenge.
But I think we're going to need to get to the soul
of the matter for this next one.
[dramatic music]
Please welcome your all-star guest judges
for this elimination challenge.
-Hey. -Hi.
Dawn Burrell and Kwame Onwuachi.
Hey, chefs. Good to see all your faces.
I am also happy to be back
to show you another part of Houston
you may have not seen before.
The origin of our new national holiday,
Juneteenth, has its roots right here in Texas.
Juneteenth is a celebration
of when all the slaves were actually freed.
We usually do something at the restaurant,
you know, do a barbecue for the community.
It's a very special day in my mind.
In June of 1865,
nearly three years after Emancipation Proclamation,
the 13th Army Corps arrived in Galveston,
delivering General Order No. 3.
This order informed all Texans
that they were actually free.
Many moved north to Houston following Jack Yates,
who is actually known as the father of Black Houston.
Together with his community,
they formed a city within a city called Freedmen's Town.
It's now a nationally registered historical site
right here in Houston's Fourth Ward.
DAWN: One thing that has remained constant
in this area is the food.
The food of this neighborhood was and is soul food.
For your elimination challenge,
we're putting on a fundraiser
for 100 people
at Bethel Church, founded by Jack Yates himself.
-Awesome. -And to celebrate,
each of you must make a dish
that speaks to your soul.
So, we're not just looking for soul food, precisely.
We're looking for things that have been passed down
from generation to generation.
Things that remind you of your family.
I think every chef and every person even has that dish
that warms their soul and makes them feel at home
or makes them feel this sense of place.
This is an important event
where attendees will be purchasing tickets,
and 100% of the proceeds
will go towards protecting and preserving
Houston's Freedman's Town Conservancy.
It's a beautiful challenge.
Today you'll have $500 to shop
and two hours to prep and cook
here in the Top Chef kitchen.
Tomorrow afternoon,
you'll have an additional two hours
to cook at Bethel Church historical site.
But before you go shopping,
Dawn and I are going to take you to meet
the executive director
of Houston's Freedmen's Town Conservancy
to learn more about the history of the town
and its importance in the community.
I can't wait to taste what you'll make.
-Good luck. See you guys later. -Bye, Padma.
KWAME: Let's go. Let's do it.
[rousing music]
DAWN: I'm so excited to be here.
KWME: How you doing?
-ZION: I am doing fabulous. -Great dress.
Welcome. Thank you. Welcome.
It's so beautiful.
KWAME: These are the Top Chefs.
Great bunch we have here.
You guys look ready for anything.
Yes.
We're here at Bethel Baptist Church.
It's Houston's first heritage district.
So, you are in a sacred and very special place.
Let's go inside.
Welcome to this bright, beautiful space.
If you're wondering why there's no roof on the church,
it's because what you see here today
is what was able to be preserved in the early 2000s.
As you're thinking about, how are you going to communicate
food that feeds your soul,
think about these people
who built this church and founded this community
were enslaved just a few decades beforehand.
I'm very excited for this challenge,
not only because I get to pull inspiration within my own roots,
but also to showcase this part of history
and this part of the city that not a lot of people know.
When you think about Juneteenth,
you think about that moment of emancipation.
What happens next? You don't own anything.
You have no education.
How do you earn a living? Earn a living, right?
They cleared this area and they developed homes,
businesses, churches in Freedmen's Town.
And anyone who asked, "Where should I go?
"I want to be free. I want to be safe,"
people would tell you, "Go to Freedmen's Town."
This is a beautiful representation
of what my people are able to do here,
taking food or land or space that people didn't want,
then creating something beautiful out of it
through their own hard work and their own creativity.
ZION: Houston Freedmen's Town Conservancy will be preserving
and protecting these bricks
and restoring them for our children's children
to appreciate and understand
that something incredible happened here.
It's so powerful standing on these bricks
in Freedmen's town.
Just this sense of Black people that were finally free
coming together to build this very special thing,
it's really incredible.
It drives me creatively.
This is Jack Yates' son's house. This was a printing house.
So, when we talk about how important news and media
and who tells what story is,
this was the place where Black people
were telling their own story.
The power of restoring and making sure
that you remember what happened in the past
and the history is very important.
I'm really excited about cooking for such a great cause.
Check it out, let's have a little taste of this is it.
That's soul food,
we pile it on for you.
[laughter]
JAE: I am excited.
Man, I haven't had candied yams in a minute.
-Thank you so much. -You're welcome.
When I think of soul food,
it's just cooking from the heart.
-It's hitting, huh? -Oh, yeah.
You have to throw me outta here.
I think I'm going to do my Nana's salmon cast iron cake.
