Top Chef

Twelve aspiring chefs compete for the coveted title of Top Chef as they creatively whip up a storm to escape elimination.

This week the chefs honor the late, great Pulitzer-Prize winning food critic Jonathan Gold. Using Gold’s last guide list, the chefs fan out all over Los Angeles to sample the unique taquerias, food trucks, mom-and-pop cafes, upscale eateries and ethnic cuisine only found in the City of Angels. Drawing inspiration from this one-in-a-lifetime culinary odyssey, the chefs create dishes to serve 200 of Jonathan Gold’s friends, family, and restaurateurs that he loved at the iconic Union Station. Noted food writer and personal friend of Jonathan Gold, Ruth Reichl serves as guest judge alongside Padma, Tom and Gail.

The ladies rally around each other.

Kelly Clarkson drops into the Top Chef kitchen for a Quickfire based on her new movie, Trolls: World Tour, where the chefs are tasked with combining colorful ingredients from six different musical ‘lands’ to make one delicious dish. For the Elimination Challenge, the chefs are split into two teams to create a cohesive, progressive vegetarian meal for Padma, Tom, Gail and James Beard nominated guest judge Jeremy Fox. The catch is they won’t know what ingredients they’ll be working with until the morning of the challenge when they shop exclusively at the Santa Monica Farmers Market.

In the Quickfire, it’s a true test of communication as the chefs play a game of telephone with their loved ones as they try to reproduce the dish their family member is currently eating at a nearby restaurant. Then, the chefs are tasked with creating a signature product that they will bottle, use on a dish and sell at a food festival. They may get help from their visiting loved ones, but for one chef, the help won’t save them from being sent home. Celebrity Chef Nancy Silverton is the guest judge joining Tom, Padma and Gail.

It's Restaurant Wars and this season Padma takes all the limitations off the table as the chefs can make as much food as they want and shop wherever they choose; two chefs are given 48 hours to pick their teams and crate the restaurants.

The chefs head to the mountains outside of Los Angeles to go to a summer camp where they are challenged to an outdoor grilling Quickfire for Padma and "Top Chef" Kentucky winner Kelsey Barnard Clark.

With only six chefs remaining, the challenges get even more difficult, when pastry super-chef Sherry Yard awaits the All Stars for a dreaded dessert Quickfire, made even more impossible when chefs must endure a blindfolded taste test to pick their ingredients. Then Michelin-starred Chefs/Restaurateurs Niki and Carole Lidi-Nakayama demonstrate a traditional Japanese Kaiseki meal, the ultimate in simplicity, restraint and precision. The chefs must make this formidable dinner for not just these Kaiseki masters, but in celebration of the Tokyo games with Olympic medalists...

Tom makes his final decision from "Last Chance Kitchen" on who should return to the competition; the chefs take off in a Quickfire with Padma and Jonathan Waxman making a two-course business class dish for an airline.

The final five travel to Italy, where the chefs must make an aperitivo for 30 locals from the town of Lucca that pairs perfectly with a Peroni beer; then, they hunt the elusive white truffle which they must use in a dish for a Tuscan food festival.

The chefs are treated to a culinary dream trip to Parma, the legendary home of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and Prosciutto di Parma ham; the chefs must feature the ingredients in two courses and serve their dishes to a table of 16 Michelin stars.

In an epic Italian showdown, the final three All Stars cook the meal of their lives in an effort to take home the ultimate title and prize. To win, all they'll need to impress not only the judges - Tom, Padma, Gail and Nilou Motamed, but also culinary superstars Mauro Colagreco, Clare Smyth, Marcus Samuelsson, Janice Wong, Tony Mantuano, Eighth Generation Italian Butcher Dario Cecchini and Food and Wine magazine's Hunter Lewis. It's a fight to the bitter end, but only one will be have their second chance to finally be crowned Top Chef.