Let’s rank every Restaurant Wars on Top Chef

It’s a rarity but it’s happened: a Restaurant Wars that goes so badly that there’s no winner whatsoever. Such was the case with season three’s edition, when both the Restaurant April team (Brian Malarkey, Casey Thompson, CJ Jacobsen, and Tre Wilcox) and the Garage crew (Dale Levitski, Hung Huynh, Howie Kleinberg, and Sara Mair) all had such poor showings that they were essentially ordered to re-do the entire challenge again the next week. It was heightened drama, sure, but a little too deliberate for our taste. It seemed awfully convenient that producers just happened to have season one’s Stephen Aspirinio on call to help with their courses this time around, as well as decor counsel from interior designer Christopher Ciccone (a.k.a. Madonna’s brother). Some things aren’t nice enough to do twice.

After nearly a decade on the air, we understand the impulse to want to change up the composition of the recurring challenge. However, a battle-of-the-sexes Restaurant Wars simply ain’t it, and it definitely wasn’t for season nine, which saw the Half Bushel quartet (Beverly Kim, Grayson Schmitz, Lindsay Autry, and Sarah Grueneberg) play into every ugly stereotype of an all-women team. With a Heather-shaped hole in the cast, Lindsay and Sarah seemed to compete over who’d be driving the anti-Bev bandwagon, treating their teammate with cattiness, criticism, and a good deal of gaslighting. Good on Bev, then, for making lemonade out of those sour lemons: Her beautiful braised short rib clinched the win, sending the naysayers off to stew in the stew room. 

If you’re going to have a Restaurant Wars episode without Tom Colicchio—yes, that happened—then you’d better have an especially sassy Anthony Bourdain (“It’s baby vomit with wood chips!”) as guest head judge to make up for it. However, despite that starry, scathing cameo, any hoopla around this season’s Restaurant Wars return was dulled by the fact that the producers scheduled a “Wedding Wars” episode only two eps before, with nearly identical teams, and the stakes of that particular challenge—catering a 250-guest reception for a couple who owned a restaurant and wedding facility—were far higher than the regular Restaurant Wars brief.

We love a close Restaurant Wars—the ones where the race is so nail-bitingly tight that the viewers and even the judges themselves can’t initially make out just who is the victor and who is the vanquished. This was not that Restaurant Wars. When it was revealed that the eight remaining chefs would be taking over Clare Smyth’s three-Michelin-starred London restaurant, Core by Clare Smyth, it seemed almost scripted that the unstoppable Buddha Lo—who had been mentored by Smyth herself while working at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay back in the day—and his United Kitchen concept would come out the challenge’s individual winner. That seemingly foregone conclusion sadly zapped any of that delicious suspense from the season 20 ep.

Was season five (can I get a hootie-hoo?) the only Restaurant Wars with a romance angle? Yes, back in the day, people were straight-up making out on Top Chef, a very Bravo storyline that now feels exceptionally foreign given the show’s more food-focused later seasons. While trying to navigate the notoriously brutal restaurant-making challenge, chef-testants Leah Cohen and Hosea Rosenberg were also navigating an on-camera affair. (Both had significant others back home.) And it seemed likely that the little lovebirds would get split up after their respectively middling Restaurant Wars performances on Team Sunset Lounge (obviously they were on the same team), from Hosea’s bland sashimi to Leah’s woefully undercooked cod. They were saved by teammate Stefan’s masterful dessert, but, alas, we weren’t saved from all of the coupled-up cringiness.

We’re not huge fans of the two-part Restaurant Wars episodes, but when the challenge staggers service across two days, it does give the judges fresh eyes—and freed-up bellies—with which to deliberate on both experiences. (After all, it can be hard to be as enthusiastic about your second dinner of the night when you’re still full from your first.) Instead, the current season had the panel split into two separate camps—Gail Simmons and guest judge Stephanie Izard in one faction; Tom Colicchio, Kristen Kish, and guest Kwame Onwuachi in another—to switch-off dining at both Dos by Duel and Channel concepts. Though we enjoyed seeing how both restaurants ultimately came together, that separation prompted a lack of cohesion among our judges and slowed down the episode’s momentum for the viewer.

