"Previously on Top Chef..." "Restaurant wars is the reason that we're all here." "I hear murmurs that Alex is not really involved." "I have to do all the fish over again." "It's, like, everything we've done over today." "Whose wine key is this?" "It sucks." "Alex is very rude with bad, negative energy." "How long on this?" "I got it, Alex, Alex, Alex." "No talking in the kitchen 'cause I'm gonna blast somebody." "Food's coming, Tom." "Sorry, hang up on-- oh, no, it's not." "You are the winning team." "Shut up." "Ed, you're our winner tonight." "Cool." "Your ass should be gone." "You didn't do a thing." "Get the Out of here, man." "You're crazy as ." "This is the Real-- this is the reality." "Each person is to conceive a Dish." "Kenny, please pack your knives and go." "This season, one outstanding competitor will take the title of Top Chef and the grand prize:" "A feature in Food  Wine magazine and a showcase at the Food  Wine classic in Aspen." "$125,000 to help turn their culinary dreams into reality, furnished by Dial Nutri Skin." "Top Chef Season Seven." "Hail to the Chef." "♪ Top Chef 7x10 ♪ Covert Cuisine Original Air Date on August 18, 2010" "During our last challenge, Alex did not put up a dish." "I think his team carried him." "Another day, that's it." "You know, has he dodged some bullets?" "Yeah, absolutely." "There's no question about it." "I mean, I don't think he's at the same skill level as Kenny, who should still be here." "If I had to guess what Kevin got upset about," "I think he was defending Kenny." "It was tremendously frustrating 'cause I think he was sympathetic for his friends and for his team." "Emotions were running high, and at that particular moment, he decided to vent on me." "But I had nothing to do with the loss of his team." "I hope that Alex either steps up or goes home." "If he steps up, that's great." "Bring on the challenge." "I'd love that." "But don't get away with bull." "I think Kenny was the most fierce competitor here." "It just shows, regardless of how talented you are, everybody in the competition should fear that they're gonna go home." "Restaurant wars wasn't easy, not at all." "I am mentally totally exhausted." "All right, guys." "Let's go." "We're walking into the kitchen, the first think I see is wylie dufresne and the sideburns." "Wylie is known for using newer techniques, a very inspirational Chef." "I'm very impressed to see him." "Please welcome Chef and owner of wd-50 in New York City, wylie dufresne." "Morning, Chefs." "Morning, Chef." "Seeing wylie there and, and knowing that he's into all this molecular gastronomy, who the knows what the hell's underneath these boxes with these huge question marks on it." "Some sort of wacky ingredients or chemicals?" "You'll be working with a mystery box." "You'll each start cooking a dish using the ingredients in the box in front of you." "All the boxes have identical ingredients." "However..." "Through the course of your cooking time, more mystery boxes will arrive with more ingredients." "You must incorporate all of the ingredients into your dish." "Well, I think the difficulty is you have to keep your vision a little bit loose." "For me, it's a different style challenge." "I just have to go with it." "Having been in your shoes before on Top Chef masters," "I know how hard a mystery box can be." "And one that keeps changing, I think, is gonna be quite a challenge." "I don't like surprises and I don't like this challenge." "I'm feeling this nervous energy." "And so I'm just trying to stay calm, not freak out too much." "Oh, and this is a high stakes quickfire." "Wow." "The winner will get $10,000 furnished by Dial Nutri Skin." "So my fiancee lives in Russia, I live in New York." "I really wanna win this money because I need to get her here." "You know, work out all the issues with the visa." "This is the driving force for me." "Please take your places behind the boxes." "Chefs." "Your time starts now." "Inside, I see a fish, some fava beans, and a can with no label." "Beautiful." "Anybody got a can opener?" "Tiffany has one." "Get the can opener yet?" "No, I didn't." "This situation kind of sucks." "I'm not getting along with mostly everybody in the kitchen." "I don't care." "I just wanna cook my food and beat them." "Anybody get a can opener