The Final Toast
Season 23
Episode 14
Editor’s Rating
3 stars
***
Photo: Paul Cheney/Bravo
Well, that was a nice full-circle finale of Top Chef, wasn’t it? Not super memorable but also not egregiously misjudged, it was a showcase for three chefs who seemed evenly matched, if not quite operating at the extreme highs of previous seasons’ competitors. Rhoda’s ultimate win after her Last Chance Kitchen elimination wasn’t without bumps; I really think she should have gone home for that meringue dish, and I think she should have split that tostada money with Sherry. Within this meal, though, she served a number of interesting, unexpected dishes that required real technical proficiency and honored her family and her background. For a long time in the finale, I thought that Sherry was getting the winner’s edit, and hearing Rhoda’s name was a real surprise. Good for her!
Before the winner’s announced, this is a fairly straightforward episode: over seven hours of planning and prep, a special dinner where the contestants’ family members show up, and the final Elimination Challenge service itself. Nothing majorly dramatic happens, no one flames out in the kitchen, no dish is an absolute failure. Sieger’s here, and there’s no discussion of his meltdown at Judges’ Table! Unfortunately, there isn’t an aspect of the finale that strongly references the Carolinas setting. It’s a fine episode but a somewhat forgettable one, and I wish there had been something to tie it back to the season’s location aside from the chefs staying put rather than traveling to an exotic destination, as they have in seasons past. (More evidence for people assuming the series’ budget was cut this season.) I know that finale episodes are usually pretty flexible and generous in letting the contestants do whatever they want. But in a season that felt so infrequently interested in the Carolinas overall, requiring use of, like, even one Carolinas-specific ingredient would have been a welcome way to acknowledge these two states. Oh well.
The episode begins with Rhoda, Sherry, and Laurence walking across the Mile High Swinging Bridge on North Carolina’s Grandfather Mountain (nope, nope, could not get me on that thing, nope) and meeting Kristen and Tom, who tell them that the Elimination Challenge will be a four-course progressive meal that needs to be inspired by the chefs’ own lives. Each course should be a toast to someone or something that has had an impact on them, and the chefs will have $2,000 to shop, five hours to prep that day, and two hours the next day. They’re then randomly assigned to previous finalists, who will serve as mentors and provide feedback on their ideas. (How long did this “mentorship” last, 15 minutes?) Top Chef: Chicago winner Stephanie Izard talks to Laurence, Top Chef: Kentucky and Top Chef: World All-Stars finalist Sara Bradley talks to Sherry, and Top Chef: Colorado winner Joe Flamm talks to Rhoda. Stephanie cautions Laurence about time, Sara cautions Sherry against serving a dish with a duo of proteins because the judges will inevitably critique one against the other (advice that Sherry does not take, although it works out fine), and Joe encourages Rhoda to stick to her no-dessert plan because her progression makes sense without it. Is Rhoda just not a dessert person after the disaster with the meringue? Seems like it.
Speaking of the disaster with the meringue, Sieger’s back! Sherry’s advantage from winning the penultimate Elimination Challenge is that she gets to pick her sous-chef from the three most recently eliminated chefs, and she chooses Anthony. She then chooses Rhoda to pick next, and Rhoda picks Sieger. (That long hug they share and their overall flirty energy … yes, I think all the commenters Picking Up on a Vibe were correct.) That leaves Laurence with Jonathan, and he’s fine with it. The energy of these duos is interesting. Sieger is doing a really great job keeping Rhoda on task (he’s the one who catches that she didn’t have enough butter in her cart), and Laurence is asking Jonathan for advice on how to cook duck because, as we know, he didn’t go to culinary school and he’d like some advice. (Unfortunately, Laurence and Jonathan end up screwing up the duck.) But Sherry isn’t allowing any room for Anthony to have input on her dishes. She has a plan, and she’s treating him truly like an assistant. When Jonathan asks Anthony to blink twice if he’s okay, I understood where the concern came from. I also get where Sherry’s headspace is at, though. She’s in the final and Anthony isn’t. Would taking his advice be prudent or practical? Arguably not.
Also similar between Rhoda and Laurence are their approaches to their progressive meals. They’re both taking a lot of inspiration from family members, like Rhoda’s dad and Laurence’s mom, who ran a Cantonese bakery. Rhoda and Laurence are also both making versions of congee. In contrast, Sherry’s meal is more weighted toward the Michelin-starred restaurants where she’s worked. (Which was Sherry’s M.O. in the beginning of the season, too; she leaned a lot on her pedigree before switching to cooking more Brazilian food.) To that end, Sherry’s loading up on high-end ingredients; I laughed a lot at her two gigantic carts full of ingredients as she boasted to Anthony, “We have money!” Why not live large on Top Chef’s cash? I would! Anyway, everyone’s prep goes mostly okay, with intermittent hiccups for Laurence and Jonathan (who decide to sous-vide their duck early, which seemed to dry it out) and for Sherry (who after their first prep changes around some of the dishes and comes in on the day of service with new instructions for Anthony). And it’s very emotional when Kristen, Gail, and Tom reveal to the chefs that they have visitors from home: Sherry’s older sister Meire, Rhoda’s younger sister Katrina, and Laurence’s wife Rary. For dinner the night before the final cook, they each make a dish — Meire makes picanha steak; Katrina the Filipino stew kare-kare; and Rary a Malagasy curry from Madagascar, where she’s from — and talk about why each of their relatives deserves to win. Everyone gets teary, and Rhoda, Sherry, and Laurence vow that they’re going to try even harder.
