'Top Chef: Wisconsin' Episode 11 recap: Laying it all on the table in the Top Chef kitchen

Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Top Chef" Season 21, Episode 11, which aired May 29, 2024.  

Cheese festivals, bar snacks, supper clubs, sausages and fish boils ... as Season 21 winds down, the Wisconsin food traditions represented on “Top Chef” are thinning out, too, and this week there was very little Wisconsin representation at all.

But the challenges were still fun, engaging and fantastic showcases for the remaining six ... yep, we’re back to six ... chefs’ creativity in the kitchen. There was a guessing game in the Quickfire and a blank canvas waiting for the chefs’ creative expression in the Elimination Challenge. And we still have one episode left that was filmed in Milwaukee (expect to see a lot of familiar faces then).

Consider this a bottle episode, which took place almost entirely in the Top Chef Kitchen. (Which, by the way, was in a former ink printing warehouse in Oak Creek.) We didn’t see a whole lot of Milwaukee this episode, but before the recap, here are a few of the sites and celebs we caught.

What in MKE did we see?: The Milwaukee Art Museum, the Sixth Street Viaduct, Whole Foods Market, tons of drone footage of downtown Milwaukee

Celebrity sightings: Chicago’s Ever restaurant chef/co-owner Curtis Duffy

Where was the challenge set? The Top Chef Kitchen

How did Dan do? This is getting a little repetitive, but he did great. His tabletop with a smoky beet tartare at the center was super creative and playful, landing him in the top three for the fourth week in a row. Keep it going, Dan!

This late into the competition, the challenges are certainly taking their toll on the chefs, but the difficulty of being away from loved ones is hitting hard, too, as they shared during downtime at the start of this week’s episode.

It was tough even for Dan, whose wife, Kate, may only be a five-minute drive away, but he’s still not able to see her. It’s the thing he misses most about “being home” even though he’s been “home” in Milwaukee all these weeks.

Manny said the same thing about his fiancee back in Denver, and Michelle began tearing up when talking about her boyfriend waiting for her in Houston.

As much as they missed their loved ones, with just three weeks until the finale, the chefs couldn't afford to split their focus from the few challenges ahead.

The Quickfire Challenge: 24 Questions with Tom Colicchio

"I can’t believe there’s only five of you left,” judge Gail Simmons said as the chefs entered the Top Chef kitchen.

“Well, not for much longer,” judge Tom Colicchio replied.

He was there for the “Last Chance Kitchen” finale last week, crowning the winner who would return to the competition.

That’s right, we’re back to six cheftestants.

The Last Chance Kitchen winner was Laura, who’d eliminated both Soo and Amanda in last week’s two-part finale and walked back into the kitchen to mixed reactions from the rest of the chefs. They had smiles on their faces, but Laura had been a tough competitor, and she was one more person standing in the way of the “Top Chef” crown.

“Laura coming back is definitely the scariest,” Dan said. “She’s probably the biggest competition coming in.”

She’d have a chance to prove herself right away with a Quickfire Challenge, one that had to do with the chef’s coat Colicchio was wearing.

He’d just cooked a dish for Kish and Simmons, and this week, the contestants would have to mimic that dish as closely as possible ... going in with little more than a few table scraps to reference.

“We’re going to play a little game of 20 Questions,” Colicchio said. “I’m feeling a little generous ... 24 Questions.”

The chefs could study and sniff the plate that once held Colicchio’s dish, taking stock of the bits of ingredients that remained. To further identify the ingredients, they could ask one question about the dish before the 30-minute clock started, then three additional questions as they cooked. Tom could only answer “yes” or “no."

“This is genius,” Michelle said.

“Terrible...” Danny said, groaning.

For their first questions, the contestants started broadly. Michelle asked if it was a pasta dish (no). Savannah asked if it was a soup (no). Danny asked whether the dish contained a protein (yes!). Dan asked whether that protein “came from the sea” (yes!). Then Manny followed up Dan’s question by asking if the dish was ... a porridge?