When it was time to put something on the table
that was full of love and laughter
and just brought everybody together,
it was my Nana's salmon cake.
Did they schedule a nap after this, too?
[laughter]
Every time I go back to Australia,
my grandmother will make us curry.
The last time I went to go see her,
she showed me how to make it.
I've never made a dish like this on Top Chef before.
I've never even cooked rice on Top Chef.
-When I have that, I'm home. -Yeah.
Being in this competition,
there's so many different variations of yourself
that you have to put out there.
Just because I do all this cool stuff
doesn't mean that I don't know
how to cook something very humble.
My initial idea right now is like the fish
with, like, a shrimp bisque.
Koreans eat fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
That is why I fell in love with New Orleans.
It's all about the seafood.
So, to make a dish from my background, my cultures,
it's so personal.
That's how I like to cook.
[indistinct, excited chatter]
JAE: Ginger.
NICK: Luke, what you got on your mind?
Man I'm making mom's meatloaf, man.
NICK: That's what's up.
I'm going to make my mom's recipe
for meatloaf in the style of a frikadelle,
which is a Danish-style meatball.
Every time that I came back from Copenhagen,
it was the first meal that we would have.
There's a lot of feeling behind it, you know.
I just hope I can also do it justice.
Thank you very much.
Ashleigh, how you feeling about this challenge?
I don't know how I'm supposed to feel.
I have felt amazing before a challenge and not done well.
And I've also felt not so great about challenges
and I've done really well too.
My mom always prepares some sort of rice dish
when she wants everyone to feel comforted.
I'm going to make this Low Country crab rice
along with my mom's oyster gravy.
She is the gravy queen.
I mean, it's going to be an exciting one.
We got all that inspiration beforehand.
BUDDHA: Fifteen minutes.
EVELYN: I'm making a sope.
It's something that my grandma used to make for me a lot.
So, I'm just trying to honor her and then also honor my mom.
I'm making chorizo the way she taught me how to make it.
JAE: Yeah, I would love to try your chorizo.
Yes, I'm so excited.
For all of us,
this challenge is extremely a personal one.
Six minutes!
It's been 12 years since I left Korea.
I miss my home,
but I can feel their support and love.
I hope that through my dish,
the message can deliver to the judges.
ASHLEIGH: $494.83. I did it.
♪♪♪
[indistinct chatter]
[sizzling]
EVELYN: Get these beans cooking.
Don't you think it's cool
that we're able to raise money cooking for this fundraiser?
I think it's absolutely incredible.
I always say food is community.
When I think of what a Top Chef is, absolutely,
it's technique, it's flavor,
but it's also being able to connect with your community.
So much to do and so little time.
Wow, we are all different. Food brings us all together.
And that's why chefs have to start seeing themselves
as community leaders.
-Forty-five minutes. -LUKE: Yeah.
BUDDHA: What does soul food mean to you?
It's something that is cooked
with everything that you have, basically your soul.
So, I'm making a version of my mom's meatloaf.
It's something that my mom always makes
every time I came back from Europe.
It's like my absolute comfort food from home.
My mom really liked cooking.
I was an extremely picky eater as a kid.
She made a deal with me
that if I didn't like any of the food that she made,
as long as I tried it, I never had to eat that again.
I mean, I'm going to try to elevate it
to see if I can make it as good as my mom, you know?
That's the idea of today,
putting love into the food.
I feel my dad's always with me
with-- with all the challenges.
But this one, even more so.
It's a dish that we had together
before he recently passed away.
[somber music]
Battling stage four cancer was the worst.
The last day that I actually got to spend with him,
I was crying my eyes off
because I knew it was the last time
I was going to hug him
and he was just telling me not to cry.
This is a guy that he was.
He didn't want me to have any wasted moment.
Cooking from the heart. That's how my dad used to say things.
That's why he was really successful,
because every time he cooked for someone,
not just family, all of his customers,
he cooked with love.
The week my dad passed away,
I got the phone call to come on to Top Chef.
I never got to tell him,
but I feel like that was a departing gift from him.
I know I can win Top Chef. I'm going to win it for him.
ASHLEIGH: Jae, how's that cod looking over there?
Oh, cod looks like a cod. Thank you.
In Korea, we cook whole fish.
And as a child,
my mom used to debone the fish for me
and put it on my spoon.
I'm making Korean sweet potato puree.
With my dish,
I want to create the moment
of a Korean baby eating fish. [chuckles]
[singing]
Cooking a whole mess of collard greens with ham hocks.
I'm gonna do some hoecakes as well to kind of sop that up.
Slaves would mix cornmeal with water.
They would heat the blade of the garden tool
we know as a hoe.
