TOM: Tonight, Chris enters "Last Chance Kitchen."
I'm going to continue to fight and get back in the competition.
His perplexing pasta was a recipe for disaster.
He should label how much remaining flour to add.
He'll have to face Sara, who had a score to settle.
I'm not surprised to see him.
Can he not only beat Sara, but my time
as I put the pedal to the metal?
This is "Last Chance Kitchen,"
created with BMW.
♪♪♪
It's a tough feeling to be eliminated from the competition.
I made it to top seven, and getting this far
and then kind of having the plug pulled from you.
Chris, have you made sourdough gnocchi before?
Not sourdough gnocchi, no.
The gnocchi itself was just
really, really dense.
Chris,
please pack your knives and go.
Thank you.
This is the last chance for me to prove myself
to Tom that I can cook.
I'm still going to fight my hardest to get back in.
[woman gasps]
- Chris! - CHRIS: [chuckles] Hey.
- SASHA: Hi, buddy! - CHRIS: What's going on?
SASHA: Oh, my God.
Hi, Chris. Welcome to "Last Chance Kitchen."
Thank you, sir.
I'm expecting to see Tom there,
and a little confused as to what's going on.
Well, as you all can see,
we're doing things a little bit different today.
Aah. What's happening?
[laughter]
Truth is, Tom had to make a pit stop,
so he asked me to get things started.
Don't worry, he'll be rolling in shortly.
What does that mean, "rolling"? [laughs]
Chris, sadly, your last challenge,
well, it was a recipe for disaster.
BYRON: Chris, how you looking on time, dude?
Me, I'm able to get it done, but knowing
that I'm stretched this thin, I'm a little worried
that Melissa might not be able to.
MELISSA: It's a total clumpy loose mess.
Oh, no.
There wasn't any description
on how tight that dough should be,
whether or not you should add more flour if needed.
There's a lot of components going on there, yeah.
You had to write a recipe that anyone could follow.
You had "Top Chef" all-star champion Melissa King
scrambling around the kitchen because your gnocchi
was pretty complicated.
Sure was.
Chris has received some pretty harsh feedback.
I think that there's still
a lot of figuring out what his food is, maybe?
So, like I said, Tom's gonna be joining us shortly,
but in the meantime, let's check in with him remotely.
Sara, you can stand next to Chris...
- Sweet. - so you get a better view.
- What's up, Sara? - [both laugh]
Hey, Richard. Hey, chefs.
Welcome to a speedy round of "Last Chance Kitchen."
Here's the deal: while you guys are cooking,
I'm gonna have a lot of fun with this new BMW X6 M
here at the racetrack.
I love to drive and I love to drive fast
and I hear that this car's a beast.
I can't wait to see what it can do.
I also want to see what you can do,
namely in this challenge.
Chris, you have a tendency to overthink things
when you have way too much time,
and that has repeatedly landed you on the bottom.
So for this challenge,
we're not gonna give you any time to think at all.
- Oh, [bleep]. - You'll notice,
there's no time on the clock in the kitchen.
That's because we haven't determined
how much time you'll have yet.
So your time will be determined by how long it takes me
to take this car, race it around that track
ten times, plus the amount of time
it takes me to get back to the kitchen.
Once I enter the kitchen,
you will have one minute left to complete your dish.
A lap counter will show you my progress on the monitor.
Keep track of it as I go along.
You can create any dish you want
with the ingredients found in the kitchen
- Whew. - But I want you to pick a lane
and cook great food.
Okay.
Chefs, start your engines.
[car starts]
Okay, chefs, 10 laps.
Your time and my time starts now.
RICHARD: All right, chefs, burn rubber.
Whoo! All right.
Yeah, get those vegetables, girl.
Huge shocker for everyone:
Sara runs for the vegetables. [laughs]
I grab some celery root,
shiitake mushrooms and scallions
because these are ingredients that I can cook really quickly.
Tom is not going to give us any time to think.
First, no idea how big the track is.
Second, no idea how fast Tom can drive.
SARA: Knowing that we have 10 laps
really doesn't mean anything to me because
it could mean we have less than 10 minutes,
it could mean we have 15 minutes.
It's a little scary not knowing how much time you have.
Let me just go veggie on this.
- SASHA: What'd you get? - CHRIS: Halibut.
- "Hali-bat"? - "Hali-boo-tay," yes.
I'm definitely thinking of products
that I'd be able to execute within a short timeframe,
as well as a dish I have prepared before.
- [tires squealing on monitor] - Oh.
RICHARD: One lap is completed.
One lap, wow!
AVISHAR: That's 1:05 for one lap, just FYI.
