‘Top Chef’ season 21 premiere recap: Who passed the first ‘Chef’s Test,’ and who had to pack their knives and go?

“Top Chef” returned for its 21st season on Wednesday night, March 20. So what happened in the season premiere episode, “Chef’s Test,” when 15 brand new cheftestants came to Wisconsin to celebrate the culinary culture of the Midwest and compete for the grand title?

Entering this first episode of the competition to win a feature in Food and Wine magazine; an appearance at the Food and Wine Classic in Aspen, Colorado; and $250,000 in prize money were Manny Barella, Kaleena Bliss, Kevin D’Andrea, Alisha Elenz, Danny Garcia, Valentine Howell Jr., Dan Jacobs, Savannah Miller, David Murphy, Kenny Nguyen, Laura Ozyilmaz, Charly Pierre, Amanda Turner, Rasika Vekatesa and Michelle Wallace.

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Kaleena is immediately inspired by the presence of season 10 “Top Chef” champ Kristen Kish as the show’s new host, but it’s a “double-edged sword” to have to impress a host and judge who has competed before. “If you’re half-assing it, she’s going to know.” It’s also an intimidating crop of contestants, including several James Beard Award nominees and several chefs who have worked in Michelin-star kitchens. Savannah is immediately feeling the pressure because she hasn’t achieved either in her career yet. And there’s one chef who has actually competed on “Top Chef” before. Kevin was a finalist in the French version of the series, so we’re getting some more of the international flavor we got from last year’s “World All-Stars” edition of the show.

The competition already starts with a twist. Kristen, Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons announce that there is no Quickfire Challenge for this first episode. And there are a few new ground rules to lay out before the Elimination Challenge. First off, there will be no immunity for winning Quickfire. But there will be immunity for winning an Elimination Challenge. But the Quickfires are still important. More than $100,000 in prizes are up for grabs in this season’s Quickfire Challenges.

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Elimination Challenge

Okay, straight into the Elimination Challenge, where Kristen puts the contestants to the “test.” To start, the chefs draw knives with Tom, Kristen or Gail’s name on them. The judges will put those chefs through tests of their choosing, but it’s an individual challenge — whew! — no teams just yet. Kristen had to make soup for Emeril Lagasse at the start of her season, so she challenges her chefs (Amanda, Dan, Manny, Charly and Laura) to make soup. Gail gives her chefs (Kevin, Alisha, Rasika, David and Michelle) a test that many cheftestants have failed in the past: stuffed pasta.

Michelle has been barbecuing for years so she hasn’t made pasta in ages. And David says, “I f*cking hate pasta.” So off to a good start!

Last up are Tom’s chefs (Danny, Valentine, Kaleena, Kenny and Savannah). Improperly cooked proteins are a scourge on “Top Chef,” so he’s having them roast a whole chicken and then serve some white meat and some dark meat, but compose a complete, cohesive dish. Tom wants to be blown away.

The chefs have 30 minutes and $200 to spend at Whole Foods. Then the next day they’ll have two hours to cook and serve their meals. Shopping will be a first for Kevin, since they don’t shop for food on French ‘Top Chef,” so he enjoys the novelty. David’s collecting ingredients for a stuffed gnocchi, which he has never made before, “but let’s just roll the dice.” Oh boy. He’s also planning to use offal; he and his partner opened a restaurant focused on food waste — “sustainable sexy baby, yeah!” Interesting guy. Kinda hope he sticks around.

Kenny’s making sriracha hoisin butter for his roast chicken. He’s opening a Vietnamese restaurant called Pretty Boy. Besides being a chef, he also wanted to become a backup singer. “I hit all the notes,” he boasts, until he tries to show off his “elite” falsetto and it’s shall we say, not on point. That’s okay, he’s being judged on his cooking.

Valentine’s style of cooking is “eclectic, just like me.” His mother is Italian-American, and his dad is Jamaican, so his upbringing strongly influenced how he cooks food to this day. He also likes to have fun with cooking, and honestly I think that’s an important part of succeeding on this show. A playful attitude could stop you from overthinking your dishes, which has been the downfall of some chefs.

Time for drinks at The Pfister. “I guess I’m the only chef from Wisconsin that’s here, so guys, I just want to welcome you to Milwaukee and to Wisconsin,” says Dan. But Kaleena’s not far. She’s currently based in Chicago. So is Alisha. The food in the Midwest is the opposite of what Kaleena is used to; her style is coastal from the Pacific Northwest. “The food here is cheese, it’s beer, and it definitely is meat and potatoes, but I mean that in a good way.”

Amanda is into astrology — “I’m a witch,” she says … jokingly? She’s a Capricorn and doesn’t fit into traditional norms. She’s a nerd, a gamer, a biracial Black woman. Representation matters to her, so she feels like this is her “destiny.” That’s so Capricorn of her … maybe? I know nothing about astrology.

