Top Chef Power Rankings, Week 3: Follow the Yellow Brick Dough

The Feast of Seven Ceviches.

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Jamaican Me Hockey Baby Yeah. OR: The Feast Of Seven Ceviches.

David Moir/Bravo

No. Noooooo. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Sorry, that was just me reacting to this week’s elimination. Say it ain’t so! I’m livid. Devastated. Filled with rage and incredulity. But we’ll get to that.

This season of Top Chef is, of course, set in Canada. Canada is only really known for a handful of things, and the first two episodes already did maple syrup and poutine, so the next obvious challenge for a Canadian season was hockey. Top Chef got straight to that in episode three, which leads you to wonder what they’re going to do for the next 11 or 12 episodes. How many other Canada things even are there? Is there going to be a six-episode arc about moose? A two-parter about tuques? I know this is a bad time to be making Canada jokes but there are few things more fun than making fun of people for being dorky and normal.

Anyway, the big takeaway so far is that this season has been very strong. Fun challenges, memorable contestants, and Tom Colicchio fully leaning into his love of puns, which Kristen Kish seems to share.

We began this week’s episode with a celebration of the Jamaican patty, that famous dish we all know and associate with Canada. As guest judge Dwight Smith — a local chef and recipe developer! — described it, they’re basically a Caribbean take on a hand pie, with yellow dough often colored with spices like turmeric.

This challenge was right up my alley as I’ve long been a proponent of something I like to call “Dumpling Theory” (sidenote: every half-baked notion sounds academic and erudite if you throw “theory” after it). So the “theory” goes, if you’re jumping into a new cuisine and don’t know where to start, look for the dumpling (ravioli, shumai, momo, manti, pierogi, samosa, gyoza — whatever). Dumplings are always labor intensive, so you want to put all your best flavors in there and it’s usually some grandma-type making them in the back of the kitchen. How often do you have a bad dumpling? RARELY. What I’m saying is that I’m a dumpling daddy till the day I die. And yes, I call pretty much any starchy dough filled with meat, cheese, and/or vegetables a dumpling, do not challenge my nomenclature.

The tough thing about dumplings is that they’re not something you just whip up in a few minutes. And so instead of the traditional 20 or 30-minute quickfire, this time they gave the chefs 15 minutes to make dough, an hour lunch break to let it rest, and then 30 more minutes to finish the dish. That was mighty sporting of the Top Chef producers, but still sounds to my ears woefully inadequate to complete a dough, a filling, construction, cook time, maybe even a sauce or a garnish. We couldn’t throw these chefs another hot 20 in the interests of quality? A real Dumpling Daddy likes to take his time.

A few chefs struggled with time constraints (dough is finicky!), but overall everything looked pretty delicious (and I don’t need a perfectly constructed dumpling, give me any starchy meat melange and shoot it through a tube, Dumpling Daddies ain’t picky). This season has been unique in that it’s been entertaining AND successful as food porn, which hasn’t always been true on this show.

After that, Kristen Kish introduced the elimination challenge, the aforementioned hockey-themed challenge. As she told the chefs “you definitely won’t be able to skate by on this one.”

That one really got my propeller beanie spinning, but I feel the Top Chef writers’ pain on this one. I stared at my laptop screen for 20 minutes trying to think of a hockey pun, but it turns out, not many things rhyme with “deke.” (I may not play hockey, but I sure know how to “body check,” gnome sane?)

The motto (?) of the hockey challenge would be “a dish best served cold,” which was just like it sounds: dishes served cold. Vichysoisse. Gazpacho. Italian ice. Things of this nature. Aw, hell, who am I kidding, we all knew there were going to be six different versions of ceviche. There to judge the challenge was Canadian women’s hockey great Natalie Spooner.

Bravo

Spooner?? I’d like to get to know ‘er! (I’ve decided that “I’d like to get to know ‘er” is a more chivalrous version of “I hardly know ‘er,” feel free to work it into your personal repertoir at your discretion).

After that, we learned that the challenge wouldn’t just be to make a cold dish, oh no ho ho. It’s not good TV without a DIABOLICAL TWIST. Okay, it wasn’t that diabolical. The contestants just had to draw knives with different hockey terms on them, which would then correspond with ingredients that the chefs would have to include in their dishes. Those terms and ingredients were:

"A puck.": Biscuit!
"An assist." Apple.
"Shot that should've been stopped." Muffin.
"Game ending in zero." Eggs.
"When the goalie is unable to stop an easy shot." Grapefruit.
"Tape wrapped around the end of a hockey stick." Licorice Knob.
"A shot puck that hangs in the net for a second." Peanut Butter.