Cook corn cakes on that blade.
So, I think that all the ingenuity
that it took to build Freedmen's Town
resonates with these hoecakes.
Trying to represent, you know what I mean?
Putting these two things together
is a perfect marriage of storytelling.
JAE: Twenty minutes.
My brows are burning.
LUKE: I don't think I can feel my hands anymore, it's so cold.
But I got to keep going.
I'm gonna shape up the salmon cakes tomorrow.
EVELYN: I need to puree those beets.
[Jae exclaiming]
This challenge
is a lot of pressure.
Struggle is real here.
This is not just about cooking for the judges.
There will be 100 guests
raising a fund to rebuild the community.
Everybody packed up?
-Ready. -Let's go.
LUKE: Let's get out of here.
[rock music]
[calm music]
Finally.
-LUKE: All right. Let's do this. -NICK: Here we go.
♪♪♪
I'm cooking with feel today.
I don't want to say that this challenge
is easy because they never are.
But this is a dish that I've made
and that I love. I feel really good about it
and I'm proud of it.
And I think that the community will be, too.
Ashleigh, what do you have to do before service?
My red rice, pick through some crab,
and put my soul into a dish.
DAMARR: What are you getting started?
I'm adding soy bean paste.
Soy bean paste is really important to Korean culture.
Creating a dish that is inspired by my mom,
it makes me very emotional.
How is it tasting over there, Jae?
Just melting in my mouth.
-One hour, chefs. -One hour.
How much stuff do you have on your plate for today?
I scrapped my whole entire idea
and I'm going to do it all from scratch again.
NICK: You're going to do it all from scratch again?
No, I've just got to season the potatoes
and start forming my mom's meatloaf.
ASHLEIGH: Buddha, how does your curry taste?
I actually really miss this. I haven't had this in a while.
This curry is a Malaysian dish.
It's got a pretty predominant flavor and clove and cinnamon,
and it just packs a punch.
ASHLEIGH: What would your grandmother say
if she tasted that curry, Buddha?
I think she'd love it.
If you made it this far in your cheffing career,
you definitely cook from the soul.
The pressure is, "Have I done enough?"
Yum.
I got to start cooking oat cakes
because that takes a while.
Okay, 40. Yay.
I made the dough from Maseca.
I've added beet puree to make them nice and pink.
This beet sope is like a nod to my grandma.
She passed last year,
but she would always get done up
even for the simplest tasks.
I dyed her hair, like, every few months
to not let those grays show.
We're normally rolling by hand but, you know, time restraints.
-Yeah. -And then you sear both sides,
pinch the corners to make it like a little bowl.
So, definitely a lot of technique behind this.
DAMARR: That's awesome.
Everybody is really pulling
from their grandmas, their moms.
I decided to cook this dish
'cause it's something my grandmother cooked a lot.
My mom used to cook the whole fish all the time.
She's definitely a tiger mom.
[Damarr laughs]
EVELYN: I feel like as a chef, you know,
it's kind of our job to educate those
about our history and our culture.
My dad is from the Low Country
and I mean, for me,
I didn't realize how meaningful that was.
Preserving our foodways,
ensuring that those things don't die.
I think it's really going to be a hard one
because we're all really cooking from our soul,
which is like, how can you, like, judge that? [sniffles]
Damn, Nick.
That's Grandma there, man.
That is Grandma Nana.
Such a good woman, too. Makes you almost want
to shed a tear.
Forty-one minutes.
[intense music]
My plan is to give guests one frikadelle
so that way it kind of will represent a little bit
of that crusty corner, the end bit
that I really enjoy from my mom's meatloaf.
-ASHLEIGH: Buddha, are you done? -I am done.
ASHLEIGH: Here I am super worried about time.
What the [bleep]?
-Are you going to be okay? -Yeah. I burned the hoecakes.
The hoecakes were cooking very slowly
and burning in some places.
Got to get these hoecakes right, sh--.
These things take about six minutes,
and I can only cook six at a time.
JAE: Three minutes.
NICK: Game time.
-[timer beeping] -EVELYN: Time's up.
ASHLEIGH: All right. Here we go.
-BUDDHA: Hello, ladies. -Hi. Good afternoon.
Can I hook you up?
I'm good. How are you?
Guests are walking in
and I still haven't figured this out.
I do not have enough batter
to continuously throw these in the garbage.
[bleep].
[party din]
I'm from Australia.
My grandmother would cook this curry
every time I come home.
I'm from Jackson, Mississippi.
Awesome.
-WOMAN: How are you today? -I'm doing very well.
Things are moving slowly.
But after I burn a few more,
I get a rhythm.