yet?" "Alex has dodged a lot of bullets." "And I'm not gonna be the one to help him anymore." "I open up the can, and I see hominy." "I'm thinking, huh, hominy." "So I am just like, I gotta come up with a plan." "The hardest thing about this challenge is you come up with an idea and then hopefully the next set of ingredients won't offset your direction." "Hot." "I'm thinking I wanna show every ingredient, cook it in some kind of interesting way, and then create a composed dish." "But I have no idea what it's gonna be." "I look over at what Angelo's doing." "He seems a little worried." "I don't know that he knows what he's doing." "So he looks like a chicken with no head." "For the first time in the competition," "I feel just a little bit lost." "I can't decide if I wanna serve the dish cold or if I wanna serve it hot." "Ugh..." "I don't have a vision." "So I think that's a little complicated issue for me." "My God." "Oh, Jesus." "I know." "Oh, my God." "Another mystery box arrives in the kitchen." "It comes faster than I expected." "It was impossible to fully develop a concept for my dish." "I'm the first one over to the box, and there's squid and black garlic." "Oh, God." "I don't really know anything about black garlic, so my first thought is taste it." "And it's a little smoky and a little sweet." "I'm starting to get nervous because I don't want the flavors to get too confusing." "I'm not sure where my Dish is." "I have a million things going on in my head." "It's like a ping-pong match." "Are you kidding me?" "Coming in." "Third mystery box." "Ramps and passion fruit." "What the Is-- like, I don't want that." "I'I've never u used a rampmp." "All I know is it's like scallions or like chives." "I'm not sure if I'm supposed to use the leaf or the stem." "Holy cow." "16 minutes." "Thank you." "I could do a..." "A quick gelee if I really push myself." "But should I do that?" "Yeah." "I'm just freaking out." "I really just did not know what to do." "I'm still thinking hot." "My brain still is leaning towards the cold, and there's 10 gs at stake." "Hot, hot, hot." "There's another one." "Oh, God, here we go again." "Are you kidding me?" "Jicama?" "Ugh." "I julienne it and just throw it in there." "I'm trying to roll with the punches." "Although there are several of them." "You have ten minutes left." "Damn it." "It's hot." "The kitchen is extremely hot." "And this is the first time" "I think I sweated into the food." "Come on." "One minute, guys." "Ay yi yi yi yi." "It goes from 2 minutes to, like, 20 seconds like this." "I'm very concerned that I'm not gonna finish plating." "Three, two, one." "Time's up." "Oh!" "Oh..." "Gah-dog!" "Hello, Alex." "Hi, Padma." "Hello, Chef." "How are you?" "Hello." "I have a puree of fava beans and a little ramp fondue with leeks." "And the squid has been sauteed with a little bit of garlic." "I know my dish is all over the place." "Alex, quickfire equals bottom." "Just, you know, it's a mathematical equation." "Is this ramp cooked or is this ramp raw?" "It's not raw." "It's been slowly, uh, melted." "How are you?" "I'm doing excellent." "I did a fish stew." "A little bit of the hominy, fava beans, and a little bit of saffron." "Yeah, the broth is very nice." "Thank you." "I've made for you my version of a yucatecan seafood stew." "The black garlic is in the base of the broth." "One thing I know about wylie dufresne is that he really pushes the envelope." "So I'm not sure what's going through his mind." "Spicy." "Thank you." "Thank you." "Thank you very much." "What I have here is crispy skin striped bass." "Underneath is a leek and oyster mushroom fondue." "Is this-- is this butter or oil in here?" "A little bit of both." "A little bit of both?" "Yeah." "Did a, uh, pan seared rockfish." "Underneath is a black garlic and hominy puree and a jicama and passion fruit salad." "What's the heat?" "There's red pepper flakes in the marinade for the squid." "I did a little, uh, sashimi of rockfish with some creamy hominy and basil puree." "Excellent." "So today, we have a, uh, a smoky hominy grit With squid and the rockfish." "I was gonna serve the dish cold but I didn't have time to temper it, so the, the gel actually started to melt, 'cause I set it with gelatin, actually." "Gelatin?" "Correct." "Yeah." "I've