Can I get a Canadian ruling on this? I’m having trouble accepting that these are all genuine hockey terms. I feel like if I start yelling “peanut butter!” at a hockey match someone’s going to pull my shirt over my head and knock me out. Licorice knob?? Who the fuck measures licorice in knobs?! (Other than your mom).

Anyway, it was a solid challenge, with a twist that added a layer of entertainment without getting too stupid, and ended up being an all-around pretty great episode — but for the fact that the elimination made me want to flush MY TELEVISION down THE TOILET! I will never forgive these bastards for this.

RESULTS

Quickfire Bottom: Kat, Massimo, Cesar.
Quickfire Top: Katianna*. Zubair. Shuai.

Elimination Top: Tristen, Katianna*, Corwin.
Elimination Bottom: Anya**, Paula, Massimo.

(*winner. **eliminated)

POWER RANKINGS

13. (even) Paula Endara

Marcus Nilsson/Bravo

AKA: The Cheetah. Charmander. Como?

No, I’m not putting the eliminated competitor on the bottom. I refuse. J’refuso! (I don’t speak French). That’s probably a heart pick, but even my brain says that Chef Pow-la goes lower than the eliminated chef, and that’s not even really a knock on Pow-la. She has definitely been on a down streak, but her food never looks too bad or sounds especially uninspired.

This week for the quickfire, she made a lamb patty with goat cheese and ají casero, and even not knowing what ají casero is, I could definitely see myself ordering that. For her elimination challenge, she did a ceviche jipijapa, which again I’ve never heard of, but sounds like when a raw fish puts its hat on backwards and dances to bass-heavy music.

The judges didn’t love it, and a few complained that there was “too much sauce.” Not a thing I’ve ever thought about ceviche but go off I guess! Isn’t it supposed to be watery? Anyway, seemed like the bigger issue was that it lacked salt. You could tell that the judges kind of wanted to send Pow-la home after a handful of average-to-average-minus dishes in a row, but couldn’t quite justify it to themselves in a week with two out-and-out failed dishes next to her just slightly uninspired one.

That’s understandable, but also… wrong! Wrong wrong wrong!

Judges’ critiques: "I didn't love the dish." "I think the fish actually needs salt."

12. (-1) Massimo Piedimonte

AKA: Sylvio Celine-Dionnte. G-oui-do. Le Situación. French Horn. The Muffin Man.

Massimo is a bull in a china shop and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fun to watch. He’s just… a little too everything, at all times. In week one he chopped a plastic cutting board in half, and this week he destroyed a pepper grinder, two things I didn’t even think possible, both apparently in the course of regular preparation. Oh no! I buss true da wall like da kool aid man again! Dat’s tree wall jus dis mont!

All the while, I can’t quite get a bead on Massimo’s actual style of food. Classical French techniques with modern pushiness? In the quickfire round, Massimo tried to grind oxtail, which he thought sounded like a cool idea because he’d never seen anyone do that before. There’s a reason that kind of strategy is a risk and it backfired in the exact way you’d imagine (ie, finding out why no one had ever done that thing beforfe).

Moreover… he was grinding oxtail… for what? It’s a patty! It’s dough, filling, spices, and a sauce. You really want to try to add an innovative oxtail-cooking method to that mix? Not the time, man!

Then in the elimination challenge, Massimo drew the muffin and attempted some kind of “banana muffin cremeux,” which definitely sounds like an infantile Quebecois sex euphemism. I truly have no idea what Massimo was even going for here. There was an ice cream that didn’t set, some kind of muffin-infused sauce, a muffin crumble, and the whole thing mostly looked like a pile of dessert shards. As Tom put it, “He essentially took a muffin, added some stuff to it, and made a muffin.”

Except… he didn’t even do that? It was just a pile of vaguely desserty-type stuff. That, for Massimo, made two failed attempts at executing concepts that didn’t seem to make that much sense in the first place. If we assume Pow-la didn’t go home because hers clearly wasn’t the worst dish, what was Massimo’s excuse? He at least seemed to be in the conversation for worst, and given the track record, you’d think you could just boot him without too many reservations.

