5 takeaways from Top Chef's 'Goodbye, Wisconsin' episode (2024)

This story contains spoilers, so if you haven’t watched the latest episode of “Top Chef” but plan to watch it, you might want to read the story later.

***

“Goodbye, Wisconsin,” the 12th of 14 episodes of “Top Chef: Wisconsin,” aired Wednesday night on Bravo. It also can be found on the streaming service Peaco*ck.

This was the last episode of Season 21 filmed in Wisconsin before the remaining four contestants leave for a Caribbean cruise to Curaçao for the penultimate episode.

Chefs discuss the season

The episode started with the chefs comparing notes about their “Top Chef” experience. Manny Barella Lopez called the competition a roller coaster that could go in anybody’s favor at any point. He said when they’re back at their respective restaurants creating dishes, they’re going to get a little bit of PTSD and think, “What would (judge) Tom (Colicchio) say?”

Milwaukee contestant Dan Jacobs said it was cool to come in not knowing any of the other chefs and leave with a bunch of new friends. To which cheftestant Danny Garcia said, “or an uncle or a grandpa,” referencing that Jacobs is older than the rest of them.

Blind taste-test challenge

Host Kristen Kish welcomed back guest judge Paul Bartolotta, co-founder of the Milwaukee-based Bartolotta restaurants.

For the quickfire challenge, the chefs had five minutes to taste and identify as many ingredients as they could in a blind taste test. The chef’s palate is clearly one of the most important tools used in cooking, Bartolotta said.

The chefs, while blindfolded, tasted 26 ingredients in alphabetical order, they later learned, starting with anchovies and ending with za’atar. Savannah Miller came in last, identifying only nine ingredients correctly. Barella Lopez won, correctly guessing 23.

Then they had to create a dish using the ingredients they guessed correctly. They were also able to use ingredients from a limited pantry.

One of the 26 was rosemary, and all of them quickly and correctly guessed it, except for Jacobs. After acting super confident, he misidentified it as oregano.

The more ingredients the chef identified, the more options they had while cooking.

Weird combo tastes like ‘trash’

The chefs had 30 minutes to make their dish. Jacobs prepared a skirt steak with eggs and a sauce using watermelon that he said tasted like trash. He went back and revised it, complaining that he had shells in his eggs.

Jacobs would later call it a train wreck. Colicchio said he knows Jacobs can cook but would never know it from that dish. Bartolotta piled on, saying that the smell that came from the dish didn’t make him want to eat it.

Miller had the judges’ favorite dish with a lightly breaded fried pork loin with two sauces and a Caesar salad with cheddar cheese. It was her third quickfire win in a row.

Barella Lopez won $5,000 for guessing the most ingredients correctly, and Miller got $10,000 for creating the judges’ favorite dish.

Preparing a dish showing growth

For their final elimination challenge in Wisconsin, the chefs needed to look back on the season and prepare a dish that showed how they’d grown as a chef in that time. “Was there a breakthrough or an aha moment?” Kish asked.

Each chef got $150 to spend at a specialty store and $200 to use at Whole Foods Market. They would have three hours to prep and cook at Bartolotta’s Harbor House restaurant.

Judging would be Bartolotta, Kish, Colicchio and Gail Simmons and a table of local chefs that included Madison chef and L’Etoile owner Tory Miller.

Potatoes and cream a hit

Savannah Miller won for her potato pavé, a layered potato-and-cream dish that usually has to be made overnight. She prepared it in three hours, and the judges loved her story of growth.

Barella Lopez was sent packing with a red snapper dish that not only didn’t represent his growth, the judges said, but was undercooked in at least three of the servings. Colicchio complained that his fish was raw.

“I’m taking ownership of what I did wrong,” Barella Lopez said.