The next day the stuffed pasta group gets to work. Michelle is going to stuff lobster and ricotta into whatever pasta shape she feels she can pull off. Pasta is simple to make but with little room for error. Kevin is doing a squid ink ravioli lobster bisque with a fennel puree. Alisha is joining David on the dangerous path of stuffed gnocchi. “It’s all going to come down to who’s going to do it the best,” she says. And how. Being the worst could put you right in line for elimination.

Rasika doesn’t have a lot of experience with pasta. “With South Indian food, I take inspiration from how it’s traditionally made, and then I ‘Rasika-fy’ it to make it something that’s never been done before,” she says. “It might piss off some people, but I’ll deal with that later.” But she could piss off the entire world if she wants. Today she only needs the judges at one table to like her.

The soup crew gets to work next. Dan is making a dish that’s Mediterranean-inspired since that’s the theme of the restaurant where they’re cooking today. And he’s adding an Asian flair to it. He and his partner, also named Dan, have a Chinese-American restaurant appropriately called DanDan; Chinese food is his comfort food.

Meanwhile, Manny is making chicken stock in a pressure cooker for the first time, “so we’re going to learn today.” “Top Chef” is a show for taking calculated risks, but attempting a preparation you’ve never tried before isn’t always a wise calculation. “But I am on ‘Top Chef,’ I’m not going to do store-bought chicken stock, especially for the soup challenge.” He’s not wrong about that.

Charly likes how his stock tastes, but he still needs to pickle his shrimp. Meanwhile, Amanda is making soup while roasting chicken and making dough. “I’m kind of combining the three challenges. It’s complicated.” Too complicated, though? She might be biting off more than she can chew; she’ll also need to make sure the soup is the star of her dish since she got the soup challenge.

The judges arrive at the restaurant, including guests judges Paul Bartolotta and Adam Siegel, and so do the roast chicken chefs. “Good roast chicken should have a crisp skin, the breast meat should be cooked through roughly at the same time as the leg meat is. It has to rest a little bit, but not too much. It’s Culinary 101,” Tom explains. “If you can make a good roast chicken, I think that’s a sign of being a good cook.” So regardless of what else the chefs put on their plates, they’ll need to make sure they’ve got the basics perfected.

Danny is making a classic roast with herb butter. He doesn’t want to try to disguise the chicken. He wants to deliver perfectly cooked meat. Kaleena is making a curry sauce to go with her chicken. Kenny wants to deliver as much Vietnamese spice as he can. Valentine feels his dish is bright, loud and boisterous, “just like your boy!”

Gail explains what she’s looking for from her pasta team: “The thing about stuffed pasta is there’s so many variables: first and foremost the dough, then there’s the filling, there’s the cook on each, and then there’s of course the sauce that brings it all together. And that makes for a very complex balance, and if you don’t nail it, there’s just so much that can go wrong.” So just like with the roast chicken, there’s a lot of minute detail you need to get right for a seemingly simple task.

Tom starts questioning why David is still rolling out dough so late in the challenge. Kevin is worried he’ll shame his Italian heritage by mucking up his ravioli. As Michelle rolls out her pasta, she’s fighting the inner voice that tells her she doesn’t know what she’s doing. As the clock winds down, the pressure winds up.

Kristen on soup: “The thing with soup is, everything has to be really well balanced. It’s trying to bring a bunch of different things to the party, and you still need everything to shine properly.” Soup man Manny is starting to feel impostor syndrome as he watches the elegant soup preparations around him. He’s going in a different direction and doubting himself. Luckily, he thinks his chicken stock worked out. But Michelle still isn’t sure about her pasta shapes as time’s almost up.

And just like that, it’s “Hands up!” and time to serve the judges.

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Meal Service

Kevin (Pasta): Squid ink raviolo stuffed with lobster and shrimp, bisque and fennel puree

David (Pasta): Mushroom stuffed gnocchi with speck and chicken liver gravy, mascarpone and Calabrian chili

Rasika (Pasta): Keema stuffed kozhukattai with kurma

Alisha (Pasta): Ricotta gnocchi stuffed with mushroom béchamel, truffle goat cheese and preserved lemon

Michelle (Pasta): Ricotta and lobster stuffed pasta with charred corn sauce and chorizo

Kristen thinks Kevin’s dish was tasty. Tom praises the flavor. Gail likes the seasoning, but the pasta itself was thick and felt weighted. Meanwhile, Michelle’s pasta had great thinness, it was delicate, impressive for someone who doesn’t make a lot of pasta day-to-day. In fact, her pasta might have been the best of the bunch, and the flavor profiles came through. David’s gnocchi was a “miss.” It wasn’t really a gnocchi and wasn’t even really stuffed. Rasika’s dish has a good initial flavor profile, but it wasn’t really a pasta dish. Alisha’s dish also had good flavor, but the pasta was under-seasoned, and the goat cheese and mushroom were too assertive.

