After the final five chefs take a road trip to Asheville and cook in the woods, one of the contestants has a major meltdown.
Photo: Paul Cheney/Bravo
I’ll give Sieger this: I am never going to forget him. His crashout at the end of this episode was unlike anything I’ve seen on Top Chef before, and it made me go full sicko mode. First I said “Oh no,” and then I was leaning forward on the edge of my seat. This man asked for a copy of the official Top Chef rules because he thought he was somehow going to get the judges in a “Gotcha!” And then he read those official rules on camera, even as they of course affirmed that the judges can eliminate contestants for any reasons they want! Incredible. I’ve complained about a lot of things this season of Top Chef has done to try and zhuzh itself up, like giving judging power to random diners and inviting influencers to events. I still think those decisions are diluting the series’s brand. But Sieger’s pushback was so outside of what I expect from an episode of Top Chef that I have to respect his gumption. Or his delusion? Both, I guess.
That holy shit, oh my god, I can’t believe Sieger is doing this moment is not the only reason I’m giving “Appalachian Celebration” four out of five stars, though. After the frustrating design of both challenges last week (and how weirdly the show “celebrated” Greenville without, as commenter msmovielover pointed out, actually addressing the history of the Unity Park location), I think Top Chef did Asheville right. Hurricane Helene had a devastating impact on the North Carolina city in the fall of 2024, and “Appalachian Celebration” focused on how awful the floodwaters were and how much restaurant owners stepped up to feed people in need. I think there could have been a little more spotlight given to those chefs and whatever community groups or nonprofits they partnered with, actually, but overall, this felt like Top Chef actually homing in on the Carolinas and sharing something about the states that viewers might not otherwise know or understand. Good job there, Top Chef producers.
“Appalachian Celebration” begins with Kristen walking into the chefs’ Greenville accommodations with two boxes of absolutely delicious-looking doughnuts from local place Scout’s, and my brother and I used to play a game when we were kids called “Pause!”, where we would “pause” whatever commercial or program was on the TV, and use make-believe to claim whatever was on it for ourselves. One of us would then not get the hypothetical thing the other one got (which were always things our parents, probably reasonably, refused to buy us), and we were trying to out-snipe each other for Creepy Crawlers kits or NERF guns. Anyway, yes, I said “Pause!” as soon as those doughnuts came on-screen; I live in a county with a Dunkin monopoly and I hate it. I need a fresh, hot doughnut from an independently owned bakery like the U.S. needs universal healthcare, which is to say, a goddamn lot.
Let me move before I reach 500 words on these doughnuts alone. Kristen tells the chefs that they won’t have a Quickfire challenge this week. Instead, they’re going to spend that time with Asheville-based chef and Top Chef: Houston competitor Ashleigh Santi, who will welcome the chefs into her restaurant Good Hot Fish, give them a primer on local Appalachian ingredients, and introduce them to other Asheville chefs whose restaurants were affected by Hurricane Helene. For the chefs’ Elimination challenge this week, they need to use at least two Appalachian ingredients and cook for 200 people — their biggest crowd yet — in the Union Exchange campground in Charlotte. (I was surprised that the chefs weren’t staying in Asheville to cook their dishes, to be honest.)
I remember liking Ashleigh’s energy when she was on Top Chef, and she’s warm and informative as she teaches Laurence, Jonathan, Rhoda, Sieger, and Sherry about ingredients like hominy, pawpaws, and leather britches (beans kept in their pods and strung on thread to air dry). She takes the chefs over to Chai Pani from chef Meherwan Irani, who talks about okra, and they drive by places like Corner Kitchen, The Bull & Beggar, Neng Jr.’s, and Master BBQ. Their final stop is The Market Place, where chef William Dissen discusses fermentation and pickling, and lets the contestants taste pickled green strawberries, chow chow, and sour corn, which is like, really, really sour. Jonathan’s grandmother gave him sour corn as a child and he was “scarred for life” because it was so acidic, so now he’s determined to use it and redeem his childhood palate. Sherry’s advantage from winning last week’s Elimination challenge is that she gets to choose two Appalachian ingredients that no one else can use, and lucky for Jonathan, she does not choose sour corn. She goes with October beans, which are similar to the black-eyed peas she grew up eating in Brazil, and chow chow, because she’s cooked it before in the competition and has been successful. Interestingly, the chow chow is jarred, so Sherry’s accepting a prepared product — and heading off Laurence, who had been planning to use chow chow. Sorry, buddy.