never seen Angelo this nervous." "He came out very strong." "I don't know what happened to him, but all of a sudden, he's losing confidence in himself." "Wylie, how did our Chefs do overall?" "I think you guys did really well." "There's some unusual pairings going on there." "I'm, I'm not envious." "Who had your least successful dishes?" "Alex, I really liked your fava Bean and, uh, passion fruit puree." "But I just didn't think the rest of the components on the plate came together." "I don't think Alex was able to step up." "It's time for him to go home." "Amanda." "Your dish was just a little oily." "I wanted that fish skin to be a little bit crispier." "You were selling it as crispy." "That was the most nightmarish mystery box challenge ever." "Who had your favorite dishes?" "Tiffany, I really liked the way you integrated all the components on the plate." "And I think you really got a lot of flavor out of that broth." "Thank you." "Kevin's dish." "I think that your puree on the bottom was very clever." "Thought your fish was very nicely cooked." "It was a nicely balanced dish." "Thank you." "I haven't won a high stakes quickfire." "But we're having another baby, plus we're looking to move." "So there's a lot of things that we could do with the $10,000." "Please announce the winner." "I think the person that really brought it together and really used all those ingredients successfully was..." "Tiffany." "Thank you very much." "Congratulations, Tiffany." "My fiance will be so, so happy." "I've won $10,000 before." "So I have 20 gs I'm bringing home." "Uh, puff pastry?" "If you're gonna serve something like that, you're almost asking to be eliminated from this competition." "Your elimination challenge is a case of national security." "You've been recruited as special agents by the central intelligence agency." "For a secret Agent, the ability to take on a new identity is often a matter of life and death." "You'll each be takinover a classic dish and giving that a disguise, but the flavors should be of the original dish." "It is a tricky challenge, because how, how much do you want to disguise the dish?" "You want to have fun with it, but you also want to stay true to the essence of the dish." "To find out your assignment, please draw knives." "French onion soup." "Chicken cordon bleu." "Beef Wellington." "Kung pao shrimp." "Gyro." "Cobb salad." "Veal parmesan." "So you'll be cooking and serving tomorrow to a table of CIA officers and the head of the CIA, Leon panetta." "Oh..." "Whoa!" "Oh, my God." "We're gonna see real guys in black suits." "Leon panetta, the head of the CIA, is gonna be eating my french onion soup." "I might get recruited." "I could seduce some secrets out of the kgb." "You'll be serving at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia." "Very nice." "Very nice." "Oh, and one more thing." "The winner will receive a trip to Paris, France, furnished by the Hilton hotels." "Whoa." "My girlfriend has been bugging me to go away on vacation with her." "Paris, that would be awesome." "Do you have 00 flour?" "Professionally, I guess I've been a Chef for about six years now." "Before I was a Chef," "I was actually a professional videographer." "I've shot over 500 weddings, bar mitzvahs, sweet 16s." "It's an Italian flour." "If somebody's been cooking for 20 years, they're kind of set in their ways." "Having only six years of experience can be considered advantageous because I have an open mind to all culinary styles." "19 minutes!" "Do you have rock shrimp?" "Rock shrimp?" "I have frozen rock shrimp in the back." "My dish is "kung pao shrimp."" "Um, can you tell me where the asian aisle is?" "But I've never cooked chinese food in my life." "So my strategy is to find some sort of, like, prepared kung pao something so that I can read the ingredients and kind of figure out what goes into this." "Seven minutes!" "Traditional beef Wellington is beef tenderloin, and then it's encased in a puff pastry." "For my dish, I'm gonna serve it as a pizza, puff pastry crust, and then I'm gonna cook beef so it looks like pepperoni." "Okay, I'll take this." "How much is it?" "How much is the weight here?" "I have an innovative concept." "I think if I nail the flavors, then the judges will see the creativity." "Uh, puff pastry?" "Right