“What the ... why?!” Dan said, exasperated, in a talking-head interview. “When was the last time you ate a seafood porridge?”

Not a whole lot to go on.

With those questions, the clock began. The chefs tore through the kitchen, blindly grabbing ingredients and preparing their stations as more questions raced through their heads.

Eventually, Dan asked whether the dish was Asian (yes!), which immediately changed the course of the dishes the chefs were prepping.

Questions like the inclusion of fish sauce (yes!) and lobster (yes!) helped narrow the focus, but the chefs were still cooking in different directions.

Manny was blending a tomato sauce ... until he learned there was no tomato paste nor fresh tomatoes in the dish. And when Savannah asked whether the dish was “a salad of sorts,” most of the chefs had to pivot when Colicchio answered “yes.”

She'd noticed a fresh set of six woks stocked in the kitchen — something she’d never seen there before. That was her tip-off to create a stir-fry.

Indeed, that was the pan Colicchio had used for his dish, a lobster stir-fry with ginger, bok choy, fennel, red onion, candied ginger, fish sauce, lime juice, Thai basil, basil, parsley, cilantro and curry leaves. It took him all of eight minutes to prepare.

One by one, the chefs brought up their approximations of Colicchio’s dish. Almost everyone included a broth or a sauce, even though no hints of sauce were left on the original plate.

No one nailed it, and a few were in the same ballpark, but the chef who came closest to the “spirit of the dish” was Savannah — that smart inclination to use the wok paid off.

It was her second Quickfire Challenge win in a row, adding $10,000 to her overall cash winnings, which now total $28,000.

Behind the scenes at the Quickfire Challenge

It was clear Colicchio had a great time putting the Quickfire Challenge together.

“It was fun!” he said.

“For you!” Michelle replied with a laugh. "Fun” and “chaos” aren’t quite the same, and that challenge was absolute chaos.

I know, because I was in the center of it — literally. I visited the set that day to sneak a peek at the Quickfire Challenge, and it was even more frantic than it looked on TV.

From the backstage production area, I watched on monitors as the judges described the challenge and cringed as the chefs asked the wrong questions. But I also got a chance to step into the thick of it, watching from the center of the kitchen as chefs rushed and shuffled to create their dishes.

You won't see me on screen because, for the few minutes I was in the kitchen, I was in the center of a circle of cameras pointed toward the chefs, capturing the hysteria at the chef stations.

It was intense, but I was impressed watching the chefs chop, dice, blend and cook ingredients going on nothing but a few yes-or-no questions.

The crew had stocked the kitchen with some “red herring” (philosophically, not literally) ingredients, too, to throw the contestants off track. Sneaky, sneaky!

All the cooking was done in real time. When the clock started, they scrambled. When it stopped, time really was up. No do-overs, no “just a few more seconds,” no editing for time. All three judges sat and watched the chefs frantically cook for the whole 30 minutes, and when I say the whole 30 minutes, I mean the chefs really cooked down to the wire. Not even a wipe of a plate was allowed after the clock ran out.

I only witnessed a couple production tricks that day. The crew called back a couple of the chefs to repeat their questions for sound clarity while the judges deliberated their favorite dish. And before the chefs even arrived in the kitchen, the three judges stood and asked an empty room how they felt after the tough fish boil challenge, as well as what it was like to have Laura back in the competition.

It was all for blocking purposes, so the camera could get clear shots of the judges talking to the contestants before they arrived on set. But once the contestants were in front of the judges, they asked all the same questions to get their real reactions. The magic of television!

More magic was having the chance to watch Colicchio prep and cook his dish — which he really did as the cameras were rolling and Kish and Simmons looked on. Obviously, he’s a master, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the close-up camera that caught him casually cooking.

“I’m calling this ‘wok lobster,’” he said of his dish as he cooked. Good one, Tom.