It seems like the only reason Massimo didn’t go home was because he made everyone chuckle with his coarse Italo-Gallic buffoonery. I’d normally be onboard with that justification, if only it didn’t result in losing my favorite chef this season. GOD DAMMIT.

Did you know that in the French version of Looney Tunes, Pepe Le Pew was Italian? I don’t know why Chef Massimo makes me think of this fact.

Notable Quote: “The dish sucked. I'm embarrassed. I don't usually have performance issues.”

11. (-7) Anya Al-Wattar

AKA: Big Cabbage.

Notable Quotes: "I love the cold, I swim in the bay."

If you think I’m only pissed that Big Cabbage went home this week because I had ranked her so highly and now I’m upset to be proven wrong, you are incorrect. How do you not love Big Cabbage?! She’s a ball of weird-good Soviet vibes and everything she cooks sounds like it came from a fever dream. I love her. She’s like if Julia Child had trained under Yakov Smirnoff. (Still alive, btw. Can we get him a guest-hosting spot? Maybe if they do the finale in Branson, Missouri).

Last week she bowled us over with jam made of pinecones, and this week she attempted pine needle ice cream and some kind of cake incorporating “sea buckthorn,” something that I’d both never heard of and sounds like a contradiction in terms. What are buckthorns even doing by the sea?! You are a buck, go back to your home in the woods!

Before that she served a patty based on a pirozhok, which Wikipedia tells me is basically the same thing as a piroshki, but what is good cooking if not taking a familiar thing and making it sound cool and new? It looked fantastic, and I have to think she only narrowly missed out on the top three for that one.

Unfortunately for Big Cabbage, the Sea Buckthorn may have had some anti-caking agent in it that fucked up the cake (or so speculated Tom, though his reasoning seemed sound). And then, in trying to loosen up her ice cream, she overdid things and it wouldn’t set. You knew Big Cabbage was cooked as soon as you heard that “Clack. Clack. Clack” sounds her cake were making when she plated them (magnificent sound mixing work there by Top Chef’s post-production team).

That rock hard cake was, of course, served alongside a big bukakke of melted ice cream dribble. Big Cabbage knew she screwed up too, and she didn’t even have any charming dick-based double entendres to leaven the mood like Massimo. And so she went home. SAY IT AIN’T SO!

I love this season so far, but this was bullshit. The judges did exactly what Americans love to do (with all due respect to Gail Simmons who we all know is a delightful Canadian), and applied a hopelessly lawyered-up rule set that pleased no one solely out of fidelity to a made-up document. Are we so hopelessly constitutionalist that we can never just accept the validity of vibes? I am begging us all to apply some common sense once in a while and read contextual cues. Rules are about the society you want to build, not the letter of the law.

Was Big Cabbage’s dish the worst? Taste-wise, I’m forced to assume that it was. Yet it is indisputable that if you judge these chefs cumulatively, Anya has displayed greater promise than the other two in the bottom three this week. And if we say that Pow-la’s dish was clearly not the worst this week and it’d be unfair to send her home for it, sure, I suppose I can buy that. But even accepting all of that, wasn’t Anya’s dish a much better idea with a clearer point of view than Massimo’s failed melange of muffin shards paying homage to nothing?

I know, I’m venting, but I’ve come too far to stop now. You fuckers. You frauds. I can’t believe you’ve stolen Big Cabbage from me. How dare you tease me with the promise of magical faerie food made of moss cake and birch beef with aerated pine needle relish only to take it away. This world, it’s too cruel.

Big Cabbage lost this episode but I have her third-to-last in these rankings, because even not having watched Last Chance Kitchen yet, I have to think she still has a better chance of winning than Massimo or Paula.

10. (-3) Cesar Murillo

AKA: Nerdy Eric Balfour. Eric Balfoureyes. Hispanic Patrick Fischler. Patrick Fisch Tacos. Tiny Papillote. Lil Papi.

Only in a season with Lana and Henry could Chef Cesar’s chillness go overshadowed. After a sort-of bad performance last week I gave him the benefit of the doubt as much as I could, but until he pulls off a top finish in a challenge I have to keep dropping him down.

His patty: “a lamb toasted pastry with a strawberry glaze.”