here." "I see Angelo buying pastry." "I mean, it's definitely a shortcut." "Okay, thank you so much." "You got it." "I mean, if you're gonna serve something like that, you're almost asking to be eliminated from this competition." "Thank you." "But it would be nice to have Angelo go home because, you know, he is definitely a threat." "I'm excited about the CIA challenge." "I love spy stuff." "One show that I used to like back in the day was la femme nikita." "Mission complete." "I really like nikita." "What's your spy name?" "Brigitte." "I'm hiding my dish by making a deconstructed gyro." "I want to separate everything to where when you put them together, you're like, oh, my gosh, that's a gyro." "I know this flavor." "I've kind of always wanted to be a spy just 'cause I think it's pretty badass to say my name is natasha, carrying a small .22" "in my garter, or something like that." "I am disguising french onion soup." "I'm gonna make some onions caramelized with maple syrup." "I'm gonna make a bread tuile." "Amanda's concept is so obvious." "Her dish is french onion soup." "So if you still make soup, it'd better be really interesting so it isn't too similar to the original." "Amanda, how much soup are you serving to each guest?" "Uh, I don't know yet." "How much soup did you make?" "I don't know yet." "For my own dish, I wanna use all of the components of kung pao shrimp, but I'm putting a disguise on it by turning it into a soup." "But I don't wanna disguise it to the point that it's not recognizable." "My advice is make it your way." "Because at the end of the day, that's what we're here for, right?" "I'm not sure that Alex understands his cuisine." "So why would I listen to his advice?" "Do you know what I'm saying?" "I know that a lot of people in the house don't like Alex." "But I like him." "I respect and admire his cooking." "Hey, did anybody see my smiley face cheese?" "I put it in my basket." "I don't know where it went." "My dish is veal parmigiana stuffed inside a little tortellini." "Kelly's gonna help me." "If I execute it the way I want to," "I think it's a winner." "Guys, one hour, two minutes." "I bought the puff pastry because I'm willing to risk it for an elimination challenge, nor is the puff pastry the main theme of the dish." "So I'm sure the judges will be cool with that." "Behind, ed." "That's where you'll always be." "Thank you." "You know, Angelo bought puff pastry just like John did." "And that was one of the main reasons why he went home." "Uh, I guess I just was being stupid." "Angelo could definitely go home for it." "20 minutes." "Ed, what is your spy name?" "It's muffin winthrop." "My spy name would be Dr. zhivago." "My mom always wanted a doctor in the family." "So my favorite spy was get smart." "He was awesome." "He had a phone for a shoe." "9 minutes and 36 seconds." "In a traditional chicken cordon bleu, the chicken is usually on the outside and the ham and the cheese is on the inside." "But my version," "I have the ham wrapping around the braised leg." "Basically an inside-out chicken cordon bleu." "The game plan is to, to take the basics of the Cobb salad and just change the textures." "I think the thing that's most important is for the flavors to be the same." "But I'm a little bit concerned because I'm not sure that I'm giving it a new identity." "I think it's, you know, a dangerous game to play." "All right, guys, let's go." "Let's go." "CIA." "My rice is totally overcooked." "What do you mean?" "Like, they're not--unedible." "I'm really in a panic." "Walking into the CIA, to see that seal," "I mean, it's an amazing experience." "So many people that will never get to do anything even remotely like this, and we're really lucky." "It's very obvious that we are on restricted government property." "The inspection of our vehicle and all of our identification, that's all taken very seriously." "It's really something very special." "We're really at the CIA." "It was kind of strange thinking that we're actually at the CIA, and, you know, that this is where major Goes down." "You know, looking up in the corner of the rooms and stuff like that." "Look and see if there's speakers and thers little cameras." "You just don't know." "Our mission is to take a traditional dish and put a disguise on