The Elimination Challenge reveal: Laying it all on the table

“Now that we have all the fun and games out of the way, let’s lay it all out on the table,” Kish said. “What do a crawfish boil, a kamayan and a grazing table have in common?”

“It’s eaten on a table,” Manny answered. (I’m starting to notice he’s the raise-my-hand-first kid in class, and I love it.)

And he’s right! For this week’s Elimination Challenge, the chefs would have to prepare a dish, sweet or savory, that’s plated directly on a tabletop surface.

“Instead of one great plate of food, give us one great table of food,” Simmons said.

The chefs would be serving a table of four: the three judges, plus two Michelin-starred chef Curtis Duffy, chef and co-owner of Chicago’s Ever restaurant.

They'd pick up ingredients at Whole Foods Market, where they each had $300 to spend on groceries.

On the drive there, they discussed ideas for their tableaus.

Michelle, who would’ve done a take on a crawfish boil if she hadn’t just participated in last week’s fish boil challenge, said she was thinking about a brunch theme. Though she wasn’t sure what her direction would be, she knew she’d incorporate some kind of biscuit.

Danny liked the idea of a paella, a dish that typically feeds a large group and would translate well to the table.

And Manny ... oh, Manny ... planned a risotto — the all-time most cursed “Top Chef” dish (and the one that sent home his BFF Kévin in Episode 7). But he was confident.

“I think I’ve made more risottos than I have tortillas,” he said.

Laura felt confident, too, seeing the table as a blank canvas to showcase her dessert dish, a play on sour cherry baklava.

Savannah envisioned the table as the perfect setting for a spin on zensai, the first course of a traditional Japanese kaiseki meal that features a few small bites of different dishes.

Dan would present a beet tartare, a vegetarian take on beef tartare that he’d planned strategically. Because it doesn’t need to be served hot, he wouldn’t have to worry about hitting the cold surface of the table and seizing up.

He was also creating a type of hybrid bread he coined a “puffin,” a cross between a crispy-edged English muffin with a fluffy center like a pita.

The next day, they’d have two hours to finish cooking and plate their tables.

The Elimination Challenge: A tasty tableau

Danny, the winner of last week’s Elimination Challenge, earned a 30-minute head start to cook on day two. He’d need it, as his high-art concept inspired by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat required some measuring and painter’s tape precision to pull off.

And he did. Using the table as a canvas, he created a “frame” of black garlic, zucchini and creme fraiche purees, marbled together in a rhombus shape surrounding the main dish of paella with black rice and piquillo pepper puree.

Simmons thought his use of white space added to the artfulness of his dish, and the judges had fun swiping the components of the main dish through the frame of purees.

They had fun with Dan’s dish, too, composed like a Jackson Pollock painting, with colorful splatters of beet, fried kale and pumpkin seed purees surrounding the smoky beet tartare, black garlic labneh and his signature “puffins.”

Duffy clocked the Pollock inspiration right away and also loved how the smokiness of the beet mimicked the flavor of actual beet. They all had fun mixing and matching the table components together, and Kish even created a “puffin sandwich” from all the elements.

The judges had less of a good time with Manny’s dish. He brought out a squid ink risotto with crab, scallops and shrimp, plus a Calabrian chili oil with sun-dried tomato puree and pesto Trapanese.

The risotto had seized up, thickening on the table, while the scallops and shrimp were overcooked. And the look of the table wasn’t as artful as the two they’d seen prior.

Michelle struggled, too. With admittedly shaky art skills, she’d spent the night before sketching out her mosaic table concept. But when it came time to plate, her vision fell flat ... and compact — comically compact — to the point where it took up roughly the space of an iPad in the center of the table with loads of negative space surrounding.

Making up her mosaic were cured salmon, salmon mousse, beet biscuits, pickled beets with capers, eggs with caviar, fig and bacon jam, and seasoned potato chips.

Simmons said the cramped dishes, plated right next to one another, needed room to breathe, and the components clashed.

“This doesn’t feel like her at all,” Kish said.