Just going to top you off with a touch pepper vinegar.
I'm definitely going to have to chat up a lot more
because I'm going to be flipping hoecakes
and taking them directly to plate,
which was not the plan.
[humming]
I was a chubby little kid,
and I had this nickname ever since then.
You are trying crab rice with oyster gravy.
KWAME: Wow. Look at this.
-DAWN: This is beautiful. -PADMA: It is beautiful.
Three Proseccos, please, thank you.
We ordered the same thing.
Oh. [chuckling]
It's such a beautiful day. Great to visit this church.
What was it like yesterday?
It was so moving and informative.
You know, because I live here in Houston,
but I did not know all of the stories
that were here in Freedmen's Town.
Really honored to even be here.
Hopefully they'll knock it out of the park.
All right. Let's go try some food.
Let's do it.
Dawn, you want to come with us?
-Yeah. Let's go. -PADMA: All right.
-WOMAN: Your mom's recipe? -JAE: Yeah, my mom's recipe.
-Thank you so much. -My pleasure.
-Hi, Nick. -What's going on?
-Good to see you, Gail. -How are you?
I'm feeling good about this challenge.
I get to connect with the community.
So, today I brought my grandmother here.
This is my nana, which her name is Queen.
-Love that. -Yeah.
NICK: She's always made salmon cakes in a cast iron skillet.
And she always served it with, like, a mayonnaise-based sauce.
I picked sauce remoulade today.
She served it with a salad, too.
So, today I'm making a Hoppin' John salad.
It's so beautiful that you're carrying on
the legacy of your grandmother.
-Yes. -Can definitely taste it.
Appreciate you.
I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm tasting
the rebirth of Freedmen's Town.
I'm loving it.
I really appreciated the brightness
in the acidity in that Hoppin' John sort of salsa.
And how innovative is that to take a traditional dish
like Hoppin' John and use it as a condiment?
Seasoning was spot on, it had acid,
it had just a little kick at the end. Yeah.
I just want another one. You know?
[all laughing]
[soft music]
-Hello. -Hi, Jae, how you doing?
I have Mama Kim's flaked codfish
with a Korean sweet potato puree and shrimp bisque.
PADMA: Does she still make this dish?
She came to visit me when I used to live in New Orleans,
and she knew that I missed the dish so much.
And after 20 hours' flight, she made the dish for me.
-PADMA: That is love. -Yeah.
-Thank you so much. -JAE: Thank you.
Very interesting dish.
DAWN: I thought it was great.
The capital of South Korea is Seoul
and so she's-- she's got it.
She's got it. The fish was perfectly cooked,
beautifully flaked. All those fermented flavors,
it's hard to go wrong.
That kimchi salad on top with the pomegranate.
-Really, really good. -I love that.
It was delicious.
That's one of those things, you eat it and you go,
"Where have you been all my life?"
I think maybe doing something
from her childhood kind of unleashed
a confidence in her that I hope we continue to see.
And it smells fantastic. Can't wait to try it.
-KWAME: Evelyn. -Hello, judges.
So-- so yesterday we were in here walking the streets,
touching the bricks.
It was so inspiring.
Preservation of our history,
our culture--
that's what I was trying to translate into this dish.
My grandma taught me how to make sopes,
which is like corn masa cake.
And then my mom taught me how to make chorizo.
So, what I made is a beet sope.
NYESHA: Beautiful.
EVELYN: And then on top we have pureed black beans,
my mom's chorizo recipe,
salsa verde, charred pineapple pico
and then a little bit of queso fresco.
I am so impressed by the use of a vegetable in a sope.
That's, like, totally a progressive thing to do.
My mom does that. She adds, like, spinach or beets,
and I was like, "Mom, we're still eating carbs, right?"
But thank you.
-It's the illusion of health. -That extra nutrition.
-NYESHA: Yeah. Exactly. -It was well worth it.
Thank you, guys.
I don't know, that might be my favorite.
I don't know.
Two words: beets. Sope.
Two words I love.
That maybe a top for me today.
I can taste the comfort in that dish.
She clearly took her roots, took this memory, this comfort food,
and just worked a little bit of chef magic in there.
-TOM: Hello, Mayor. -Hey, Tom.
-Hi, councilwoman, how are you? -Nice to see y'all.
Thank you so much for being here and supporting.
Oh, our pleasure. We've had a great time.
I'm just excited to be working
with the Freedmen's Town Conservancy
to make sure that we hold on to it,
we restore it, and we breath life into it.
-Absolutely. -Thank you. Pleasure.
ZION: Cheers to the rebirth.
The words out, there's good stuff here.
-That's what I hear. -PADMA: What are you making?