it." "Going at 400 here." "Do you have a problem with that?" "Nope." "Thank you." "It's really important for me to nail this dish." "It definitely isn't my most complex dish, and it's not as creative as I had wanted it to be." "But this is my life." "Like, this is everything I've ever worked for." "So I'm putting everything that I have in it." "I think Angelo's upset about his performance in the quickfire." "His body language, I mean, he's bothered by it." "Someone that's passionate about what they're doing and, and they're here to compete, they're gonna be upset." "First thing I do is get my rice in the rice cooker." "For me, an hour and a half is plenty of time." "I don't have a lot of prep to do." "Everything just needs to be executed perfectly or I could end up being the girl who goes home for kung pao shrimp." "Everything's turning out the way that I want it to." "But I'm thinking I didn't disguise it enough." "Helen Keller would be able to guess what the dish is." "I have not made this dish before, but, you know, from the beginning" "I decided, uh, that I'm not gonna cook any items that I've cooked before, and I'm still here." "So I think it's working out." "I think that Alex, his thought process of the food is underdeveloped." "I'm not really impressed with some of the stuff that he does, you know?" "Double doors coming open." "Okay." "Hey, Tiffany." "This rice cooker should turn off, right, whenever it's done?" "Yeah, it's still going right now, yeah." "I'm kind of starting to get a little worried." "The dish is already very simple, so if one component of it is not right, then the whole dish is ruined." "How are you doing?" "I'm doing good so far." "I'm doing well while I'm cooking until all of a sudden my rice cooker starts beeping." "Oh, my God." "And it is mush." "Complete mush." "My rice is totally overcooked." "What do you mean?" "Like, they're not-- unedible." "In Colorado," "I cook at 8,000 feet above Sea level." "Rice takes an hour." "Minimum." "So I'm really in a panic." "Take it out." "I can't eat it." "I've already tasted it." "No, take it out and start over." "Get it out, get it out, get it out, get it out." "I really want that little bite of rice at the bottom of the bowl." "I don't think I could get it done in time." "I'm just gonna serve it without rice." "I have 30 minutes." "You got time." "Do it on a pot." "Do it on the stove." "Okay." "Do it on the stove top." "Thank God for Tiffany because I'm a mess." "So quickly, I get some more rice on the stove and I do it the old school way." "I'm kind of crossing my fingers hoping for the best." "Come on." "How much time we got?" "12 minutes, 40 seconds." "Damn it." "Kelly's stressing a little bit." "What you need, kel?" "Come on, come on." "Just, if you have time, follow me and make sure that plates look beautiful after I ladle." "I got ya." "Go." "I have time, so why not help her plate?" "1 minute and 30 seconds." "You're doing good." "I don't wanna win when something didn't go right." "I want to compete against you at your best." "20 seconds, guys." "20 seconds." "Okay, that's time." "I'd like to thank our host, esteemed director of the CIA, Leon panetta, and all of the officers and staff who have joined us." "Welcome." "Just grab a bowl." "I'm good with you grabbing a bowl." "As I put the dish out, I was like, oh." "This isn't me." "Normally, I would just deconstruct the living daylights out of the beef Wellington." "I have no clue what's going on in my head." "You know, what's going on, ang?" "I mean, what's your problem?" "The Chefs' challenge was to take a classic dish and give it a new identity-- to use the same ingredients but disguise it." "This is a first at the CIA." "Angelo's dish." "Anyone have an idea what it was?" "Beef Wellington." "Yes." "Poor disguise." "Okay." "They would have-- they would have captured this individual and hung him." "Director panetta, what did you think of Angelo's dish?" "It was salty." "And I thought the, uh, the pastry was a little hard." "It looks like he took a shortcut and made it, like, very easy." "Beef Wellington is definitely, uh, more challenging." "Kelly's dish." "What do you think?" "I'm trying to figure it out." "Yeah, I know what it is, but for once," "I know something you don't." "I don't know." "Does anyone?" "Pad