‘Please pack your knives and go.’ Charlotte’s ‘Top Chef’ contestant is out
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‘Top Chef Carolinas’ was filmed in Charlotte
Bravo’s hit reality TV show “Top Chef” filmed most of Season 23 in Charlotte and a few episodes in Greenville, SC, to create “Top Chef Carolinas.” The show’s announcement said: “This season will showcase the finest in southern hospitality, embracing the rich history, agriculture, and outdoors, as a new batch of accomplished and renowned chefs vie for the ultimate Top Chef title.”
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Charlotte’s “Top Chef” contestant has reached the end of her time on the show.
Executive chef Brittany Cochran of Stagioni: Four Seasons of Food is originally from Ohio, but represented Charlotte as its hometown chef. Host Kristen Kish asked her to, “Please pack your knives and go,” on the episode that aired Monday, March 30 after an Elimination Challenge where contestants were asked to turn Charlotte chef Greg Collier’s side dishes into mains.
Before the show’s March 2 private premiere in Charlotte, Cochran told CharlotteFive: “You know, one thing that I will say about our season is that I feel like we’ll walk away with 14 best friends.
“We were one of 15 chefs, and the fact that we are all so very close, we all keep in touch, we all know each other’s new ventures and new exciting things — match-ups, collaborative dinners — it is awesome,” she said.
Here’s a look at some of Cochran’s moments on the show.
Episode 1
In the Season 23 premiere, Cochran’s team — including chefs Justin Tootla and Jassi Bindra — sweated through a Quickfire competition at Charlotte Motor Speedway to create a joint dish with snapper, corn and cauliflower that ended with undercooked fish, leading them into the bottom.
In the first episode’s Elimination Challenge‚ which was focused on North Carolina’s state vegetable, sweet potatoes — Cochran cooked up a pork loin in the kitchen at La Belle Helene that wasn’t quite cooked through, landing her in the bottom three competitors. She was safe in the end, though, as Day Anaїs Joseph was the first chef sent home.
Episode 2
In Episode 2, Cochran was tasked in the Quickfire Challenge with using coffee-chocolate chip gelato and a pantry of Colombian ingredients, leading her to create a coffee-spiced rack of lamb tartare with aioli, chili pepper and crispy plantains.
“I’ve been on the bottom, and I don’t like to lose,” she told the cameras. But guest judge Mei Lin, who won Season 12 of “Top Chef,” said the coffee flavor in her dish didn’t come through, and the raw onion used in it was “overly aggressive.”
In the Episode 2 Elimination Challenge, when teams were paired up to create a dinner showcasing a progressive heat level using Puckerbutt Pepper Co. peppers, Cochran was on the Green Team, with Anthony Jones, Jennifer Lee Jackson, twin Jonathan Dearden, Oscar Diaz, Rhoda Magbitang and Sieger Bayer.
Cochran created a second course dish of grilled shrimp and charred corn salad, using chili-lime vinaigrette and pickled cayenne pepper.
“The pickled cayenne is delicious,” Puckerbutt owner Ed Currie said.
Episode 3
Season 23’s Episode 3 started things off by focusing on a North Carolina staple found on many Charlotte breakfast tables: livermush.
Cochran crafted a livermush cracker with pate and grape mostarda, intending to give it “more of a bite” to combat the pasty texture. But Lagasse felt it was “kind of dry” and “off the mark.”
That episode’s elimination challenge, meant to represent North Carolina’s rich history in textiles, tasked contestants with creating a colorful plate using food dyes.
Cochran was also featured in a cameo about her time in Michelin-starred kitchens in New York, sharing that she “struggled with trying to prove myself in this industry.”
“It’s a tough city, and, you know, drugs and alcohol is an issue,” she said. “Paycheck to paycheck was bag to bag, was a downward spiral. And I was like, I’ve worked way too hard to be like this. And so I had made the decision to come back here to really refocus myself. And that’s when I got clean, and that’s when I really turned myself around.
“Being off drugs and being on the other side has brightened, and just like amplified, my creativity never looked back.”
That creativity led Cochran to work with scallops in the challenge, making a duo of green and yellow sauces with broccoli and chlorophyll, daikon and a carrot and saffron broth.
“It was something I’ve never done before,” Cochran told the judges during the critique. “It was just different. It was very challenging.”
Episode 4
The Quickfire Challenge in Episode 4, based around North Carolina’s history of being First in Flight, put the contestants in groups of three to create the first food flights in “Top Chef” history to pair with Josh wines — a red, a white and a rose.
Cochran paired up with fellow North Carolinian Diaz and twin competitor Brandon Deardon to tackle a flight of seafood created with caviar, scallop and grouper that landed them among the bottom chefs. Cochran’s dish was a seared scallop in plum sauce paired with Chardonnay, which guest judge Tristan Epps — last season’s winner — felt would have paired better with a rose.
In the Elimination Challenge, James Beard Award finalist Collier — who owns Uptown Yolk with his wife, Subrina, and serves as executive chef at Fine & Fettle — crafted a variety of his trademark Southern side dishes for the contestants to turn into main dishes. They visited Deep Roots CPS Farms to meet with owners Wisdom and Cherie Jzar to get inspired and to acquire supplies to feed a crowd of 40 at Fine & Fettle.
Cochran chose to turn Collier’s collard greens into a steamed collard green-wrapped pork sausage main dish, but the oven wasn’t turned on — leading to an emergency backup plan. On the second try, she made a collard green leaf-wrapped sausage mixed with potato and paired with a smoked tomato butter sauce.
“The flavors are there, but I feel like I’m kind of in trouble with this one,” Cochran said before judging began and told the judges that wasn’t what she had intended to make.
She wasn’t wrong.
Epps said, “I don’t understand what I’m eating here, and I feel for her as a person who’s been back there.”
In the end, Cochran landed in the bottom three chefs with Jones and Jackson. Colicchio noted that he’d eaten at her restaurant and she had been struggling the entire competition, asking her what had happened.
“No matter what you do, you cannot prepare for this,” Cochran said. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I mean, we’re used to being the top of our game, like at our restaurants, and now we’re all the tops in this same kitchen. It is extremely intimidating. I get in this head space of self doubt, but I’m like, ‘Hey, like, I am a damn good chef.’”
Afterward, Collier told the panel Cochran is “one of the best chefs in Charlotte.” But they ultimately agreed that her time for elimination had arrived.
“I knew it was coming. It’s a bummer. I learned that I need to put trust in myself to figure s*** out,” she said.
‘Last Chance Kitchen’
Next, Cochran was sent to “Top Chef’s” “Last Chance Kitchen,” a short-form show streaming only on Peacock in which eliminated contestants can earn their way back onto “Top Chef.” Her competitor: Nana Araba Wilmot, who recently returned to Charlotte to cook in the Stagioni kitchen with Cochran and Sieger Bayer for a Savor Charlotte “Top Chef” pop-up.
Set free with the “Top Chef” pantry to work with, Cochran chose to sear halibut and pair it with a corn and tomato panzanella salad, with Wilmot cooking a seared salmon in a tomato curry sauce.
Colicchio, the lone judge on “Last Chance Kitchen,” chose Wilmot to win, saying her creation “just packs a bit more flavor” but acknowledging that Cochran cooked her fish “perfectly.”
“This has been an unbelievable experience,” Cochran said. “ This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve learned that I need to be proud of myself. I’m excited to continue being a great chef here in Charlotte and keep moving forward.”