Hold on, man, did you just make a strawberry Pop Tart filled with lamb? Do I have that right? The way the show edited it made it seem like Cesar just couldn’t get his dough to come together, but I would’ve liked to have seen more discussion of him trying to make some kind of sweet breakfast danish filled with lamb. This dish supposedly had a “lamb fat powdered sugar.”

That landed him in the bottom three, but the only critique listed was “the dough just kind of fell apart,” which was obviously true, but I was kinda like hey can we go back to the lamb fat powdered sugar? It was shame Cesar couldn’t nail this one, because what is a patty if not another lil papi* made of dough? (*Short for ‘lil papillote,” from episode one).

Like a few chefs on the board this week, Lil Papi battled his way back in the elimination round, at least to the middle, with a shrimp noodle deal that was seemingly well-received.

Judges’ Critiques: "I am super into these shrimp noodles."

9. (+3) Henry Lu

AKA: Shaolin.

Notable Quote: *bang* *bang* *bang* (the sound of Henry thwacking his dough for some reason)

On a season of pretty chill chefs who basically all seem like pretty good hangs, Chef Henry continues to seem like possibly the chillest hang. It’s hard to believe he co-owns a business with Evelyn from season 19. Who does the firing in that place?

Food-wise, Henry has seemed mostly solid, if unspectacular. This week’s patty, with char-siu and mushroom, looked and sounded so good I’m surprised it didn’t put him in contention, even if I have take issue with his torched avocado in the elimination challenge. It’s theoretically possible that applying heat to avocado could be good in some situation, but if it is I’ve never experienced it. That was for a leche de tigre with salmon, aka a ceviche, which drew pretty good reviews despite being a ceviche with cooked avocado on top. At this point, I can’t tell if that bodes well or poorly for Henry.

In conclusion, ask not for whom the tigre leches, he leches for you.

Judges’ Critiques: "I think Henry's dish was beautiful." "That's a lot of sauce."

8. (+1) Lana Lagomarsini

AKA: Breeze. L Train. Choach (this was the name of a stoner girl who was in my dorm in college who Lana reminds me of). B+.

L Train is the kind of chef we get in the first half of every Top Chef season, where they’re impossible to rank because they never show up in either the top or the bottom of any challenge. This week she made a Crabby Patty, aka crab dip inside a pastry. Cleverly named, reasonably solid-sounding. She followed that up with a chilled peanut soup, and what can you say about a chilled peanut soup? "Lana showed a lot of restraint" was kind of the perfect critique of a Lana dish, where you can’t quite tell whether it’s high praise or a back-handed compliment. Personality-wise she’s like a human quaalude, which is cool.

7. (-1) Kat Turner

AKA: Frau Farbissina. Sprockets. Karla Hungus.

I immediately gave Karla Hungus a series of Germanic nicknames on account of her deliberately provocative personal styling, but now that I’ve had more time with her the main thing I notice is her Parker Posey-esque tendency to talk out of the side of her mouth. It’s like she’s always letting you in on a hot bit of gossip, kind of endearing. Sadly I can’t think of a Parker Posey pun nickname to save my life.

Anyway, add Kat to the list of chefs who screwed up their dough in the patty challenge only to come roaring back with a killer ceviche. She attempted a curried shrimp and banana patty in the quickfire, and as weird as that sounds the guest judge sad he loved the filling. You rarely expect a guy to be like, “Mmm, the shrimp really brings out the banana.”

Unfortunately her dough had cellulite, landing Kat in the bottom three. She returned to form with an aguachile con mezcal. She still didn’t make the top three, but one judge called it "Absolutely stunning," which is high praise for like the fifth ceviche you’ve eaten that night.

6. (+5) Corwin Hemming

AKA: Tan Shaolin. Eric… Flan-dre?

Eric Flandre has been underperforming and throughout the patty challenge it felt like we were in for more of the same. He was talking about his Caribbean roots and patties being basically his favorite food, and feeling the pressure because this challenge should be a layup for him. Usually when someone says that before a challenge in Top Chef it means they’re about to get trounced by another chef attempting that dish for the first time. That was more or less true here, though Corwin stayed out of the bottom three.

Then, at long last, Corwin got a top three finish in the elimination challenge, wowing the judges with… a scallop and apple aguachile?? Really, another damned ceviche? I guess these judges have had enough to know the good ones.

Judges’ Critiques: "I like the heat to that." "That was a restaurant dish."

5. (+3) Tristen Epps

AKA: Big Baby. Hot Dog. Steph No-Curry.

