Top Chef/Awesome

Top Chef is usually prime for culinary awesomeness amongst other things. Here are some examples of those moments and other miscellaneous ones.

Season 1 - San Francisco

• Dave standing up to Tiffani during Restaurant Wars, uttering the famous line "I'm not your bitch, bitch!"

Season 2 - Los Angeles

• Mike Midgley becoming the first chef to win the Quickfire and the Elimination Challenge in the same episode. On top of that, he was a little loopy due to having a root canal during the day of filming!
• Mia speaking out and asking to be eliminated instead of Elia.

Season 3 - Miami

• Season 3 (Miami) saw Hung break down chickens with remarkable speed during a mise en place relay race. Even Tom was amazed at how fast he was.

Season 4 - Chicago

• Stephanie somehow whipping up an epic wedding cake in the span of 12 hours that even impressed the guest judge, who was a pastry chef.

Season 5 - New York

• Fabio breaks his finger. Fabio WINS THE CHALLENGE.
• Jeff getting a second chance by winning his first ever Quickfire during part 1 of the Finale

Season 6 - Las Vegas

• More of a Crowning Season of Awesome for season 6, Top Chef: Las Vegas, which has the most talented chefs as a whole. Made even more awesome when the four most talented (Jennifer Carroll, Brian and Micheal Voltaggio, and Kevin Gillespie) made it into the finale and that among them, they won every single elimination challenge.
  • It was so good, it is (so far) the only show other than The Amazing Race to win the Emmy for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program.

Season 7 - Washington D.C.

• Angelo getting ridiculously sick and still managing to somehow cook in the finale. Sure, he lost, but you got to admire the chutzpah.

Season 8 - All Stars

• In Season 8, Carla slices her finger during the tennis challenge. Instead of doing what Jamie did, she just bandages it and carries on. She ends up winning the challenge!
• Season 8 had a challenge where the contestants went fishing for their food that they were going to cook. Dale ends up catching a huge striped bass that weighed about 37 lbs, considered a catch of a lifetime.
• Restaurant Wars.
  • Dale as one of the executive chefs in Restaurant Wars, doing (nearly) everything right that he did wrong back in Season 4, which lead to his elimination that season. Also, Dale chose Marcel as the executive chef of the other team, because 1) he didn't want to work with Marcel and 2) he knew that Marcel would not be an effective leader. Dale's choice proved wise, as it lead directly to Marcel's elimination.
  • Tre avenging his elimination in season 3's Restaurant Wars with a dish the judges loved.
  • Fabio running the front of the restaurant, again showing why he won his season's Fan Favorite award.
• How do you top Mike Midgley's Season 2 accomplishment above? How about do what Dale T. did and win a total of $30,000, the highest non-finale cash payout.

Season 9 - Texas

• For the second Quickfire Challenge, the chefs were told to create a dish with a variety of chilis, with the winner getting a cash prize, depending on the spice of the chili used (the hotter the chili, the higher the cash prize). Paul, having been in the bottom of the last Quickfire Challenge and on the losing team of the last Elimination Challenge, felt he needed to "go big or go home", and chose the hottest peppers, ghost chili, and made a chilled coconut soup with Kafir lime and ghost chili. He ended up not only making a good dish, but won the challenge, earning himself $20,000.