I am making collard greens with hoecakes.
There's some smoked ham hocks in the collard greens,
and then I have a little pepper vinegar to drizzle over the top.
When I think about soul I think about ancestry,
and I thought about everything
that my grandmother and, you know, the people that came
before her had to do to get me to this point.
I just get really proud when I think about where I come from.
In Southern cuisine, when the greens hit the corn bread,
it is a match made in heaven.
Well, thank your ancestors for me
because that's really good.
♪♪♪
More delicious food.
It just shows you how a few things
put together really well can be so delicious,
and that's what he gave us.
I thought that it was so deeply flavored and seasoned.
He did his ancestors well.
Great dish, we're going to have a hard time at judges' table--
-You know that, right? -This is impossible. So far, I--
I can't see sending anybody home for doing what they've done.
♪♪♪
TOM: So, are you missing home right now?
I'm so energized that I can talk about my family,
and I just want to show them my Mississippi.
The love in your eyes is emanating through your soul
when you talk about this dish, and the memories of your mother.
-Thank you so much. -Thank you for sharing that.
I made a beet and masa sope.
Oh, I love the magenta color. I think it's beautiful.
If you're trying to understand someone's culture,
you eat their food, you'll get it.
Thank you. Thank you.
♪♪♪
-Hello, hello. -Hi, Ashleigh.
I have prepared some crab rice and oyster gravy.
A nod to the Low Country.
My dad, he's from Edisto Island, South Carolina,
and he talks about how, when he met my mom,
who is not from the Low Country, she's from Southern Appalachia,
she made this "boggy-style rice," he calls it.
So, it just meant that her rice was really wet.
TOM: Definitely has Low Country flavor.
-Good, good. -Thank you so much, Ashleigh.
-Thank you. -ASHLEIGH: Thank y'all so much.
Did you all taste that crab-fried rice?
-I did not. -Oh, it's amazing.
I was expecting some crispy bits of crab
and I did not really get that.
I think the oyster gravy was fine,
but I really was hoping for some texture
that did not come from the rice itself.
I'm not used to eating that rice doused in gravy like that.
I think it was two things that she loves,
and she put them together and maybe didn't need to.
It's like, you know, you're gilding the lily there.
[tense music]
KWAME: Hey, what up, brother?
How you feeling? How you feeling?
-Good to see you, -Good to see you.
-Hello, great to see you. -Pleasure,
thanks for being here today.
Absolutely. I'm enjoying myself.
This is my hometown.
What do you think of the food?
-Born and raised? -Born and raised here.
Born and raised here. The food's bomb.
It's very special. It's grounding, you know?
-KWAME: Beautiful. -Yeah, it is.
And liberating,
in the spirit of Juneteenth, you know?
They're being creative with their food.
This is Top Chef, man, this is how we give it up.
All right, listen, you know-- Kwame knows I'mma eat.
I have to get right on to this booth.
[all laughing]
-Hi, Luke. -Hey, Luke.
What is a frikadelle?
So, frikadelle is a Danish-style meatball.
So, that was the one comfort food that I found
when I went to Denmark.
I always miss my mom's meatloaf,
it's the thing that I get first when I come home,
so I took my mom's recipe,
formed it into the form of a frikadelle
and served it with a Danish-style
gravy which is with a white cheddar mash.
[singing] Don't be shy with those mashed potatoes.
-Did you enjoy this challenge? -I did.
It was a very good feeling in the tour yesterday
and everything that we got to learn, it's been very surreal.
A lot of butter.
This is how I like to eat at home.
Really lovely. Thank you.
-Thank you. -LUKE: Glad you enjoyed.
This meatloaf. It's very delicious.
Luke has been kind of, like, all over the place.
I thought he did a nice job.
Yesterday, finally,
Luke broke out of his shell in the Quickfire.
Now, that said, I think the meatball could use
-a little more fat. -Yeah, it was a little tight.
It was very tight.
He's worked for such a long time in
one restaurant that he needs to break away from that,
and this seems like it's more authentic.
I'm feeling all the soul.
Like, people have been hitting it out of the park.
Ashleigh's Low Country crab rice with the oyster gravy?
And the salmon cakes?
-Oh, my gosh. -Delicious.
We're just grateful,
I mean, not just for these delicious dishes,
but for all the love that's being shared here.
Super excited to be here
and be doing this event in this awesome church.
It's beautiful.
I'm topping off a little hoecake
and then I'm going to do what my grandma used to do
and put a little pepper vinegar over the top.
-WOMAN: Ooh, good. -Buddha.
BUDDHA: What's up? You're looking great, mate.
Buddha. Smelling great.
So, this is my grandma's curry.