And while Savannah’s dish was exceptionally artful and dramatic, the pieces didn’t fall into place. She had six bites in total, from salmon nigiri to shrimp tempura to boiled and grilled octopus to oysters with aji amarillo sauce and caviar.

Colicchio winced at her “mushy” and “overcharred” octopus while Simmons found her tempura greasy. But the judges did all agree that ending the aspirational table with oysters was a thoughtful touch.

And then there was Laura, whose table was painted in sauces in pastel hues like you’d see in a retro ice cream parlor.

It was fitting, as she presented discs of clotted cream, sour cherry and honey mara? — a type of thick Turkish ice cream Colicchio described as “if mochi and ice cream had a baby.”

But that wasn't it. On top of each judge’s setting, she placed a thin circle of baklava, which they were instructed to break up to swipe up the sauces and mara?.

They were enchanted.

“The flavors are so clear and beautiful and so fun,” Simmons said.

“The table service, it all is with purpose,” Kish added. “Because if the ring of the baklava sat too long, it might soak in some of the ice cream.”

It was clear the judges were happy the table challenge wrapped up with a sweet ending.

Who won ‘Top Chef: Wisconsin’ Episode 11?

After the judges deliberated, they called the chefs back into the Top Chef Kitchen.

“Chefs, I think overall, we had a really fun time,” Kish said, while Colicchio added he felt that those who were able to relinquish control and be fluid with the table had the most success.

And the three most successful were Laura, Danny and Dan.

“What I love about all three is that you all really went for it, but the cooking was also very good,” Colicchio said.

But only one could win, and it went to the creator of the night's sweetest table: Laura.

“I don’t think there was not one smile at any point while we were eating your dessert,” Kish said, before Simmons praised Laura for creating a dramatic, exciting experience.

So Laura returned from Last Chance Kitchen with a first-ever win in an Elimination Challenge, a sweeping comeback, and one that would set her confidence on track.

“To come back from 'Last Chance Kitchen' and win this, it feels great,” she said. “It’s like the hard work is actually paying off, and I think the other chefs see it. too.”

Who was sent home on ‘Top Chef: Wisconsin’ Episode 11?

Manny and Michelle seemed the most insecure about their tables, and their intuitions were right: they served the bottom two dishes of the week. Savannah fell in the middle and would be safe for another week.

The judges liked the flavor of Manny’s risotto, but the texture was way off and his plating was unfocused.

And Michelle’s compact presentation forced the judges to eat everything in one bite, losing the distinct flavor between each dish.

“I have a note in my notebook, like, ‘What the hell is this?” Michelle said of her dish, laughing in the stew room before learning her fate. “I just couldn’t pull it together.”

And that led to the end of her run on “Top Chef.”

As Kish asked her to pack her knives and go, the rest of the chefs looked heartbroken. But in true Michelle fashion, she had a smile on her face.

“I appreciate you guys so much,” she said to the judges. “The feedback has been phenomenal, and you guys are welcome to Houston any time.”

“Oh, you’ll see us,” Simmons said.

“We’ll be there,” Kish echoed.

“I’m feeling OK, surprisingly,” Michelle said in her exit interview. “This whole thing has been challenging for me, personally, and career-wise. I hadn’t cooked in this manner in a very long time, and to be able to hang in there until top six... I’m a badass.”

It’ll be tough to lose fan-favorite Michelle as we go into the final episode of the season filmed in Milwaukee next week, but we’ll still see some familiar faces. For next week’s challenge, many of the Wisconsin-based chefs who’ve guest judged throughout the season will be back, tasting the contestants’ dishes that reflect their time spent in our state.

This next challenge will determine who will compete in the finals of “Top Chef: Wisconsin.”

How to watch 'Top Chef: Wisconsin': TV channel, streaming

Viewers can watch live on Bravo on Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. or stream the next day on Peacock, BravoTV.com or the Bravo app.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 'Top Chef: Wisconsin' Episode 11 recap: Laying it all on the table