thai." "Pad thai." "Pad thai?" "Kung pao shrimp?" "Yeah." "What did you think of Kelly's dish?" "I, I liked it." "I, I thought the flavor was great." "Kung pao shrimp is normally with a sauce, and turning it into a broth I thought was a nice spin." "I just think there's a little too much of it." "The texture of the nuts with the rice really went well together." "And, uh, I was so distracted by how good it tasted that, uh, I didn't know what it was." "Try that." "What's my time?" "30 seconds." "Do you need anything?" "Need you to wipe the plates if you can." "Whoo." "Tiffany's dish." "It's good." "If I had to guess that they were trying to hide something," "I think, uh, gyro's probably the best guess." "That's exactly what it was." "I would order that anywhere." "Probably the most elegant gyro, uh, I have ever ate in my life." "This is Kevin's." "Any guesses?" "Cobb salad." "You're right." "But I didn't guess it right away." "Oh, you didn't?" "Not until I, I hit the blue cheese." "I thought it was something mexican." "It's a Cobb salad." "It's also a salad." "It hasn't really changed." "Did you like it?" "I did like it." "I thought it was-- but then again, I love Cobb salads." "I really do." "If you make the dish so complex that they can't figure it out." "What's the point of it?" "Did you have a lot of formal dinners here in the evening for special occasions?" "It's usually, uh, when we have our advisory groups in, or we have, uh, some of our individuals that, uh, come in for meetings here." "We'll hold it-- you have to excuse me because, uh, business calls." "I've, uh, truly enjoyed being with all of you and, uh, particularly enjoyed the food." "Lovely to meet you." "Thank you." "Thank you, everybody." "Are you used to director panetta having to dine and Dash?" "It happens often." "A little too tough?" "Close." "Alex is talented." "He just has a problem with his execution." "I don't like to see that even though maybe it means something good for me if he overcooked his veal." "What kind of time?" "Time, 5 minutes, 29 seconds." "I really like Alex." "He's, like, the wise old Jewish Uncle that I never had." "I don't wanna see any of my friends fail." "30 seconds." "Take these last two, please." "And this one, sir." "Let's start with Amanda." "You could tell it was french onion soup." "I will say before I tasted it when it came out," "I thought the shaving was coconut." "So I didn't immediately think it was french onion soup." "The idea of putting an oxtail marmalade with her french onion soup I think is a good idea." "Unfortunately, the marmalade's a little sweet." "It was like, like honey and lemon cough syrup." "It was so sweet." "Do I have everything?" "Everything, everything." "Alex's dish." "Oh, my God." "Yeah, the meat's tough." "It's really tough, yeah." "What do you think this dish is?" "Lasagna." "It's not lasagna." "Veal parmesan?" "Perfect." "Bingo." "I think the veal was as tough as pulling a post in Yemen." "Just the execution on various things, just really poor." "I think that there are some successes and some failures, unfortunately, in the dish." "I think, of all the dishes, it might be the hardest to have guessed what it was." "I would have preferred to see less disguise and a better dish." "You know what?" "Today's the most organized that I've been in my head." "Nothing's going wrong on my mission." "No problems." "I feel good about this dish." "The plate looks good, it makes sense." "I mean, if you were to close your eyes and eat this chicken, it would be exactly like eating a real chicken cordon bleu." "Let's go." "That's a big portion." "This is our final dish." "It's Ed's." "Eric, what is this dish?" "I think it's pretty obvious." "It's, uh, cordon bleu." "I think the dish itself is really good." "I think the, uh, the chicken is nicely cooked." "The flavors are all good." "It's seasoned well." "There's clearly a lot of labor on this plate." "Unfortunately, he didn't take enough care to disguise it." "That was the last of our courses." "We now have to do some top secret deliberation of our own." "But thank you all." "Thank you." "Bye, it was nice to meet you." "Yeah, thank you very much." "A pleasure." "Yeah." "That tastes very good." "Does it?" "It doesn't taste, uh, too sweet?" "It's a little sweet." "But it tastes