Last time I went to go see her
she actually taught me how to make it.
So, I'm making nasi lemak.
It's got some sambal on here,
cucumber is marinated in some ginger, scallions, cilantro,
roasted peanuts with some fried shallots.
You can mix it all together
once you've, you know, tried everything separately.
I've worked around the world,
I've only spent probably about two months back at home
in the last 13 years,
and every time I come back home,
my grandmother would make this dish.
Beautiful. I'm full.
I was actually finished a lot earlier than I should.
I didn't want to overthink it or overwork it.
-Thank you, Buddha. -Enjoy the rest of your--
You kicking us out the restaurant?
-[laughter] -No, no, no!
-Thanks, man. -See you later. Thank you.
Buddha's nasi lamek.
Individually, it tastes really great,
and then when I ate it together it needed salt.
It was missing that depth that everything had individually.
I think you're right.
Nothing completely popped, but I liked everything.
Fresh herbs would have went a long way
just to bring some flavor to-- and some cohesiveness, right?
It felt compartmentalized.
EVELYN: Hi! How are you?
Thank you, I hope you enjoy.
I've made my mom's meatloaf recipe,
but I've kind of made it in the form of frikadelle,
which is a Danish-style meatball.
Pickled shallot brings a really nice layer of flavor to this.
Appreciate it.
-That looks good. Thank you. -Yeah.
What's comforting to me and what comforts my soul.
PADMA: For sure.
Tell me about this oyster gravy.
I call my mom the gravy queen.
I made my mom give me a gravy lesson
after culinary school because she's just so good at it.
-A lesson on gravy. -[Ashleigh laughing]
PADMA: All right, we've got to go. Nice to see you.
WOMAN: Bye, y'all. Take care.
[crosstalk]
Thank you all for being here today.
I hope you really enjoyed yourself.
We now know that soul food comes in many forms and fashions,
and everyone's mother apparently made a dent
because I started missing my momma
after I listened to all these stories.
If you have enjoyed the delicious food
that was prepared by the chefs,
please give them a Texas round of applause.
[cheering]
Share this story of freedom,
what you've learned here today, and keep up with us.
Learn more. Come back and invite others.
Thank you for being here today.
Thank you.
-GAIL: Hi, guys. -JUDGES: Hi.
So, what did you think of the block party food?
My soul cup is filled for sure.
-Yes, yes. -TOM: There wasn't a bad dish.
-There was no bad dish. -There were no bad dishes.
This is going to be a hard decision.
-They all did so well. -Absolutely.
All right, let's go back to judges table.
♪♪♪
-Finally. -LUKE: Yeah, really.
-Finally. -We did it! [laughing]
ASHLEIGH: Perfect weather for a block party.
BUDDHA: I had a great time.
The vibes were just good, I think, for all of us.
NICK: I think it was a great day,
there was a lot done for the community.
I'm proud to have done this, though, with you guys.
This is going to be a hard judges' table.
ASHLEIGH: Yeah, we'll be out there for a nice, long time.
NICK: Probably one of the hardest ones.
[intense music]
We had a glorious day today
with delicious, soulful food, and a beautiful cause
and just a wonderful afternoon of love everywhere.
The crowd was really, really into it,
and a lot of you went back to something familiar
from your family, and it was just great to see.
Today was a very special day. I saw nothing but joy.
That's what cooking from your soul is.
Buddha, tell me how you came up with this dish?
It was the first dish that came to my mind
and the only dish that I thought about during this challenge.
What was in the sambal?
I made, like, an [indistinct]
-sort of hybrid with a sambal. -It was delicious.
I thought you did a beautiful job,
but I would have turned the heat up on the sambal.
That's actually my only feedback
that isn't entirely positive,
was that we didn't get any more bites of it as we ate it.
Take from that it was so good they wanted more.
-BUDDHA: Yeah. -TOM: That's a good thing.
Nick, did you know right away that you wanted to do
the salmon cake and remoulade?
That's one of the things that my nana has always mastered
and always I've loved it,
so I definitely wanted to feature it.
And it showed, the flavor, I thought, was really great.
The real star of the dish, though, was the beans.
Hoppin' John relish was brilliant.
It was so acidic and it made that dish.
You know, you packed a lot of flavor
into that beautiful salmon cake.
It was seasoned in the best way, right?
Definitely I think there was a lot of panko,
so I think the texture of the salmon was a little lost,
but I love the pure flavor of the salmon cake.
Okay.
Luke, I thought your dish was so comforting.
I can really tell that it meant a lot to you.
The only criticism I have is that your meatball was tight.
I like the dish a lot.