The chefs head back to Charlotte to shop, and take note of this: Sieger encourages Rhoda to buy and use buckwheat in her stuffed-cabbage dish. Once the chefs are in the Top Chef kitchen for their three hours of prep time, Tom and Ashleigh swing by to see which Appalachian ingredients they’re using. Here’s what everyone chose:
- Rhoda: Buckwheat, oyster mushrooms, pawpaw vinegar, apple butter.
- Jonathan: Sour corn, ramp bulbs, pickled green tomatoes.
- Laurence: Leather britches, dilly beans, sumac, pickled ramps, sourwood honey.
- Sieger: Sorghum molasses, rye flour, greasy beans, muscadine shrub.
- Sherry: October beans, dilly beans, chow chow (jarred).
Everyone has a strong vision for what they’re making. Sherry’s using the October beans to make batter for her acarajé fritters (the Brazilian version of the West African-inspired accra fritter that Anthony made back in the premiere), and she’s pairing the fritter with vatapá, a stew traditionally made with nuts, shrimp, bread, coconut milk, and red palm oil. Rhoda feels “vulnerable” about making a stuffed cabbage inspired by the lumpia she grew up eating in the Philippines, but she’s determined to get out 200 portions of the dish. Laurence is going out on a limb and making bread so his fried-fish sandwich can be served on a fresh roll. Jonathan’s taking a big swing by using the extremely acidic sour corn as the base of his relish for his smoked trout and crab cake. And Sieger is going with something he’s made before: chicken liver mousse set with gelatin; he’s certain that the mousse will set overnight so he can portion it out using piping bags the next day. In terms of strategy, it makes sense — everyone else’s dishes will require frying within the 90 minutes the chefs have before serving their 200 guests. If Sieger’s mousse sets up and all he has to do is pipe it out, pair it with crackers, and top it with relish, he should be golden.
That’s not what happens. Cooking in the woods is a challenge, but just for Sieger. Sherry methodically scoops her fritter dough into quenelles and fries off 120 of the 200 she needs in an hour. Rhoda pivots and changes her plan from 200 individual stuffed cabbages to a few long roulade shapes, made of overlapping cabbage leaves, that she can then cook within 90 minutes and slice. And although Jonathan and Laurence are frying their seafood cakes and fish patties as the diners roll through, they keep up with the demand. When Top Chef cut from the lines swarming everyone else’s stations to Sieger’s station without any diners, it was clear he was in trouble. People aren’t out here eating chicken liver like that, you know? Here’s what the chefs made:
- Rhoda: “Filipino egg roll” with stuffed cabbage, pawpaw ponzu, apple butter mostarda, and buckwheat chili crisp.
- Jonathan: Mountain trout and crab cake, sour corn and peach relish, sage and apple aioli.
- Laurence: Catfish sandwich with a leather britches bun, sourwood honey mayo, and pickled slaw.
- Sieger: Chicken liver pâté, rye cracker, pickled watermelon rind, and greasy beans.
- Sherry: October bean acarajé, vatapá, pico de gallo chow chow, and garlicky shrimp.
We’re so down to the wire now that the judges are going to nitpick, and they do. Although chefs Meherwan Irani and William Dissen dined with the judges, only Ashleigh was an official guest judge joining Kristen, Tom, and Gail at their table in the woods, and they seem very aligned on their thoughts. On top are Sherry, Rhoda, and Laurence. Ashleigh says Sherry’s peanut sauce got lost amid the shrimp and chow chow (which Sherry mixed with pico de gallo, to put her own stamp on the prepared product), but the fritter consistency was good. Rhoda’s was ambitious and well-executed, the judges say, and Rhoda makes sure to shout out Sieger for encouraging her to buy the buckwheat for her chili crisp, which the judges loved. And although the judges wish they had tasted more of the leather britches in Laurence’s bread (especially because that was an ingredient that he really connected with, seeing the drying process as similar to a “village Cantonese thing”), Kristen says it’s “incredible” that he got out 200 sandwiches with the same correct ratio of ingredients. There are very nice words all around, but the judges didn’t have one bit of critique for Rhoda. She gets the win, and an advantage in next week’s Elimination challenge.
