![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/9ba9142ac2d1f02d4da99b2936525d2f72-topchef-ep3.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
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Top Chef<\/a><\/p>\n True Colors<\/p>\n \n Season 23<\/p>\n Episode 3\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 2 stars<\/p>\n **\n <\/p>\n \n Photo: Paul Cheney\/Bravo\n <\/p>\n Let\u2019s start at the end of \u201cTrue Colors.\u201d I say this not in a judgmental way, but in a based-on-the-evidence way: Nana\u2019s elimination seemed like it was only a matter of time. She hasn\u2019t yet served a dish that really knocked a significant number of judges off their feet. She\u2019s had consistent problems with execution and time management. I think that once the judges realized the Elimination challenge was consistently kicking her ass, they didn\u2019t anticipate her suddenly getting better at this. When Gail said at judging, \u201cShe\u2019s not locking in to where she needs to be,\u201d that felt like Nana\u2019s kiss of death right there. Someone would have had to do way, way worse than Nana \u2014 somehow serve less food than she did \u2014 to go home instead of her, and that\u2019s not what happened.<\/p>\n Now, the judges certainly seemed to believe that the vast majority of the contestants failed this Elimination challenge, and I don\u2019t really agree, hence my low rating for this episode. I\u2019m not entirely sure what the judges thought they were going to get, but everyone at that judging table felt weirdly haughty, even nasty, in \u201cTrue Colors.\u201d Were the judges really expecting neon blue, hot pink, or royal purple food to be served to them? Folks, we have my beloved Hook<\/a> fantasy feast sequence<\/a> for that. Be a little realistic here with the ingredients you\u2019ve provided. Use your imagination or something, I don\u2019t know, but I think the contestants got beaten down this episode when they didn\u2019t really deserve it.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s start at the Quickfire. The legendary Emeril Lagasse stops by, and the contestants have to transform livermush, the unappetizing-sounding Carolina specialty, into a dish that most people would actually like to eat. I\u2019m from Maryland, so like Anthony, I basically recognized this as a scrapple-style processed-meat product, and livermush \u2014 by North Carolina law! \u2014 has to have at least 30 percent pig liver among its other meatscraps and cornmeal binder. There are some quibbles about the smell, and Nana, Duyen, and Rhoda seem to hate the stuff. But broadly, people are more unfamiliar than grossed out, and there is a lot of nibbling on the chunky grey meat block as the contestants get going with their 30 minutes of cooktime to give livermush, as Kristen says, \u201ca little PR love.\u201d Do we think Sieger has actually eaten cat food? Please discuss in the comments.<\/p>\n People struggle early. Jennifer, dealing with lingering pain from a right shoulder injury a couple of weeks before filming began, leaves to get checked out. Nana talks a big game about how other people are making \u201cobvious\u201d dishes, but then she overwhips her livermush whipped cream and ends up with butter. Laurence won the first two Quickfire challenges and is battling some nerves. A lot of people are making eggs, and a lot of people are frying the livermush to crisp it up. Who\u2019s successful? Here are the dishes.<\/p>\n Duyen: Livermush and grilled chicken banh mi with pickled carrots. In the bottom are Nana, who tried and failed to coat her French toast in livermush (her dish didn\u2019t taste enough like it); Laurence (whose steamed egg was too wet); and Brittany (whose dish was too dry and too familiar). It\u2019s surprising to see Laurence down there, but Nana and Brittany have both been struggling \u2014 the former with finishing in time and the latter with delivering exciting dishes. Brittany\u2019s food seems serviceable but not very personally inspired, and given how much Top Chef has been leaning lately on tell us your story, TELL US YOUR STORY, judging, I get why she\u2019s having a hard time. Meanwhile, on the top are Duyen, whose banh mi, inspired by her Vietnamese heritage, was excellent; Anthony, whose livermush croutons Emeril adored; and Rhoda, whose meatballs smartly took advantage of the cornmeal binder in the livermush. It\u2019s nice that Anthony, who has been a little inconspicuous so far, ends up with the win and $10,000 in cash, but Rhoda\u2019s high placement again suggests she\u2019s the season\u2019s most dangerous competitor. (\u2026 For now.)