Oh, Marcel Vigneron, how we loathed you so. With that poor man’s Paulie D hairdo and penchant for throwing tantrums, Marcel was a nightmare in the Top Chef kitchen and a treasure of reality TV. So it was with knife-sharp strategy that Dale Talde chose the contentious cook as his rival team captain for the “one night only” restaurant challenge, knowing that he wouldn’t have to deal with Marcel’s foam-loving meltdowns himself but his opponents very much would. However, upon rewatch, his team’s complete disregard for any of his ideas or “advice” almost made us feel bad for little Marcel the Shell from Hell, which docks major points.

More often than not, the front-of-house element is an unnerving one for our Top Chef-ers, many of whom feel way more comfortable and confident on a kitchen line than playing hostess with the mostess. And it surely seemed that way for Jackson Kalb, who gave us one of the most perplexing FOH performances in the show’s history. Ironically, despite cooking great dishes all season long while secretly dealing with a COVID-related case of ageusia (loss of taste), it was Jackson’s lack of good taste as No Nem’s FOH lead that sent him packing. A handwritten “Welcome Judges’’ note instead of greeting the panel in person? Spending more time schmoozing with other diners than introducing the dishes to Padma, Tom, and Gail? Criticizing Luke Kolpin’s dish as too salty when you cannot actually taste anything? We’ve rarely seen a front-of-house manager crash and burn as hard as this.

Going into NOLA’s Restaurant Wars, Team Fin (Brian Huskey, Carrie Mashaney, Nick Elmi, Stephanie Cmar, and Travis Masar) were clear underdogs compared to the competition heavyweights over on Team Found (Carlos Gaytan, Justin Devillier, Nina Compton, Sara Johannes, and Shirley Chung). Which made it all the more satisfying when they managed to pull off one of the smoothest services in the history of Top Chef, led ever-so-efficiently by Nick (“I don’t know who taught him how to expedite, but he should never change it,” proclaimed Stephanie) and with an all-time FOH performance from Travis. That made the absolute dumpster fire of Team Found even more apparent, from Justin’s sweaty tirades to Sara flat-out forgetting to introduce courses to the judges. (Two words: “verbal fire.”)

You’d never call watching an episode like Restaurant Wars “relaxing,” but seeing the way Team Four Pigs (Melissa King, Doug Adams, Adam Harvey, and Mei Lin) cleanly executed their concept, consistent service, and cook—even navigating the mysterious disappearance of Adam’s 150 clam shells, requiring the team to quickly regroup and shuck 150 more—was the closest we’ve been to feeling zen-like during the challenge. Choosing them as season twelve’s Restaurant War victors was one of the more clear-cut judging decisions in challenge history, especially when compared to the crepe-temperature debacle and service snafus happening over on Team Magellan.

“Cheers to another Restaurant Wars—may it be our best!” Padma Lakshmi announced to the judges ahead of service in this two-part season 13 installment. Best is subjective, but it definitely was one of the most difficult: Not only did our players have to prepare and put together a restaurant in 24 hours for dinner but, in a format shift, lunch as well. Producers also shook up the long-standing tradition of having a separate executive chef and FOH lead. Cleverly, the chefs would have to rotate those roles, meaning no one could hide away on the cook line. As is the case with most two-part episodes, the first half suffered from a lack of consequence and closure, but the ep redeemed itself with “the worst risotto in Top Chef history” and watching obnoxious Phillip Frankland Lee pack his man-pony and go.

Even an overall weak season—D.C. was oddly taken with both “alpha males” and America (remember that CIA challenge?)—can produce a great Restaurant Wars. And this one was a textbook rendition of everything we want from the drama-charged challenge: stew-room in-fighting, dish mix-ups (see: Alex Reznik accidentally serving a lamb chop as a pork chop), guest-judge bitchiness (New York Times critic Frank Bruni brutally likened one contestant’s beet salad to Hamburger Helper), an unpredictable winner (EVOO over Twenty One 21), and a massive upset elimination (frontrunner Kenny Gilbert, over Amanda Baumgarten’s “it’s like a nice pair of shoes with a bad suit” sauce?!).