All right, where we going, Chris?
I'm going to do a seared halibut with aguachile.
- SARA, AVISHAR: Aguachile. - All right.
- SASHA: Where you going, Sara? - Oh, I'm gonna braise...
some turnips, because this is one of my favorite...
things when I go to a Chinese restaurant.
- I think she's turning up. - [laughs]
I love what flavor the turnip takes on
as it's braising and that miso
is really gonna add a nice saltiness to it.
♪♪♪
SASHA: All right, two laps completed, y'all.
Two laps? What the [bleep]?
Are you doing anything exciting to the halibut?
- Or keeping it straight up? - Oh, straight up, girl.
Tom's cruising through those laps.
This could be the shortest amount of time
that we've had to prepare a dish.
And I know that I can use the char of the grill,
use the flavors that I'm putting into
the aguachile and focus on a sauce
that I can build quickly around the halibut.
Whoo.
♪♪♪
Eh. Looks nice.
Ooh, ponzu! How many laps?
- AVISHAR: That's four laps. - SARA: Heard.
RICHARD: All right, Sara, how we doing?
I'm doing a beef-braised turnips with pickled nori.
- Wow. - Pickled nori.
I add a little bit of ponzu rice wine vinegar
and a touch of sugar,
and then reduce all of those things together
and add some soaked nori, and then you get
this really strong punch of flavor.
Five laps remaining, okay?
Tom's completed five, he's got five left.
Sara, can you make those turnips happen
- in that short amount of time? - Sure hope so.
I don't know how long it's gonna take Tom,
and I need to cook these turnips
and cook my nori down
and then I'm going to fry up some kale.
SASHA: Yeah, girl, strip that kale.
I'm really not sure how I'm gonna get everything done.
You gonna make crispy kale?
You know, just a little crispy action.
All right, Chris, what type of dish are you cooking?
So I'm working on a pan-seared halibut
- with an aguachile right now. - Okay, I like that.
Halibut with aguachile, big bright flavors,
something that you can cook very quickly.
- Absolutely. - You're--go, go.
- Don't wait for me. - Good, good. Thank you.
I'm getting hungry here.
♪♪♪
All right, six laps completed.
Come on, Chris, push.
And he's going faster every lap.
I'm getting worried. The time for each lap decreases,
so there's really no time to adjust anything.
Typically I spend about five to six minutes to plate,
but that's about a third of the time that I have
for this challenge.
Chefs, Tom has completed seven laps.
- SARA: Seven laps, heard. - RICHARD: That means he's only
got three laps left,
and then when he get in this kitchen there's only a minute
when he walks in the kitchen.
Heard that.
RICHARD: Is it as intense watching as it is competing?
- I am as excited. - Really?
- Okay, there it is. - Yeah.
One of the joys of this season has been
being a former competitor watching and, like,
feeling it while it's happening.
- SASHA: Right. - I guess what I'm saying
is I'm nervous for them right now.
I'm a little scared right now.
The turnips are still a bit crunchy, but
it's really too late to turn back now.
♪♪♪
The only element that I'm concerned about
is the halibut.
It takes 10 minutes to be able to cook the fish perfectly,
and it needs constant adjustment
to make sure that the side that you're searing
isn't getting too dark and you don't cook the fish unevenly.
Tom has completed nine laps.
When he completes 10,
that means he's coming back to the kitchen.
You get a minute when he walks in.
Heard.
What raceway is this?
I want to go here afterwards.
There's a raceway right over there.
- It's super close. - Sara, keep cooking!
I'm sorry!
Can you stop asking Sara
- about the local raceways? - It was important.
She's busy right now.
♪♪♪
All right, chefs, my GPS says
I'm back in the kitchen in about five minutes.
I'll see you there. I'm hungry.
[starts engine]
All right, so chefs, Tom's completed his 10 laps.
He said it's gonna take him maybe five minutes
to get back to the kitchen.
One more minute when he enters the kitchen.
SARA: Heard.
- Feeling good, chef? - I'm feeling all right.
All right. You got a lot going on.
- Chris, you good? - Doing good.
♪♪♪
How you feeling about it, Chris?
Feeling good. I'm gonna do this fennel oil.
I'm gonna take those fennel tops and blend those in with oil
and I heat that just by the friction of the blender
just to bring some brightness and acidity to the dish.
- How you feel, Sara? - It's cool.
This dish is gonna be very umami-forward
and super meaty despite the fact that it is
ultimately just turnips.
♪♪♪
All right, chefs, Tom has arrived.
♪♪♪
Chefs, Tom Colicchio is in the building.
