HERE’S HOW THE TWO REMAINING BAY AREA CHEFS PERFORMED IN THIS WEEK’S ‘TOP CHEF’ EPISODE

The beginning of the 21st season of Bravo’s Top Chef wasn’t too inspiring for the city by the Bay. It kicked off Wednesday, March 20 with three San Francisco chefs in the mix. But by the end of the first episode, chef David Murphy of Shuggie’s Trash Pie + Natural Wine was packing up his knives. Bay Area chefs Rasika Venkatesa, formerly of Mourad, and Dalida co-owner Laura Ozyilmaz, gave middling performances, to boot.

Thankfully, both cooks seemed to turn things around in the season’s second outing. The March 25 episode, “Living the High Life” revolved around — perhaps no surprise to Milwaukee locals — Miller High Life beer. At the top of the episode, Ozyilmaz remarked to the camera that Manny Barella Lopez’s pozole in the first challenge opened her eyes to what she should be doing here, namely that she should cook “something comforting, something delicious.” Indeed she proceeded to do just that.

The first challenge was to weave hops into a dish for Kristin Kish, Tom Colicchio, and guest judge Joe Flamm of Chicago’s Rose Mary. Having helped to open New Belgium Brewing’s kitchen in San Francisco, the Dalida co-owner appeared surefooted from the jump. More so than any other dish, Ozylimaz’s rice pudding — which infused the hops’s at-times bitter, tea-like properties into a dessert alongside berries — caught the judges’ attention. She won the first challenge, earning $5,000 for her efforts. “I’ll enjoy a really good dinner,” she joked of what she plans to do with the winnings. “Maybe at my own restaurant.”

The elimination challenge that followed is where Venkatesa showed up in a major way. The 14 remaining chefs were split into two teams, each tasked with creating a seven-course progression incorporating bar snacks like popcorn, pickles, pretzels, mixed nuts, potato chips, olives, and toasted corn kernels. Straight away Venkatesa told her team she’d like to handle the pretzels since she had an idea for a dessert. Her parents used to ply her with pretzels by the boatload as a kid, she tells the camera, and the chef still prodigiously snacks on them to this day. “I love pretzels,” she laughed. On the other team, Ozylimaz got tasked with the mixed nuts dish.

After a $500 shopping spree at Whole Foods, the tense challenge took place outdoors while the judges sat inside sipping Miller High Life from Champagne glasses. As the cooks presented their dishes, both of the San Francisco chefs received high marks from the table. For the red team, Ozylimaz went with a badrijiani nigvzit — a kind of Georgian eggplant roll with stuffed nuts — for a third course the judges considered aggressive but thoughtful. Omar Shaikh, the Milwaukee restaurateur behind Carnevor and 3rd Street Market, said it was a beautiful dish.

For the yellow team’s seventh course, Venkatesa made an inventive barley pretzel cake topped with honey mustard sabayon. That dessert only arrived after much hand-wringing regarding whether Venkatesa could get the granita to freeze in time. “Lord behold,” she laughed later. “It freezes.” Not only did Venkatesa’s yellow team earn more credit than Ozylimaz’s red team, in general, Venkatesa also got the highest honors of all 14 dishes. Colicchio said the dish was a big risk that paid off, while most all the other diners said it was impressive to marry such creative flavors into the somewhat cheeky challenge of making bar snacks. Flamm told her it was the winning dish for the challenge, which earned Venkatesa immunity while also nabbing her $10,000. “Going right to my savings,” she quipped.

The episode was an obvious step in the right direction for both of the remaining Bay Area cooks. Ozyilmaz got decent reviews in the first episode for her yogurt, mushroom, and bulgur soup dish, though Kish cited too many ingredients. Venkatesa went from a ding on a pasta miss in the first episode to blowing everyone’s minds with her pretzel. “It delivered on [the] pretzel mission on every flavor,” judge Gail Simmons said.

The third episode of Top Chef season 21 debuts on Wednesday, April 3 6 p.m. PST/9 p.m. ET on Bravo and for streaming the following day on the Peacock app.

2024-03-28T16:13:44Z dg43tfdfdgfd