-
- Good to be here, I guess.
- Eddie and Michelle are the last two chefs
eliminated from the competition.
proving they're both contenders. - Make it sexy!
- Will Michelle rise to victory, and rejoin the ranks?
- Oh! Damn it.
- Or will Eddie dig deep
and prove he wants it more.
- I have an idea of what I'm going to do.
And I'm just gonna do it.
- Only one of them will earn another chance
at the title of Top Chef.
- Woo! - Let's go!
- This is "Last Chance Kitchen."
Brought to you by Hidden Valley Ranch.
♪♪♪
- I want to get back on "Top Chef"
because I came here to win.
And I went down for a good dish,
So I think I should be in the finale.
I think I have the skills to do it and compete.
I have no problem saying that,
so now it's time to take out the knives
and get back in.
- Hey Eddie. You made it far enough
in the competition where you actually just
walk right into the finale of "Last Chance Kitchen."
- Good to be here, I guess, I dunno, not really--
- Michelle, think you can beat him?
- I want to. Eddie is tough.
I was not expecting Eddie.
He's one of the strongest chefs here, I think.
But I know I can't let that get the best of me.
- This is it. Head to head.
Whoever wins, back in the competition.
Eddie, you seem all season long
to have been struggling with some of these challenges
where you had to find some inspiration
and get it on a plate.
- Me and my wife's favorite band together is Cake.
I immediately thought of her
and the first thing I ever cooked for her.
- I think maybe it got away from you.
- I guess I just overfocused on the story.
I really did.
- You had a really great run.
But you were knocked out
in a Muhammad Ali tribute challenge.
I like the dish a lot,
but something was just-- seemed to not connect.
- What you created was a beautiful plate of food
that was technically correct.
But lacked true connection to the challenge.
- That sucks.
- You start to tell the story of the fight of the century.
It was Ali's first professional loss.
But I felt you had some inspiration there.
- I might not necessarily
bring myself back to some beach or something,
- Right. - But everything I do
Is a culmination of where I am now, so.
- Got it.
- It hurts knowing that I do have the skills
to stay in the competition and compete,
I just didn't connect to that challenge
and I feel like I have unfinished business.
- In boxing, you get knocked down,
you have to get right back up.
♪♪♪
- So today in the final prize fight
to return to "Top Chef."
I want you to tell me a story
of your life's most difficult knockout.
Think about that time that you were down.
Think about the time, maybe you thought
you weren't gonna cook anymore.
And tell me how you overcame it.
Take that inspiration and put it on a plate.
Just like Ali in the Fight of the Century,
it was his first professional loss,
but he got up, dusted himself off,
and became the greatest fighter in the world.
Since it's a finale,
I'm gonna give you five minutes to think
about what you'd like to make, think about your story.
Figure out what ingredients you're gonna use.
And then you'll have 45 minutes to make your dish.
It's time to head to the ring.
And your time starts now.
[clapping] - Woo!
- My greatest personal knockout was losing my mom.
She didn't see me become a chef.
I wanna make a dish,
that if she was around, I would cook for her.
- Four minutes, guys.
- We didn't have a huge food culture,
and my mother wasn't-- you know, she cooked,
but she wasn't the best chef.
She ate very simple things, very basic things
and wasn't a huge fan of fish,
but I would try to get her to try different flavors
if she was still around. So I find halibut.
I find the cauliflower,
then I just started going with flavors,
that will go well with these two flavors.
- One minute guys. One minute!
- The thing that I think of first
was a time I was struggling
with a lot of depression, self doubt,
I was ready to quit being a chef,
and was lucky enough to meet Magnus Nilsson.
And hearing him talk,
basically saved my career.
- Five, four, three,
two, one.
- I miss you all, by the way.
- We miss you more. - Aw, miss you too!
- What are you making?
- I'm gonna do a scallop dumpling
'cause Eddie took all the halibut.
I decide that I wanna make a dish based around
the recipes that I saw
in Magnus Nilsson's "Nordic Cookbook."