good." "Now what's this?" "It's my baba ghanoush." "It's bangin'." "With the oven dried tomatoes." "That's eggplant?" "Mm-hmm." "Today is just crazy." "I'm a little bit disappointed in myself, and I don't feel confident about anything at this point in time." "Throughout this whole competition," "I've given more than I even knew that I had." "It would be very traumatic if I were to go home." "Turned out that your disguise was really poor execution." "We ended up with something that was kind of sad." "It's really cool, we went to the CIA and met Leon panetta." "Think he's got any secrets he could share with us?" "Can you imagine being that dude and all the stuff you know?" "You think he knows who killed jfk?" "He knows who killed jfk." "Like, he knows where the aliens are living." "I was gonna say he knows if there are aliens." "There are aliens." "He knows where they live." "There's one in L.A." "He knows" "The egghead." "Alex, you are the first alien contestant on Top Chef." "Your veal parmesan was excellent." "You never know." "Like, the concept is, you know, relevant, obviously." "You know, did you-- did you do what they asked you to do?" "100%." "You know, like, kind of throwing everybody off was my disguise, right?" "Good evening." "We'd like to see Tiffany..." "Kelly..." "And ed." "Good job, guys." "Go get 'em, guys." "♪ ♪ so congratulations." "You had the winning dishes in the CIA challenge." "Thank you." "Thank you." "But there can only be one trip to Paris." "Kelly." "You know, I really was trying to think of ways to think outside the box." "My first thought was soup." "I just thought it, it was a great way to make it look completely different." "I like the broth very much." "I also like the fact that the rice was counteracting the spiciness." "It was a very good dish." "Thank you." "You really captured the flavors of kung pao shrimp and gave us something very different, so nice job." "Tiffany." "I really liked your dish." "And I also liked the fact that you took something that normally is eaten with your hands and you've made it a dish." "I think that helped to disguise it." "Thank you very much." "As soon as I tasted it, it reminded me, obviously, of a gyro." "I really enjoyed it." "Ed." "I wanted it to be, you know, in disguise." "Basically, I did an inside-out chicken cordon bleu." "It's difficult when you have so many components in the dish, to have all of them perfectly executed, which you did." "So we compliment you for that." "Thank you." "I really appreciate that." "You know how to cook chicken." "You know, that was evident." "Wylie, please do the honors." "The Chef who embraced the challenge, who really made a very tasty dish..." "Was Tiffany." "Yes!" "I got a honeymoon." "So congratulations, Tiffany." "You're gonna have a trip to the Hilton arc de triomphe in Paris, including airfare, courtesy of the Hilton hotel." "Yes!" "She's getting married, trip to Paris, France." "Definitely know my girlfriend will be upset, but I was happy for Tiffany." "Now we need you to call back some of your colleagues." "Thank you." "That'll be all." "Ed, you're going to France?" "Oh, tiff?" "Well, unfortunately, the judges would like to see" "Alex, Amanda, and Angelo." "Good luck, guys." "Good luck, guys." "♪ ♪" "Alex, Angelo, and Amanda, you had the three least successful dishes of the CIA challenge." "Amanda." "I was definitely aware that my dish was not disguised adequately." "I was honestly-- I was going more for flavor" "I certainly would have liked to have seen you try to disguise the dish." "You know, you had a dish that gave you a lot of opportunities, and didn't feel like you seized them." "You could have played up the cheese and did a panna cotta." "Onion and cheese, that's it." "You took a soup and made a soup." "But that aside, the marmalade was so sweet, it completely threw off the entire dish." "Angelo." "As soon as it was presented, it was like, "oh, beef Wellington." "Okay." "Get it."" "I totally missed the mark, and a lot of what you said to Amanda resonates with me." "I, I should have pushed the envelope." "The bigger problem was the pastry was just dried out." "Was that frozen pastry that you bought?" "That is correct." "Or to do something completely different." "It didn't need to be puff pastry." "Even simple things