You had a bit of a predicament, though,
because meatloaf, you talked about you want
all the crispy bits on the outside of the meatloaf,
but usually those meatballs are cooked in the gravy, too.
Why did you go in that direction to go with the crispy bits
versus cooking the meatball in the gravy?
It made it maybe difficult to cut into from time
but I thought there would be also enough sauce on the plate
and the creaminess from the mashed potatoes
to kind of match that.
TOM: Best part of the meatloaf is the crust, right?
Yeah.
Damarr. You had immunity today.
I did.
This is Damarr semi-relaxed right now
because he knows he's not going anywhere,
and you shouldn't anyway because that dish was delicious.
-Thank you. -It was perfect collard greens.
The hoecake was so tender,
when you ate it all together with that acidic pepper vinegar,
it was a moment of bliss.
When I was 18 I moved to East Orange, New Jersey.
Right down the street from my house,
Althea Gibson had a soul food restaurant,
and that was my once-a-week spot that I would go to.
It reminded me of walking in and getting those greens.
Ashleigh, I thought your gravy was delicious.
I wanted to take a vat of it home.
And I thought your rice was great, too.
I just didn't want all that gravy on top of the crab rice.
I was so excited when you described
the crispy bits of crabs.
Did you deep fry it?
I didn't deep fry it, I griddled it
and just kind of flipped it
and got those, like, nice crispy brown bits.
I did miss a little bit
getting the kind of crispy crab rice pieces.
Evelyn, tell us about your magenta sopes.
So, for me-- Sorry, I'm going to get emotional.
This one really hit home.
I lost my grandma last year.
And it's still very fresh, obviously.
So, Grandma taught me how to do the sopes
and my mom taught me how to make chorizo.
There was a bit of you
and there was lots of your grandma and your mom.
You were standing on a lot of shoulders, you know?
I loved your dish. Your chorizo was delicious.
I love the color on your sopes, I love the texture.
And such brightness from that pineapple salsa,
what a punch in the mouth.
The only thing that I didn't like was that it was so small.
I just wanted it bigger, you know?
You should be proud
and I know your grandmother is proud of you for that.
Thank you. Thank you.
-Jae, tell us a little bit-- -Oh, my God--
-more about this dish. -I was born and raised in Korea
but I grew up as a chef in New Orleans,
so I wanted to cook these two cuisines.
It was absolutely delicious.
I mean, everything about the dish was thoughtful,
had intention. The fish was perfectly cooked.
All those fermented flavors were just the perfect amount.
I wanted more and more.
Dawn beat me to taking the relish.
The relish was so good, I was going to grab it
and Dawn pretty much pushed me out of the way to grab it.
And I was like, wow, it came together beautifully
in a way that I couldn't even imagine,
and so thank you for teaching me today.
It was beautiful.
If you couldn't tell already,
we totally enjoyed ourselves today.
Body and soul.
But we are still in a competition,
so we have a terrible decision to make now.
We'll call you back in a bit. Thank you all.
DAMARR: Nice job, everyone.
-BUDDHA: Well, that was weird. -JAE: Good job.
Where's my Lukey?
Way to make it very hard for the judges.
[laughter and crosstalk]
Everyone did a great job.
I mean, I don't think
LUKE: I've ever seen the judges' table like that before.
I'm incredibly proud, incredibly happy
and I think everybody should, you know?
I feel bad sending someone home for the food we had today.
I mean, it was a joyful, celebratory day
of learning and preservation and education and emotion.
It's almost impossible to make this decision.
-But the competition must go on. -Yes.
But we also have to decide who won this challenge today.
Person I think that really embraced the challenge
and also made me think was Jae.
That dish, I remember eating it and being a little confused,
but also being extremely satisfied.
She did something entirely unique today.
She created something new that was this instant comfort food.
Cooking your soulful dish to people who are excited
and thrilled about that moment,
that was very special.
So, I certainly like Jae's, but I can make an argument
just for the sheer simplicity and the audacity to do something
that simple but so damn good was Damarr.
-Yeah. -I mean, just something
about the simplicity of it that I loved,
and that he knew to just leave it alone.
Damarr's dish was simple, but familiar to me.
I just expect really good greens
and that's exactly what he gave me.
If there were any way to make greens more perfect,
I don't think that that even exists.
They got some really tough jobs.
Like, our jobs are tough, obviously, but like, that's--
Hey, I was looking at the lights,
like, these lights gon' dry my eyes up.
[contestants laughing]
-So, we have our winner. -Mm-hmm. Yup.
Yes? Great. Now the hard part.
Padma, this is really hard, but I think Luke's meatball
was the most flawed out of anything that I've tasted today.
It was tough.