So I want to create a Nordic style
seafood dumplings served in a brodo.
- Eddie, you look beautiful today.
- Thank you.
- [laughs]
- The first thing I do is actually cook my beets.
The beets are used with some other vegetables
as the base of the dish,
which will create like a little bed
for the dumplings to sit on top of.
How difficult is this one?
- Well, I have an idea of what I'm going to do.
And I'm just gonna do it.
I'm nervous I have to do an emotional dish
because I was on the bottom for an emotional challenge,
when I cooked a dish for my wife.
And now I'm cooking a dish for my mom.
And if you get sent home for that stuff,
it makes it twice as hard.
- Hey Eddie. - Yeah.
- What kind of feelings are you putting in your food?
- I'm gonna put all of them.
- All of them.
- I wanna add texture to the dish,
but I don't want to just throw something on there
that's just crunchy for no reason.
So I'm using cauliflower as a textural element.
I pulse it, I cook it down with macadamia nuts.
And verjuice, and chili and onions.
And just try to make this deep, rich, cauliflower relish.
- Chefs, you have 30 minutes left. 30 minutes.
- What are you making? - I'm making a broth right now.
And I'm going to lightly poach my dumplings.
And I'm gonna serve them with beets, fennel and carrots
that are tossed in a preserved lemon sauce.
- That sounds complex, can you do this?
- I hope so.
I need to make sure these dumplings are on point.
They are so simple,
yet technique driven at the same time
that they have to be made perfectly.
'Cause if they're not, they're not good.
Oh, damn it.
- Eddie. - Chef.
- How you doing? - I could be better.
- Why's that? - You know, I wasn't ready
to get out of the competition just yet.
- What are you connecting to, what is your story?
What's that moment?
- My biggest knockout was losing my mom.
- Okay.
- Something in terms of that, because it's something
I would love to have cooked for her if I could.
- How old were you when you lost your mom?
- I was, uh, 22. - Sorry to hear that.
And it was my first week back in Philadelphia
when I started truly cooking professionally
she never got a chance to...so. - Yeah.
I'm doing something-- I'm sorry.
- Okay. - I don't talk about that.
But I'm doing something that I would love
to have made for her.
- I gotcha. All right. - Thank you, Chef.
There's not a day that goes by
that I don't think about my mom.
I don't usually talk about it at all.
I love my mom,
and I don't really handle things like that really well,
so I just focused on work
and cooking helped me get through it.
- Michelle, how are you doing?
- Good, everything's coming together.
- Huh? - What?
- Five minutes, guys. - Five minutes left.
- Good? - I dunno, we'll see.
The hardest part is to pour yourself out there
in 45 minutes.
It just pulls you apart mentally,
It's coming down to the wire,
and I'm getting everything together,
just making sure everything's seasoned.
I think it would make my mom proud.
I mean, I feel like she'd be
proud of anything I made, but.
I think she'd be more proud
if I made it back on to the competition.
- Make it sexy!
- One of you guys is gonna make it back onto "Top Chef."
Let's go! - Woo!
- Michelle! You got this.
- Thirty seconds! - Let's go!
- My dish looks really beautiful
it's very vibrant, and colorful,
and I look over at Eddie's, and his is very clean.
It looks gorgeous.
I definitely feel a little nervous
when I see Eddie's dish.
- Five, four,
three, two, one.
- Wooo! [applause]
- Good job.
♪♪♪
- Hello, Chef. - What's in the dish here?
Why did you do it?
- I did a scallop dumpling
with a beet and fennel veg on the bottom.
And a broth made from
all the trimmings of the vegetables
with fried kale and creme fraiche.
So my biggest professional knockdown
was that moment when you just think about quitting.
I was working at Swedish American Hall at the time.
And learning Nordic cuisine.
Magnus Nilsson came in, and talked to us.
And it was the moment where I regained a lot of hope
and passion for what I do.
- Magnus can do that.
- So I wanted to capture all those flavors.
- Mm-hm. Great. Thank you. - Thank you.