It’s one thing to get snippy with a fellow cook in a high-pressure kitchen. It’s a whole other thing when said cook is your own sibling. Season six was a family affair, with both Michael and Bryan Voltaggio dominating the cast, but their Restaurant Wars appearance was anything but brotherly love. As executive chef of Team Revolt, Michael was an increasingly aggressive force in the kitchen, getting into verbal scraps with Robin Leventhal over the size of her pear pithiviers. (We love the deliciously cheeky edit that paired Michael’s early declaration, “Yelling and screaming and arrogance—there’s really no place for that in the kitchen,” with a montage of him yelling in the kitchen.) Though that intensity led to a team win—Padma proclaimed Revolt’s efforts as the best of all the early Top Chef seasons—it clearly bothered Bryan, who refused to take his cut of the $10,000 winnings that Michael offered to split with his teammates. We’re going to assume that family gatherings were a bit awkward after that one.

The first-ever Restaurant Wars looks almost wholesome compared to all of the smoke and smolder to come in the franchise, but it still served up one of the most fiery moments in Top Chef history. We’re talking, of course, about the ever-iconic “I’m not your bitch, bitch!” moment, a mid-judges-table grievance from Dave Martin that punctuated his heated rivalry with teammate Tiffani Faison. Did we mention that these two were on the winning team?! (The losers, meanwhile, had their own fish to fry, with soon-to-be-ousted competitor Miguel Morales accidentally buying seafood at seventeen, not seven, bucks a pound and, you know, not knowing what Spanish food is.)

It was the most egregious elimination decision our judging trio has ever made: voting to send home Kristen Kish, the clear frontrunner of season ten and one of the most successful Top Chef alumni since—she is, of course, our newly instated Top Chef host, succeeding —over Josie Smith-Malave’s frequent kitchen fumbles was downright baffling. (As usual, Gail Simmons, who was pro-Kristen, had the only correct opinion.) It was made even more maddening that Kristen was let go less for poor cooking than for lack of candor, with the Atelier Kwan executive chef refusing to throw Josie under the bus for her lack of line-cook urgency. However, in retrospect, that insane elimination prompted one of the series’ best redemption arcs, with Kish fighting her way back into the competition via five rounds of Last Chance Kitchen and ultimately going on to win the entirety of Top Chef: Seattle.

Most chefs only have to survive Restaurant Wars once. But the cast of season 17—composed entirely of returning contestants like Brian Voltaggio, Lea Anne Wong, Melissa King, and Brian Malarkey—had the delightful misfortune of having to go through the whole culinary rigmarole twice. This season’s version differed from previous iterations in that chefs pitched their concepts in the previous episode, with Gregory Gourdet’s Kann and Kevin Gillespie’s the Country Captain getting green-lit by the judges. And though Kevin initially seemed to have the upper hand with both Brian and Melissa—arguably two of the best contestants in show history—cooking in his kitchen, it was Gregory’s shrewd gameplay (putting Malarkey as FOH? Genius!) that secured Kann’s victory.

If you routinely dislike the FOH component of Restaurant Wars, this is the episode for you. Filmed in fall 2020—a.k.a. the belly of the COVID pandemic—the signature challenge was as much a challenge for production as for the players, with both the cast and crew required to isolate themselves in a bubble. That meant there couldn’t be a host of hungry patrons to feed and impress with a fresh-out-the-oven restaurant concept. Thus, wartime custom was thrown out the window, with the team instead assigned to create a chef’s table concept and seven-course tasting menu, an operating theater dramatically set right in front of an all-star judges’ panel (hi, Kristen Kish!). Sure, we missed out on those fun waitstaff snafus, but Portland plated up the best Restaurant Wars restaurant in the history of Top Chef with Kokosón, a concept so purposeful and fleshed-out that the chefs actually revisited it as a pop-up in the real world. (Seriously, we’ve been wanting to eat that hot pot ever since watching it.)