It was BBQ week in the Carolinas this past week, and the stars of Season 23 stayed up all night cooking whole hogs, playing cornhole, and even making s’mores for longtime judge Tom Colicchio. After a couple of weeks in a row where the judges and guest judges were less enamored with the food, everyone really did a pretty good job during BBQ week. It was fun to watch the two different teams strategize, and I thought the format of the challenge was also well-crafted. And yet, by the end of the episode I was pretty unhappy with the decision that came down the pipeline.
We’re about to get into spoilers, so don’t say I didn’t warn ya! (But we got you covered if you're looking to watch Top Chef.)
How The BBQ Challenge Worked
One thing Top Chef really does well is set up themed challenges, often with sponsorships. This week ActiveCash credit cards sponsored the episode, and because they give 2% cash back, everything about the challenge had to do with twos. Cute, right?
Thus, the cast was split into two teams. Those two teams were each tasked with overnight smoking a whole hog and splitting it into parts. Each member of each team was responsible for one cut of meat. Then, they faced off in pairs and served local chefs and the judges hot plates of BBQ. There were even two sets of votes, from the locals and the judges.
It was a well-designed challenge, not only from a sponsorship standpoint, but also because even though the losing team had 5 people, it worked out so that some people on each team were winners and losers, too. Therefore, Tom, new host Kristen and Gail were able to judge from a pool of the bottom three, which is what happens in a normal challenge.
Why I Wasn’t Happy When Sieger Went Home
When the two teams initially split up, Laurence took point on the smoking of one team’s hog and Sieger took point on the smoking of the other team’s hog. The both equally took responsibility for the pork loin, which just so happens to be the driest and most difficult cut to work with. Both squared off against each other, and Laurence took the W in the round.
Sieger’s team ended up losing overall, with Jennifer and Oscar winning on Sieger’s grey team and Sieger himself, Jonathan, and Justin all ending up in the bottom. Justin made his own milk bread, which people seemed to like, but people found his sandwich a bit boring. This landed him in the middle, which I was OK with.
Sieger ended up on the bottom, as did Jonathan. People thought Sieger did a good job on the meat cookery, but they thought his pork loin was a bit on the dry side, and he earned some comments about his dish being pretty fussy for BBQ. Jonathan’s pork belly had fewer cookery problems, but no one liked the texture of his pimento sauce, and Tom had even warned him off it before he served it.
Ultimately, Sieger went home. This is where the episode lost me.
I didn’t really understand the decision. I know sometimes the edit on these competition shows doesn’t make it clear why one contestant went home over the other, but with the nature of the information we were given, I just don’t get why Sieger took on all the risk, did well with the majority of that risk, took on the hardest cut of meat, did OK with it, and still went home. In some ways, he was responsible for the cookery of the pork belly on Jonathan’s dish, which is one of the reasons Jonathan allegedly skated through.
Jonathan, from conception to finish, had a dish Tom didn’t like. He didn’t execute it well, and he had an easier cut of meat to work with. That nacho pimento sauce component he had looked gnarly, and people didn’t seem to really like it. I like Jonathan; this really isn’t a shot at him, I just feel like with Sieger taking on a leadership role and executing that piece well, it should have been enough to save him, and it wasn’t.
It’s especially grating given he stepped up while some other allegedly innovative chefs, including Jonathan’s own twin Brandon, refused the cut of meat Sieger gamely took on. Alas, he'll land on the list of Top Chef contestants eliminated too soon.
It’s been two weeks in a row now where seemingly innovative chefs have made mistakes that cost them their Top Chef lives while a bunch of other chefs have just skated through in the middle. I really hope this coming week contestants start taking some risks that pay off, because risks have not paid off recently. We’ll have to wait and see.
New episodes of Top Chef hit the 2026 TV schedule on Monday nights, so there’s another elimination coming down the pipeline soon.