♪♪♪
Oh, look who it is, everyone!
[bleep].
All right, chefs, he's back.
You have one minute left to cook.
SASHA: Oh, we're going in the oven.
That last minute I know just runs really quick,
so to get everything onto the plate
is going to be a challenge of its own.
RICHARD: How was the racetrack?
Oh, it was pretty awesome, actually.
How's it going here? What's going on?
RICHARD: It's going pretty good.
It is, uh, a battle of umami...
- 30 seconds left! - ...and salinity
- versus acidity and spice. - Okay.
I'm really proud of the flavors I was able to develop
in the timeframe that we did have.
- SASHA: How's that oil, Chris? - Whoop whoop!
What's the time? Yell it at me.
AVISHAR: 20 seconds.
I love this dish. It's very me.
There's a lot of flavor going on
and it is vegetables. [laughs]
TOM: Five, four, three,
two, one. Okay, chefs.
- SASHA: Amazing! - AVISHAR: Good job.
[Sara exhales]
SASHA: Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.
All right.
- Hey, Chris. How you doing? - All right.
[indistinct chatter]
TOM: Sara, tell me, what's in this?
[laughs] Uh, I think one thing
that you have taught me is to
embrace my inner quirkiness. [laughs]
So I went super hard with some beef-braised turnips,
pickled nori, and some shiitake mushrooms.
And you were salty umami?
- Yeah. - You did that.
[Tom chuckles]
Yeah.
Chris, what did you bring us?
One thing that I've learned is that, uh,
some of the judges were looking for
some bold and spicy flavors,
so I wanted to incorporate that
with a seafood and pepper broth,
and then I made a fennel oil.
Good.
It certainly is a much more straightforward dish than...
some of the dishes you've served.
Yeah. [laughs]
I've had a lot of time to think.
[laughter]
TOM: Both really good.
So this is "Last Chance Kitchen,"
- just delicious food, huh? - Exactly.
- This is how we roll here. - Nice.
Yeah, yeah. It's fast and delicious.
What do you think?
Yeah, chefs, uh, really good job.
This is my first time in "Last Chance Kitchen."
Chris, I think you cooked the halibut perfectly.
It's a tricky fish to not overcook.
And I love this idea of the aguachile.
You have bright, acidic, you have these vibrant colors.
- Very tasty. - You clearly took notes,
because it's not overly complicated
like some of your dishes were.
It's got some bright notes,
and it's clearly spicy.
Sara, you said that you are quirky,
and you let it fly on this plate.
- I sure did. - I love the idea
of not really having protein as the focus of the dish.
Lots of umami. Lots of salinity. Great job.
Yeah, this dish is-- it's really complex
for the short amount of time that you had to cook this.
And I like the texture to the turnip,
the mushroom and the seaweed.
I like what you did here.
Okay, we'll be right back.
- Wait... - Whew!
Hell, yeah, guys.
- That's was fun, huh? - That was ----ing great.
[Sara laughs]
TOM: So chefs, we asked you to cook a dish
in the amount of time that it took me
to go around the track 10 times
plus the ride back here.
But only one of you will get to take the victory lap.
[laughs] Oh, God.
And the checkered flag goes to...
♪♪♪
Sara.
Yes! [laughs]
Oh, my God.
I won with turnips! Hell, yeah.
Very excited. [laughs]
Honestly, I wanted to beat Chris.
There's just that part of me that felt like
he should have been eliminated
and it shouldn't have been me to leave.
So beating Chris just-- it just felt good.
Sara, congratulations.
Sara, this is--this is great.
- Thank you. - Also, it's a good dish.
This is spectacular.
[laughter]
Chris, thank you so much. You can exit the kitchen.
- CHRIS: Thank you. - SASHA: Love you, Chris.
- SARA: Whoo! - Love you all.
It definitely hurts not being able to get back
into the competition, but I'm going to take
the feedback that the judges and all-stars have given
throughout the remainder of my cooking career.
I have so much more to give and learn from
that this isn't the last for me.
Sara, listen, I've been around the track once or twice
on "Top Chef" as well, and I just want to let you know
that you have an incredibly refreshing point of view.
- Thank you. - Keep it up.
- We'll see you next week. - [exhales]
I think I've been successful here on "Last Chance Kitchen"
because I'm cooking the food that I like to cook.
On "Top Chef," I was so unsure of
what the judges' reaction was gonna be.
But now, if I like it,
I'm gonna stand behind it
and--and that's gonna be the end of it.
[squeals]
I won with turnips!
I'm ready for the next challenge.
I feel really strong.
Definitely want to continue
these really good lucky vibes that I got going on.