That leaves Jonathan and Sieger. Jonathan’s dish was really acidic, the judges say, and they wish there was something fatty — maybe more of the aioli — to round out the plate. But, Tom praises Jonathan’s cook on the cake, and during dining, he and Meherwan ate their entire servings; the judges clearly enjoyed the dish. Sieger, meanwhile, didn’t just make the slightly odd choice of serving chicken livers, a highly divisive dish, to 200 diners. He also messed up the texture of the mousse when he transplanted it from pans to piping bags, and it just wasn’t a good choice for a hot day in the woods. Ashleigh says the texture was “incredibly runny,” and after Sieger and Jonathan are dismissed, Kristen says she found Sieger’s mousse “completely, completely off-putting,” and only took two bites of it. When Gail said she was “at a crossroads” … girl, why? The mousse was a pile of gloop. You might applaud the concept, but as Kristen said as they ate, “A great idea can only carry you so far on Top Chef.”
But apparently, getting eliminated was a surprise to Sieger! Look, I understand the core concept of his argument to the judges, because I’ve complained about something similar before in these recaps. Sometimes the challenges feel too vaguely articulated, like last week’s sorta-rabbit, sorta-Michelin Elimination. Or like the judges aren’t exactly prioritizing the outlined terms of the challenge if they happen to just enjoy one dish more than another dish. Or like the judges’ feedback doesn’t go into the nitty-gritty of the supposed specifications of the challenges. But I don’t understand what Sieger thought he was going to accomplish here. Maybe he was still resentful from being eliminated during the whole-hog challenge, and he was getting some things off his chest?
His snarky “What was the challenge?” question to the judges, and defensive insistence that the judges should have tasted the mousse in his cooler, and repeated utterances of “okay,” “cool,” “that’s fine,” “it is what it is” — it was such a spiral. I was really impressed by how Kristen handled his defensiveness (her “The mousse completely fell apart … Would you call that successful?” was super cool under pressure), and I’m so curious what the judges said to each other when the cameras stopped rolling. And yeah, I think Jonathan’s response was pretty composed, too. Sieger thought, what, that he could insult Jonathan to his face and say his dish also lacked technique, and Jonathan would agree with him? Jonathan telling Sieger not to “end this way” was a very nice way of basically articulating, “Get over yourself, dude.” Sieger doesn’t seem like he will, because he was always so prickly about taking criticism or feedback. But hey, we’ve seen one-time hotheaded contestants completely change. Maybe Sieger’s banking on a return invite for a future season.
• The dishes I most wanted to eat this episode: Everything but the chicken livers, please.
• For the rest of my life, I am going to be checking every bakery for Kristen Kish, toting her Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit Card, offering to buy people doughnuts. Lord, I’ve seen what you’ve done for others …
• You know what I didn’t do? Look up the influencers who were invited to the Union Exchange event. Sorry, guys, you’re not getting clicks or ad revenue from me!
• As soon as the chefs stepped into Chai Pani, I thought, “Hey, I recognize that interior-design style!” That’s because I’ve been to Meherwan Irani’s Atlanta restaurant, Botiwalla, which serves Parsi-influenced street food. (Parsis are descendants of Iranians who migrated to India a couple hundreds years ago; their food is a mash-up of the two cultural traditions.) Botiwalla is incredible; you should go. The episode also featured his Spicewalla spice blends, which are also incredible; you should buy.
• I too would have screamed at a gigantic snake in my midst, even if it was a harmless black snake. Shout out to swing grip Spencer Pharr for so casually picking up the snake and removing it from Judges’ Table. But that made me wonder: What was the bug situation? What kind of magic did production work to keep mosquitos and other pests away as the chefs were cooking?
• Tom fedora sighting! I wish I could peek into that man’s hat closet.
• For anyone who wanted details about Duyen’s outfits, she shared some product details and links here.
• Two cute moments: Sherry telling a pair of diners how inspired she was by learning about the Filipino restaurant Neng Jr.’s, and then realizing they owned the joint; Jonathan telling Sherry “you’re a beast” at Judges’ Table about her fritters.
• One final thought about Sieger: I also watch Taskmaster, and one of the best recurring bits on that show is when a contestant tries to argue with Taskmaster Greg Davies about how many points they received for a task, and it never, ever works. He’ll let them try to make their case, and then he’ll maintain his tyrannical-ruler persona and deny them any amended points or preferential treatment. I thought of Greg as Sieger tried to persuade/outsmart the judges. Sieger probably didn’t genuinely believe the judges would be like, “Oh, Sieger, you’re right, we’ll send Jonathan home instead!”, but maybe saying his piece was more important than logic in that moment.
• Next week: Is that Tom eating food off a … clothespin? Binder clip? What was that?