The judges bring the chefs out and name their favorite: Michelle! If she can win with a pasta dish, the pressure is on for her to deliver when the challenge is more in her wheelhouse. Unfortunately, the judges’ least favorite was David. He says pasta’s not really his thing, so Gail thinks he gave up before he even started.

Charly (Soup): Corn and ham soup with pickled shrimp

Manny (Soup): Green pozole with chicken and charred salsa verde

Dan (Soup): Tomato and fennel broth with seafood

Laura (Soup): Yuvalama mint yogurt soup with bulgur meatballs, morel and maitake mushrooms

Amanda (Soup): Chicken and dumplings with citrus gremolata

Charly’s corn soup was great, but the shrimp wasn’t pickled enough. Still, it had great texture. Manny’s dish was “everything I wanted,” says Kristen. Dan’s dish had something new with every bite, and the seasoning was “incredible.” Laura’s soup had a great idea behind it, but it was like two different soups put together. Amanda’s composition was beautiful, meanwhile, and was comforting, but it’s impossible to get over how salty it is.

The judges’ favorite soup was Manny‘s! So far the two chefs who seemed to doubt themselves the most were the best of their groups. The least favorite soup was Amanda‘s. She did go back and taste her soup and apologizes for how salty it was.

Kenny (Chicken): Pho butter roasted chicken with coconut carrot mashed potatoes (but no dark meat, he ran out of time before he could add it to the plates!)

Kaleena (Chicken): Roasted chicken with spiced curry, corn, shitake and lobster mushrooms

Danny (Chicken): Fines herbes roasted chicken, brown butter sherry vinaigrette and carrot miso puree

Saavannah (Chicken): Roasted chicken with avgolemono sauce, chicken skin gremolata and potato puree

Valentine (Chicken): Roasted harissa chicken, corn puree and warm shishito salad

Danny’s chicken was beautifully cooked (despite him having to speed-cook that sucker at 500 degrees), and it was refreshing. Kaleena’s dish, meanwhile, was the driest with not enough focus on the chicken itself. Kenny left out the dark meat, but the pho seasoning was a great idea. Valentine’s dish is too much of a mish-mash; the chicken was buried in all the extra stuff. Savannah had great white meat, it was a focused dish and well-cooked, but the sauce was too watery.

The judges’ favorite from this group is Danny! And their least favorite is Kenny simply because he didn’t complete the challenge. But I think the praise he got for his flavors might save him from the chopping block.

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Judges’ Table

The overall winner is Manny! Winning a challenge with a soup dish, no mean feat. He now has immunity from elimination in the next challenge. “This is one of the proudest moments of my career,” he says.

Then it’s time for the bottom three, but “were not eliminating anyone just yet.” Twist! They’re going to have an immediate cookoff. And the rules are simple. Kristen was eliminated from her season before coming back through “Last Chance Kitchen,” and her challenge then was just to make a good dish. So Kenny, Amanda and David have 20 minutes to make a good dish. Not a lot of time, and not a lot of guidance. You could spend the entire 20 minutes just deciding what to cook.

At first Amanda seems like the only one who knows what she’s even making: salsa with snapper crudo. Kenny eventually settles on a cabbage salad with fish sauce vinaigrette and roasted shrimp. David finally opens up a package of “f*cking shrimp.” He grabs fish sauce, coconut, and cilantro stem that he’s gonna blend together. Tom looks … concerned. This is gonna be a f*cking mess. But maybe a delicious mess?

David: Poached shrimp with sungold tomatoes, coconut cilantro broth and green curry sauce

Kenny: Vietnamese cabbage salad with sake and tamari shrimp and cilantro lime gremolata

Amanda: Snapper crudo, hominy puree and crispy tortilla

Tom is surprised there was so much going on in the dishes when they only had 20 minutes and should’ve kept it simple. David’s dish tastes like a bunch of stuff just thrown in a blender, which it kinda was. He never figured out what he was doing, but Gail didn’t think the sauce was bad. Kenny’s dish was finished on time, but it was sloppy. He delivered everything, but not with any finesse. He had some good texture, though. Amanda was going in a nice direction, under-seasoned, but it was the best of the three conceptually. Sounds like she’s safe.

Then Kristen announces the judges’ decision. David has to pack his knives and go.

“I never thought I’d go out first,” he says in his exit interview. I thought I’d be hanging out last. Just a couple little mistakes, and those little mistakes will send you home. I’m tired. It’s time to go.”

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