Top Chef: Last Chance Kitchen finale: Eddie Konrad vs. Michelle Minori
This was going to be a tough showdown between the two of them for many reasons, starting with the fact that this challenge was two-fold — it was about not only making the best dish, but also telling the best story. It was about a comeback after being knocked down, and doing something in order to deliver a pretty important knockout punch.
For Eddie, he wanted to do something to honor his late mother — she never got to see him become a chef and with that in mind, he really wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to do something that he would want her to take. She didn’t necessarily drift all that far from her culinary comfort zone and he wish he had a way to push her forward. This was an emotional dish, and Eddie was worried — he’s been in trouble before during emotional challenges. You could see even this challenge that he had a hard time talking about it.
For Michelle, meanwhile, she wanted to make something in a Nordic vein to honor one of her biggest culinary inspirations — and also to harken back to an opportunity where she was depressed and struggling. This was a chance her for her to have a comeback and she wanted to make this shine. Both her and Eddie have found a way to rise from the ashes, and that was before the two of them even entered this competition. Here, they had to try and find a way to do that all over again.
The judging
When we saw the two completed dishes, it was really hard to see which one was necessarily was going to be going through. We were shocked in some ways by how small the plates were, but this was mostly about just those couple of bites. It was about finding a way in order to make things perfect.
We imagine that the big challenge for Tom Colicchio tonight was trying to separate the quality of the food from the emotion of it. Michelle is the person who advanced! We love that Bravo actually revealed the result here, given that they have definitely made us wait to learn the advancing chef in the past.
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Who do you want to see return into Top Chef: Kentucky? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments. (Photo: Bravo.)