like the plating itself was sloppy." "Guess I was just excited to see where you were going, and unfortunately, it didn't go very far." "It was probably one of the challenges where you had the most freedom to express your creativity, and we ended up with something that was kind of sad." "Alex, you had veal parmesan." "I was excited when your plate came 'cause it was the first plate that wasn't really obvious." "But it turned out that your disguise was really poor execution." "Well, I was thinking I was going to use some techniques that I don't usually use like sous-vide and hope it worked out, but my execution totally failed." "It just seems to me like the wrong time to do something that's completely out of your comfort zone." "Hard to say where to start here." "The meat was tough, the fried mozzarella," "I've had better at the street fair and I've had better frozen tortellinis out of a box." "You know, there's seven left, and it seems like-- that the three of you have done your-- your worst work at this point." "Are either one of you willing to say that, you know, you were seventh best in this competition?" "No." "Then why are you cooking like that?" "'Cause one of you are going home." "So one of you is gonna be seventh best." "We'll call you back in a bit." "This is an embarrassment." "I mean, I own up to it, you know, 100%." "I should go home, to be honest with you." "I should go home." "I don't feel bad for Angelo." "I like competing against Angelo, but I'm here to win." "So, you know, if today's his day to go home," "I'll give him a hug and we can move on." "I can't believe it." "Okay, so all of these three Chefs failed on two levels." "They didn't give us a good dish, first and foremost." "And they also didn't address the challenge." "Alex put a lot of time in preparing that dish compared to Amanda and Angelo." "At least he has this idea of where he wanted to go and how he wanted to disguise it." "But, you know, as good as some of these ideas are, again, it's a problem of execution and the veal was so tough it was hard to eat." "Go with what you know at this point." "Cook from your gut, you know?" "He bit off too many unfamiliar things." "Amanda's efforts just didn't meet any of the criteria." "If you weren't gonna hide the dish, then you had to at least make a good dish." "And I think she failed on both counts, unfortunately." "If you're gonna take cheese and just grate cheese on a microplaner, that's gonna be the big disguise?" "I mean, there's so much you can do with cheese." "And she had four hours." "That is a long time to do a dish." "A long time to just make a dishwater." "And Angelo's beef Wellington would make Julia child very sad." "I think he was totally, uh, lost or uninspired, or-- it seemed like he froze a little bit." "He froze, yeah." "At some point." "It seemed like it because he certainly can do better than that." "Anyone could do better on that who knows how to cook." "I think we have our decision." "I think so too." "Yep." "♪ ♪ so for this challenge, you were asked to take a classic dish and disguise it." "In all your cases, your cover was blown." "If there was any disguise, you disguised yourselves as really poor cooks." "And one of you will be seventh best." "Alex." "Please pack your knives and go." "Thank you." "There is no margin of error." "If you screw up just a touch, you're going home." "Going back to cali." "All right, brother." "Take it easy." "You know, I expected to win the whole thing, you know?" "You know, I didn't come here with expectations of, you know, finishing seventh." "I mean, seventh sucks." "See you guys." "Have fun." "Be good." "I have nothing against the other Chefs." "Um, they were frustrating with certain situations." "You know, that pea puree conspiracy and the ange about restaurant wars." "Was frustrated as well." "I choose not to vent and create hostility." "I'm a different kind of person." "Each person has to live with themselves." "You know, I try every day to make myself a better person." "next on Top Chef..." "We are going to run our own concession stand." "About to get ugly, boys and girls." "It got ugly the first day you walked into this place." "There's no way we can all do six orders and put the food out." "Chill out, please." "Chill out." "No, I don't have to chill."