<\/p>\n Elimination time! Kristen and Emeril announce the challenge by dropping a bunch of dyed sheets of cloth from the ceiling behind the contestants, and it\u2019s a little jarring, and I do not need jump scares on Top Chef, thank you. To honor the Carolinas\u2019 textile boom, the contestants will have to use natural food dyes to create a dish with two naturally dyed elements. They have access to a table full of natural dyes, like turmeric, hibiscus flowers, chlorophyll, saffron, freeze-dried fruits, and charcoal, but when Emeril and Kristen list the foods that reflect what they\u2019re looking for, they mention very concentrated-in-color items \u2014 rainbow bagels, tricolor pasta. I\u2019m sorry, but what? Take a look at that subtly hued fabric and tell me how the contestants are supposed to get the neon shades of rainbow bagels out of those natural dyes. There\u2019s incongruity here from the jump, with the judges expecting that the contestants will be able to work Wonka-style dayglow miracles, and that doesn\u2019t seem fair. I think Kristen and Emeril, and then Tom and Emeril during their kitchen pop-in, really should have assured the contestants that their food wouldn\u2019t be considered childish or goofy if they went in super-colorful directions. That felt like a subconscious fear from the contestants, as if everyone was afraid to go too bold and be labeled juvenile, and I don\u2019t think the judges encouraged them enough.<\/p>\n At least the contestants get a good amount of time \u2014 two hours to prep that night, then another hour the next day \u2014 and Jennifer comes back from urgent care with news that nothing is broken, but she probably has a pinched nerve. She\u2019s choosing to cook through the pain, and I\u2019m surprised more people, besides Jennifer, Laurence, and Brandon, didn\u2019t decide to make dough because it can carry so much color. A lot of the contestants just seem to be going with an \u201cI\u2019ll put some natural food dye in a white-colored ingredient and hope it turns out okay\u201d approach, and it\u2019s a little jarring to see a group that last week were so intentional about integrating peppers into every aspect of their dishes<\/a> now be so inconsistent. I also wonder why more chefs didn\u2019t use other ingredients to impart color into their dishes, like tea leaves, tomato paste, or fresh peas. Two things can be true at the same time: The judges\u2019 expectations could have been too high, and the contestants were so focused on using two dyes from the table that they lost sight of pushing themselves.<\/p>\n Sigh, okay, let\u2019s talk about Nana. Some other chefs have issues: Laurence swaps out cherry juice for dehydrated strawberries in a redo of one batch of bao dough; Jennifer can\u2019t make her milkbread dough the first day because her arm is in too much pain. But Nana\u2019s lagging furthest behind. She\u2019s one of the first two chefs serving her food, and she\u2019s cooking a chicken galantine stuffed with crab. She admits she\u2019s \u201cnot good with time management,\u201d so her plan is to prep everything the first day so on the day of service, she\u2019ll be \u201chome free.\u201d But that\u2019s not how things go. She overstuffed the chicken when rolling it, so when she goes to cook it the next day, the roll hasn\u2019t cohered. She has to unroll it, take some filling out, then reroll it and somehow get it cooked through, rested, portioned, and plated in an hour. It\u2019s making me anxious to even type this out. Time management is an important skill, but no matter how skilled you are, you can\u2019t create more time, and that\u2019s what Nana needed. The episode\u2019s editing implies that she takes the chicken out of the oven with only 30 seconds remaining, and there\u2019s no way to cut and plate 10 or so slices of chicken in that time. She only gets a blob of onion puree on each plate \u2014 no one gets the chicken \u2014 and she screams in agony again in the kitchen when time runs out, and it\u2019s really upsetting to watch how disappointed she is in herself. Here are all the dishes.<\/p>\n Brandon: Deconstructed lasagna Bolognese with marbled pasta, whipped ricotta, and an herb olive oil. I cannot emphasize this enough: The judges are really, really hard on the chefs, with increasingly shocked reactions and flabbergasted \u2014 even mean \u2014 comments from Tom, Gail, Kristen, and the guest judges. One of the guest judges genuinely complains that no one gave them blue rice. It\u2019s almost farcical? They really thought they were going to get a Crayola box of dishes, and there\u2019s no discussion that maybe they were being unreasonable, or maybe the judges understood the challenge differently from the contestants. There\u2019s a lot of grumbling from the judges about whether the chefs transformed the ingredients, but was transformation really part of the challenge? Wasn\u2019t it just \u2026 dye some stuff and feed it to the judges and make it taste good? This leads to a really unprecedented Judges\u2019 Table where Anthony, Laurence, and Brandon are congratulated for having the top dishes in both flavor and color, but then everyone else gets called forward as being on the bottom.<\/p>\n Judges\u2019 Table is actually pretty short, because Tom puts all of the other 10 contestants on the spot and asks if any of them were proud of or want to defend their dishes. Never do this! Never admit anything! Tom is going to tear you apart! He calls Sherry\u2019s pork \u201cflaccid\u201d and its accompaniments \u201cwacky.