The Austin Chef Gets Lost in the Cranberry Sauce on ‘Top Chef: Wisconsin’ (2024)

Top Chef season 21 airs Wednesday nights on Bravo, and Eater Austin is recapping the home team’s progress in Wisconsin. Last week, we powered through our first week without Kévin D’Andrea of French bakery Foliepops, who got sent home in episode seven. Amanda Turner of Southern restaurant Olamaie, still in it to win it, devised a honey custard that helped her team claim victory in the dreaded Restaurant Wars challenge.

In the ninth episode, the chefs try cooking with Indigenous ingredients. It’s a nail-biter for Turner.

Our Austin chef gets bogged down in the Quickfire

Only eight chefs remain. “Everyone’s that here is here for a reason,” Turner says, taking pride in her progress. “I’ve been doing this for 15 years. But to have the mental fortitude to continue to push yourself is the biggest part of this competition.”

Back to the kitchen. Host (and Arlo Grey chef/partner) Kristen Kish and judges Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons are wearing waders and standing proudly in a mini cranberry bog.

“I’m fairly certain this is not what you were expecting to see this morning,” Kish says. (Not as weird as giant sausage mascots, tbh ...)

The judges shock the chefs with another twist. Colicchio and Simmons will now join Kish for the Quickfire Challenge every week. If a contestant lands in the bottom for the Elimination Challenge, their Quickfire dish will be taken into consideration, too.

With little time to process this bitter news, we learn that Wisconsin produces more cranberries than anywhere else in the nation, hence the bog. For this week’s suddenly crucial Quickfire, the chefs need to make a dish using … well, you can guess. Simmons wants to see a creative use of cranberries in the dishes, not just a sauce or baked good.

“Just don’t get bogged down,” Colicchio quips.

Turner goes the Southern route, using cranberries in hoecakes and sauce. We’ll admit: When we hear “cranberry sauce,” Simmons’ warning gets stuck in our head like it’s that “Espresso” song: “That’s that me, cranberry sauce.”

David Moir/Bravo

The judges ooh and aah when Turner presents her play on chicken and waffles: a corn-and-cranberry hoecake with fried chicken and cranberry-maple sauce. Turner confides in Brooklyn chef Danny Garcia that she’s worried the judges didn’t even eat the hoecake component.

Garcia wins the Quickfire with his sea bass. Turner lands in the least-favorite bites, along with San Francisco chef Laura Ozyilmaz and Denver chef Manny Barella. Simmons says Turner’s sauce was expected and they wanted more creativity.

We hate being right.

The triple-T takedown: tataki, tartare, and taco

Kish welcomes chefs Elena Terry and Sean Sherman — Indigenous food experts and this week’s guest judges — to introduce the Elimination Challenge. The contestants must make modern dishes using only Native American ingredients. That means no dairy, wheat flour, cane sugar, pork, beef, or chicken.

And there’s no shopping this week, Colicchio says. The chefs will pull from a pantry of Indigenous ingredients curated from local farms and markets. First, Terry and Sherman treat the chefs to a delicious and educational family-style meal and give them some tips.

David Moir/Bravo

“We definitely in the culinary world see things through the lens of colonization, and I think the culinary impact of that hasn’t been thoroughly explored,” Turner says.

The chefs do their menu planning. “I would feel a lot better with a little bit of butter,” Houston pitmaster Michelle Wallace confesses. Turner is thinking of making bison and venison tataki. (Tataki is a traditional Japanese cooking technique that involves searing a protein quickly, resulting in a raw center.)

But when it’s time to hit that pantry of Indigenous ingredients, Turner finds no venison. She picks up elk meat instead, which is out of her wheelhouse.

After a stressful cook, it’s dinner time. Turner serves elk tataki tartare, confit mushrooms, pipian rojo, and duck fat tortillas. Simmons loves the mushrooms, but overall, the judges think the dish was confused. Is it tartare, tataki, or a taco?

Cranberries and elk were no match for our Austin chef

Time to face the music. North Carolina chef Savannah Miller scores her first win with an inventive squash and maple jelly cake. In the bottom: Turner, Wallace, and Ozyilmaz.

Kish asks Turner if the dish came out like she wanted. No, Turner says, admitting the sauce was too heavy. “You’re doing our job for us,” Colicchio says. It was good sauce, but it overpowered the elk. Sherman says that if Turner just served tataki-style elk without venturing into tartare or taco territory, it would have been amazing.

David Moir/Bravo

As the contestants exit for the judges to deliberate, Turner whispers to Ozyilmaz not to worry. The Austin chef thinks she’s going home.

And we’re devastated to report that Turner is right. Well, half right. The judges send both Turner and Ozyilmaz home, based on their underwhelming Quickfires. We reckon that it also has something to do with the fact that both are the only remaining chefs without challenge wins.

Turner gets a big hug from competition bestie Dan Jacobs. “I made a bad choice and those decisions are on me,” she says.

Still, hope lives. “I do have one more life to live in Last Chance Kitchen,” Turner says of the Top Chef companion show.

Oh, yeah, about that. For once, we’ll head over to Last Chance Kitchen, where D’Andrea is currently the reigning champ. Vive la France! This week, as Turner and Ozyilmaz enter the crucible, there are two episodes.

David Moir/Bravo

In the first, Turner wins a mise en place race. That earns her a time advantage in the next episode, where the trio make dishes using the ingredients they prepped in the race. Slightly overcooked chicken ends D’Andrea’s time at Top Chef for good — au revoir. Turner’s citrus cake and Ozyilmaz’s grilled fish earn them a place in the Last Chance finale next week.

For now, Eater Austin’s Top Chef watch has ended, but perhaps Turner can cook her way back into the competition. Until then, thanks for joining us, and tip your servers.