Brittany Cochran Eliminated on 'Top Chef' Season 23 After Challenging Southern Dishes
Brittany Cochran Eliminated on 'Top Chef' Season 23 After Challenging Southern Dishes
Andrea ReiherTue, March 31, 2026 at 2:40 AM UTC
0
This week, the 12 remaining cheftestants on Top Chef: Carolinas welcomed season 22 winner Tristen Epps as a guest judge and tasked the chefs with turning traditional Southern side dishes into main courses.
Spoiler alert: The post below discusses the elimination and the challenges from the Monday, March 30 episode of Top Chefseason 23. Don't keep reading if you don't want to be spoiled.
Related: Brooke Williamson Reveals ‘Mind-Screwing’ Reality of ‘Top Chef’ vs. Food Network
Who Went Home on 'Top Chef' Season 23 Tonight?
Brittany CochranBravo (Bravo)Brittany Cochran – Charlotte, NC
Related: ‘Top Chef’ Star Recalls Wild On-Set Romance: ‘We Were Wasted Like All the Time’
Advancing Contestants on ‘Top Chef’ Season 23 Episode 3Sieger Bayer – Chicago, ILSherry Cardoso – Brooklyn, NYOscar Diaz – Durham, NCBrandon Dearden – Hamilton, MTJonathan Dearden – Alexandria, VADuyen Ha – Los Angeles, CAJennifer Lee Jackson – Suttons Bay, MI / Detroit, MIAnthony Jones – Alexandria, VALaurence Louie – Quincy, MARhoda Magbitang – Kailua-Kona, HIJustin Tootla – Suttons Bay, MI / Detroit, MI
Related: ‘Top Chef’ Star Joins Padma Lakshmi’s New Culinary Competition Show
What Were the Challenges on 'Top Chef' Season 23 Episode 4?
Last year's winner Tristen Epps was on hand as the guest judge this week. The Quickfire Challenge tasked the chefs with creating a food flight using the Josh brand of wines as the inspiration. They had to use one red, one white and one rose and create a food flight, one dish to pair with each wine. They drew knives for their wine type and then had to split themselves into four groups of three that contained one of each wine type.
The groups were:
Jennifer, Justin and Sieger
Laurence, Rhoda and Sherry
Anthony, Duyen and Jonathan
Brittany, Oscar and Brandon
The winning team was the Blue Team (Jennifer, Justin and Sieger) with their egg dish flight. They won $15,000 to split.
Related: ‘Top Chef’ Judge Gail Simmons Teases What Makes Season 23 ‘So Different’ (Exclusive)
The Elimination Challenge was based around traditional Southern side dishes: fried okra, hoe cakes, collard greens, potato salad, Charleston red rice, Hoppin' John and smothered cabbage.
They were tasked with each taking a side dish and turning it into an elevated main dish. They got to pick fresh, locally grown ingredients from nearby Deep Roots CPS Farm and were tasked with serving not only the judges' table but 40 other diners within a 90-minute window. Wow, that is tight.
Advertisement
The side dishes broke down thusly:
Fried Okra: Sieger
Hoe Cakes: Jonathan and Jennifer
Collard Greens: Brittany and Anthony
Potato Salad: Justin and Sherry
Charleston Red Rice: Rhoda
Hoppin' John: Laurence and Oscar
Smothered Cabbage: Duyen and Brandon
Poor Brittany was using the steamer feature of the oven and discovered with about 19 minutes left to cook that her steamer wasn't on. Oof. She pivoted as best she could to a collard green wrap.
Related: Meet the Full Cast of ‘Top Chef’ Season 23
The best three dishes went to:
Sieger with his braised okra and pork belly with seeded tempura for texture.
Sherry with her marble potato salad with smoked trout, crispy potato chips and potato nage (nage is a light, aromatic broth).
Laurence with his "Hoppin' Huang," a Chinese take on Hoppin' John with shitake mushrooms, butter beans and a cured egg yolk.
The winning dish went to Sieger—with OKRA, which regular Top Chef viewers know is one of Tom Colicchio's least favorite foods of all time and guest judge Tristen is also not a fan, so hats off to Sieger. He has immunity next week.
The three least successful dishes were:
Anthony with his black eyed peas and ham fritter with braised collard greens and chadon beni sauce (a Caribbean sauce made with garlic, citrus, hot peppers and cilantro).
Jennifer with her yeasted hoe cake with pot likker, butter beans, triple cream cheese and hot honey.
Brittany with her collard green wrap with pork and fennel sausage inside on top of smoked tomato butter sauce.
Two of them (Anthony and Jennifer) got dinged for basically serving side dishes not main courses and both of their dishes were overly salty, while Brittany got dinged because her dish was just weird (but again, she had her issue with the steamer and had to pivot super last minute).
In the end, Brittany was sent home, which felt correct based on how the episode played out. But she's obviously a well-regarded chef and can maybe fight her way back from Last Chance Kitchen.
Top Chef airs Monday nights from 9:30 to 10:45 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo. All season 23 episodes will be supersized to 75 minutes.
Related: ‘Top Chef’ Judge Gail Simmons Opens Up About Her Brother’s Schizophrenia (Exclusive)
🎬 SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬
This story was originally published by Parade on Mar 31, 2026, where it first appeared in the TV section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