Notable Quote: "The Top Chef kitchen smells like East Flatbush."

Huge episode for Big Baby this week. I nicknamed him Big Baby because he sort of reminded me of Glen Big Baby Davis in physicality, but come to realize it actually kind of fits his cooking style too.

In the quickfire, he made an “after-school beef patty with taleggio cheese and ketchup vinaigrette,” which sounds a lot like gussied up kids food. Cheffed up Lunchables and adult mozzarella sticks are all the rage these days and this seemed to fit squarely in with that. Still, Big Baby didn’t land a top three finish until the elimination challenge, with his “dry aged beef tartare with garlic toum.”

That sounds fairly mature, but the part that put it over the edge was probably his play on deviled egg (he froze deviled egg yolks with liquid nitrogen, shattered them and used them as a psuedo-crumble) which I would argue does also kinda fit the Big Baby theme. All that aside he was the only chef this week to use liquid nitrogen properly, which does bode well for him.

Is beef tartare basically beef ceviche? Discuss.

Judges’ Critiques: "I thought it had the perfect mustardy taste."

4. (-2) Vincenzo Loseto

AKA: Vinny Apple Soup.

Notable Quote: “There’s a lotta dough on the line this time, right?” (*crickets*)

Vinny Apple Soup has cooled down so much after a hot start that I’m starting to second-guess leaving him in the top five for a second week in a row. This week he made a chopped cheese patty and a play on strawberry shortcake, both of which went over only slightly better than his dough puns. I’d like to see him get back to his wheelhouse: producing delicious dishes that emerge from smoke-filled produce.

Judges Critique: "I just wish there was a surprising flavor."

3. Zubair Mohajir

AKA: Woolly Willy. Zubaz. Stonks.

Zubaz rode his hot streak through the quickfire round, as the only chef to make a saltfish patty after the guest judge specifically mentioned saltfish. There’s really no penalty for avoiding obviousness on this show, you’d think more of them would’ve figured this out by now. Zubair seemed like he was about to ride cleverness like that all the way to the finales when he made, guess what, another ceviche. Specifically, a king salmon crudo, but tomayto tomahto, you can’t sneak a ceviche by me. Sometimes I wish these chefs would “ceviche” it up, if you catch my drift.

Judges’ Critique(s): "As a stand-alone dish that was perfectly fine."

2. (+4) Katianna Hong

AKA: Veep. Hot Lips O’Houlihong.

I had Katianna in the top five or near it mostly based on vibes alone the past few weeks, but it seems my vibe check was accurate: Katianna went straight to the top with a double-win episode. Shouldn’t that get you double immunity? Discuss.

Anyway, Katianna made two pretty weird-sounding dishes this week, but that’s been her thing, and this time they were both working for her: A sweet potato, roasted kimchi, and bacon patty, followed by a chilled chicken and licorice soba noodles. Roaste kimchi? Can you do that?

And okay, I guess that second one doesn’t sound that weird. Nonetheless, Katianna noticed that the licorice flavor she was getting out of her licorice knobs (I assume you have to jack them off) wasn’t very licoricy, and if there’s one thing you should know about Top Chef judges it’s that they get very bitchy when a dish doesn’t taste like the stipulated ingredient. Maple-infused food better taste like maple, and so on. And so Katianna sauteeing her noodles in some Pernod to make them taste more like licorice was a veteran move.

Pernod isn’t quite the same as licorice knobs but clearly it worked out and now she looks like the chef to beat. Personally, when jacking off my licorice knobs isn’t producing enough flavor, I just stick them in my anise. But to each their own.

Judges’ Critique(s): "This was a dynamite dish."

1. (even) Shuai Wang

AKA: The Big Chill. Shugaze. Mumbles. Three Dog Knight.

Yes, Shuai only had one top three finish this episode compared to Katianna’s double win, but he seems like he’s been in the conversation in almost every challenge so far. Call it a hunch, but Shuai still looks like the chef to beat to me. For the patty round, Shuai made a curry chicken inside a scallion pancake that looked fantastic. His sweet corn semifreddo wasn’t quite as successful, but the judges seemed to love that too. He may not enunciate very well but he lets his food do the talking. “Eat me,” it says. “Eat me raw.”

Judges’ Critiques: "I like the flavor of the semifreddo." "It was funky and weird and really playful."