- Hey, Chef. - Hey Eddie. You'd mentioned
this is a dish you'd want to cook for your mother.
- This is something I would cook for her.
It's something in the style. - What's in here?
- Mustard seed, cauliflower, macadamia nut.
green apple verjuice,
fish is dusted in a little todorashi
then cooked in brown butter.
And then glazed with a miso brown butter--
miso, yuzu, kind of brown butter thing.
- Thanks.
- Thank you.
♪♪♪
- Chefs, obviously there's a lot at stake here.
Someone is getting back into the competition.
Someone will go home.
All season long, you guys have been fighting for this.
You've both made it really far.
And I'm sure you both want to get there.
You know, these personal stories, I--
actually, um, I can relate to them.
There were times in my professional career
where maybe I didn't want to stop cooking,
but clearly, the excesses of our industry,
I started to think that maybe I'd made a bad choice.
Um, but I got through it.
Eddie, my father passed away when I was 26,
and he never got to see me become a chef.
And it's something I regret to this day,
so I can relate to what you're saying.
Thanks for telling your story.
I know sometimes it's tough.
We all have personal journeys to get through.
So I appreciate you digging deep.
Now for the food.
These dishes are both really good.
I know you've heard me say it all season long,
these dishes are very good, they are.
I mean, you guys are good chefs, and you're cooking great food.
Michelle, I'll start with your dish.
I love the story, I love that there was a moment,
where you were working at a Nordic restaurant,
and you thought about giving it up,
and a chef made the difference.
I like the inspiration for the dish.
Dumpling was perfectly cooked.
And I gotta say I was really surprised
because typically when you're making mousse like that,
if you don't keep it chilled
it usually clumps on top, but it wasn't at all.
But it wasn't at all.
It was really soft, really subtle,
and the flavor was really good.
I like the vegetables, I like the sauce taste
of each of those vegetables.
Celery leaves I thought were really great,
I also liked the texture from the kale.
The only thing I would have done differently,
This dish doesn't need olive oil.
- Okay.
- And I know you cook a lot of Italian food,
and that becomes a crutch,
and you want to put that olive oil on everything.
This didn't need it.
That said, I really enjoyed the dish.
- Thank you.
- Eddie, I could see the kind of food that you cook
It's very precise,
it's very clean, it's very pristine.
That's your style,
and you do it really, really well.
The halibut was perfect.
The texture of the cauliflower
was absolutely smooth, and silky
I thought you were having a hard time
with that relish.
It was fantastic.
I thought it was a perfect foil for the fish.
It did have some texture.
But also it was bright at the same time.
The negative on your dish, Eddie,
I thought the cauliflower was on the bland side.
And the fish probably could've used
a bump up of salt as well.
That's about it. So I gotta say.
I like them both.
This is tough.
Obviously only one of you are going back in,
and I gotta go with my gut.
That's a dish that, when I tasted it,
I wanted to go back for more.
The chef that is going back into the competition...
Is Michelle.
- [whispering]
Thank you.
- You know, Eddie, it was really awesome man.
- Being on "Top Chef," it's only made me better.
I learned a lot about myself,
mentally, physically, emotionally.
I understand that I bottle things up,
and I don't really deal with things.
It's not the first time you've heard it, so.
Maybe I have to start working my things out
through my food.
I haven't ever worked for myself yet,
and maybe that's what I have to do.
- Thanks.
You're gonna need this. - Thank you.
Appreciate it.
- Oh my gosh, I'm so excited and proud of myself.
To win for making a dish that meant something to me.
To take all those horrible life experiences,
and really turn that into something great.
- Congratulations. - Thank you.
- You're back in the competition tomorrow.
- Yes, Chef.
- I'll see you then. - Thank you.
- I'm so ready to come back, and kick some ass.
Thank you guys. You guys are awesome.
♪♪♪
- I feel extremely confident
coming back into the competition,
because people underestimate me.
Really, they should be bringing it,
because I'm gonna bring it.
Did you miss me?
They should be really scared.