\u201d He says Oscar\u2019s knife cuts were \u201cnot precise at all.\u201d There\u2019s very little feedback, though, because Kristen doesn\u2019t even go through the motions of saying three people are at the bottom. (Who do we think would have ended up there? I\u2019m thinking Brittany and, shockingly, Rhoda, whose dish the judges describe as funky and murky.) Kristen simply says that Nana\u2019s dish was \u201ca shame\u201d and that she\u2019s eliminated because she only got one dyed element on the plate. Now, this is interesting, because Top Chef doesn\u2019t always take a hard line on whether people actually completed the challenge. Sometimes there\u2019s squishiness about what fulfilling the brief really means. I think that Nana\u2019s lackluster Quickfire, though, and her pattern of struggling with Eliminations added up to her expulsion. She\u2019ll be one of the first competitors on Last Chance Kitchen, but she\u2019ll miss season 22 winner Tristan Epps<\/a> and what looks like a soul-food challenge next week. Sieger, you know better than to serve okra to Tom, don\u2019t you? Don\u2019t you???<\/p>\n \u2022 The dishes I most wanted to eat this episode: Give me Jonathan\u2019s deconstructed lasagna, Jennifer\u2019s shrimp milk bun, Laurence\u2019s bao flight, and Brandon\u2019s pork. I also am contractually obligated to eat every single banh mi I ever see, so send over Duyen\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u2022 Last Chance Kitchen premieres next week, on March 30. Fingers crossed we won\u2019t have that \u201cHere\u2019s a ringer who has to fight their way all through LCK, against the already-eliminated chefs,\u201d format again.<\/p>\n \u2022 Unfortunately, some of the grey-colored food made me think of how fashion bloggers, authors, and cultural commentators Tom and Lorenzo<\/a> describe dreary-shaded dresses as looking like dirty dishwater and, well, yeah, that\u2019s what Duyen\u2019s charcoal-dyed parsnip puree looked like.<\/p>\n \u2022 I get a pinched nerve in my right arm from resting my elbow weird when typing too much, and it\u2019s absolute hell. Hoping Jennifer recovers soon. I also have to admit Justin endeared himself to me this episode by admitting \u201cI did a lot of drugs in art school\u201d and calling Jennifer \u201cPickle,\u201d which is a cute nickname.<\/p>\n \u2022 Also endearing: Laurence\u2019s mom being in a Chinese rock band. If you want a TV show along those lines and loved We Are Lady Parts, watch Riot Women on BritBox. It\u2019s great, it has Lorraine Ashbourne<\/a>, what else do you need?<\/p>\n \u2022 Also also endearing: Oscar saying \u201cThis is how gangs start, I think,\u201d about himself, Rhoda, Sieger, and Brittany sitting around in the Top Chef apartment, wearing matching sweatsuits and putting on face masks. Someone get this man a skincare campaign and some free products.<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Vulture Newsletter<\/p>\n Entertainment news, for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
\n Nana: Livermush French toast and maple syrup.
\n Anthony: Livermush p\u00e2t\u00e9 with tomatoes, cayenne, and livermush croutons.
\n Justin: Brown butter hollandaise, cornmeal fried livermush, roasted grapes.
\n Jonathan: Livermush Benedict.
\n Sherry: Livermush foie gras with potatoes and pickled sunchokes.
\n Laurence: Cantonese steamed egg with livermush and marinated tomatoes.
\n Sieger: Piccalilli beurre blanc with seared livermush (The Great British Baking Show fans, you might remember piccalilli from \u201cPastry Week\u201d last season<\/a>).
\n Oscar: \u201cLivermushroom\u201d toast with parmesan whipped cream.
\n Brandon: Arp\u00e8ge egg with livermush (inspired by Chef Alain Passard\u2019s dish from his Paris restaurant Arp\u00e8ge).
\n Brittany: Crispy livermush, p\u00e2t\u00e9, grape mostarda.
\n Rhoda: Pork and livermush meatballs inspired by Spanish alb\u00f3ndigas, peaches, Marsala Dijon sauce.<\/p>\n
\n Nana: Yassa onion puree (chicken galantine not served).
\n Jennifer: Milk bread bun stuffed with pickled shrimp, served with red eye gravy.
\n Anthony: Mole negro, mole rojo, and mole verde with chicken.
\n Laurence: Flight of three bao: yellow chili pork, green curry beef, strawberry matcha.
\n Brittany: Pan-seared scallops with broccoli and chlorophyll puree, daikon, carrot and saffron broth.
\n Justin: Lamb and clams with dyed vegetables.
\n Sherry: Charcoal-brined pork chop with rainbow sp\u00e4tzle, red cabbage, kumquat and sourdough vinaigrette.
\n Jonathan: Cochinita pibil (slow-roasted pork), jalapeno cilantro crema, turmeric rice, hibiscus pickled onion, habanero salad, and guajillo oil.
\n Sieger: Vadouvan-poached scallop, braised daikon, braised calamari with squid ink and onion soubise.
\n Oscar: Tricolor red snapper, corn nuts, and leche de tigre.
\n Rhoda: Mussels in escabeche with marbled potatoes, mojo rojo, and mojo verde.
\n Duyen: Brioche-stuffed roasted chicken with preserved lemon tagine and charcoal parsnip puree.<\/p>\n