A new season of Top Chef begins with a new group of talented contestants. This time, the series takes place in the Carolinas splitting time between Charlotte, North Carolina and Greenville, South Carolina.
The judges made a dramatic entrance in the season 23 premiere arriving in racing stock cars. For the quickire challenge, the chefs separated themselves into five teams of three. They then had to create a single dish using ingredients from the provided pantry. The cooking time would be the duration it took for a driver to complete 23 laps around the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The catch was teams couldn’t begin plating until the final lap. Kyle Busch and Jimmy Johnson served as guest judges and awarded the winning team with $15,000 and a victory lap around the track.
Since the state vegetable of North Carolina is the sweet potato, the elimination challenge saw the competitors draw knives which assigned a specific variety. They were given one hour to cook a dish to showcase their specific type of sweet potato. Chefs Jamie Lynch and Sean Brock served as the guest judges. There would be one top and bottom finisher from each group. A difference this season of Top Chef compared to years past is that Last Chance Kitchen would not begin until after two chefs would be eliminated.
Take a look at our week one Power Rankings. It was easy to determine the top and bottom, but there were still many chefs grouped together since it is so early.
New episodes of Top Chef air Mondays on Bravo.
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