Meatloaf is tender and it's juicy
and-- you know, and you can get everything in one bite.
When you used the word "juicy" just now, it really hit home
that I really liked the flavors in Luke's dish today.
It wasn't juicy,
and when you give us a point of reference
of your mom's meatloaf,
it did not hold up in consistency.
You also have to think about conceptually
how we're eating it, you know.
We're walking around and taking a plate from a booth.
We shouldn't have to put it down to then cut it,
and that's what I had to do.
But a frikadelle, which he referred to,
is supposed to be crispy on both sides,
so that was his intention.
You know, yeah, there was maybe a couple little,
you know, technical problems or whatever
but I'm very happy with what they all said, you know?
-What about Ashleigh? -That's what I thought.
-You didn't like Ashleigh's. -I didn't love Ashleigh's, yeah.
I thought the flavors of Ashleigh's dish were great.
For me, I was missing the texture of the crab
and I definitely thought
that she could have benefitted from plating it differently.
All of the flavors for me were a little bit lost.
What I was looking for was not matched in that plate.
I like the dish, though.
There was something about it that was just familiar
and I thought it was good.
I was tasting that rice
and I was like, "My mom would be proud,
"my dad would be proud, the ancestors would be proud,"
and that's it for me.
What did you think of Buddha's, Kwame?
Buddha's individually when I tasted the stuff,
the curry was delicious,
I thought it could have used a little more salt and more heat.
That dish was not very strong
compared to the rest of the dishes.
Buddha's dish needed a little more heat.
-It did need more heat. -The sambal and the curry.
But I really liked all the components.
But, yeah, it's going to be a super tough one, you know?
And anyone could go home.
Ugh, this was such a great day
and such a difficult decision
and now we have to send someone home.
Okay, let's get them out here.
[tense music]
Chefs, all of you cooked stupendous food today,
but there can only be one winner.
The chef that won today, put their soul into it
and really embraced the challenge at its essence.
The winning chef today is...
♪♪♪
... Jae.
[inspiring music]
Congratulations, Jae.
You truly made a completely soulful dish
that was both inspiring and enlightening.
-It was beautiful. -Thank you so much.
There are so many people who have supported me.
You know, they are the reason why I'm here
and I'm glad that I make them proud.
I am very happy to win this one
because this is my personal story.
I put my own spin to it
and my mom should be really proud,
and I am also proud.
Congratulations, Jae.
Thank you so much.
And now for the hard part.
We had such a wonderful day
of really, really delicious food,
but we're still in a competition
and so someone is still going home.
You know, chefs, when we go out and we get experience
and we learn the techniques, we learn how to run a kitchen,
but we never get too far away from where we started,
and I think that's what this challenge was about today.
It was about going back to why we do what we do,
and each of you put your food out there.
It was quite magical.
But there was just one dish
that fell a little bit short than the rest of them.
[suspenseful music]
Luke.
Please pack your knives and go.
-I'm so sorry, Luke. -Listen, it's not over yet.
I'll see you in Last Chance Kitchen.
Thank you very much.
I think this was a really difficult decision
that they had to make and at the end of the day
someone had to go, so I'm leaving with my head held high.
And Luke, keep doing what you're doing.
I was so happy to taste that corner you turned
so I'm looking forward to you finding yourself more
in all that technique you already possess.
Thank you.
It sucks to go home.
Made it all the way to number seven.
Quick toast before I'm out?
Yeah? Quick toast?
I don't know if anybody is ready to leave.
I'm just happy to have swam in the same pool as everybody.
This is an absolute amazing bunch of people.
Just honored to be in this group.
I fell in love with cooking
because there was always an opportunity to learn.
DAMARR: Pleasure, brother.
And you are never going to stop learning.
I'm excited to continue on this journey.
♪♪♪
PADMA: Tonight.
TOM: Luke enters Last Chance Kitchen.
Let's get 'er done.
He struggled with seasoning throughout the competition.
That's not what I think it is. Oh, sh--.
Now can he cook his way back?
I'm just shocked.
PADMA: Find out now on demand
or wherever you stream Top Chef.
Next time on Top Chef...
For this challenge,
you'll have to create a dish for astronauts.
Welcome to the International Space Station.
-Wow! -EVELYN: What is that?
NICK: This is going to be a lot of fun.
What's that down there, Nick? The mix 27?
Twenty-six, come on now.
You know who else liked it? My man, Tony.
[laughter]
[dramatic music]
I would really hate to get this far in a competition...
What the [bleep]?
... to go home over something as simple as overcooked rice.
There were a lot of missed opportunities.
-Oh, my God. -The bottom line,
I think you can do way better.
Don't say that.