Service is the next day, and here’s what the chefs serve for their progressive menus to a number of guest diners including their mentors, Food & Wine magazine EIC Hunter Lewis, and chefs Eric Ferguson, Camari Mick, Nok Suntaranon, Brandon Jew, and Val Cantu. (The latter two are the only official guest judges this episode.)
Rhoda:
• First course: Roasted sweet potato with miso butter, fresh uni, and charred sweet-potato leaves
• Second course: Abalone lugaw (Filipino rice porridge) with abalone and liver mousse
• Third course: Tortang talong (Filipino grilled-eggplant omelet) with XO sauce, vinegar, crispy pork belly, chili, and fish sauce
•Fourth course: Braised short rib with liver sauce and vegetables
Sherry:
• First course: Moqueca (Brazilian seafood stew) with deep-fried frogs’ legs, langoustine, chayote, zucchini, and shiitake mushrooms
• Second course: Potato dumpling with pig-ear broth, matsutake mushrooms, and pickled hon-shimeji mushrooms
• Third course: Tournedos Rossini with braised beef tongue, Carolina Reaper leche de tigre, and seared foie gras
• Fourth course: Hominy porridge with corn-husk ice cream, toasted Brazil nuts, candied peanuts, and candied ginger
Laurence:
•First course: Pork and century-egg congee and youtiao (fried Chinese dough)
• Second course: Trio of dim sum, including a daikon cake with black garlic hoisin, lobster sticky rice with XO sauce, scallop and shrimp roll with fresh tofu skins
• Third course: Seared duck breast with sorghum glaze, fermented tofu, hoisin, and duck broth
• Fourth course: Broken birthday cake with peaches and caramelized white-chocolate cream
There’s a lot that the judges like. Tom loves Rhoda’s pairing of sweet potato and urchin, calling it something genuinely new. Everyone adores Laurence’s trio of dim sum, and there are no critiques of Sherry’s beef-tongue dish. But there is a recurring issue for both Laurence and Sherry: They often plated too early. Laurence’s congee thickened because it sat and wasn’t served hot. Sherry’s broth in her second course isn’t warm, and Kristen criticizes the dish as “chewy but slimy at the same time.” Tom says Laurence’s duck was overrested and got tough. And Sherry starts plating her dessert far too early — plating ice cream with seven minutes to go? It immediately melts, and although she has Anthony sprint the bowls into the walk-in freezer and then sprint them back out with one minute before service, the mistake was already made. No one gets a true scoop of ice cream.
At Judges’ Table, it becomes clear that each chef had a little bit of a misstep somewhere. Sherry’s dumplings, Laurence’s duck, and Rhoda’s eggplant (too mushy for some diners) are identified as the weakest links. At this point, I still thought Sherry might take it, because her beef-tongue dish was so faultless. But Tom seemed to have real issues with two things: Sherry’s ice cream being melted, and Laurence’s duck being so over. And once Kristen mentioned that Sherry had both her favorite and least favorite dishes of the evening, that felt disqualifying — as did Kristen’s comment that at least Rhoda gave them dishes “as intended.” I’ll be honest that this felt less like Rhoda won and more like Sherry and Laurence both lost, but hey. Rhoda was overwhelmed when they announced her name, and if this helps get her parents off her back about not having kids, more power to her.
• The dishes I most wanted to eat this episode: everything Laurence made, except for the duck, which I do not eat on principle of finding them too cute.
• I’m sad for Laurence, who clearly put so much of himself into these dishes and really took the community theme of his final meal to heart. But I’m also absolutely going to hit up his restaurant Rubato if I’m ever in Massachusetts.
• When Rhoda admitted that she wishes she felt the confidence in herself that her sister felt in her … that was a real Nadiya Hussain–style moment of relatable vulnerability, and it made me like Rhoda more.
• Of these three chefs, I absolutely see Sherry coming back for a future season. She wanted that win badly, and I think she was genuinely furious to have lost. Her smile after Rhoda’s name was announced looked real tight.
• Thank you to the fantastic Caroline Framke for writing last week’s recap; you should absolutely read her piece on the Wachowskis’ masterpiece Bound. And thank you all for reading this season!
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