Top Chef judges accused of having confusing standards

Top Chef‘s most recent elimination confuses the cheftestants and leads fans to criticize the judges. 

More:Top Chef finalists: Where are they now?

On Thursday’s new Top Chef, the remaining chefs were asked to forsake knives and other fancy cooking implements and use only their hands in the Quickfire Challenge, as well as create a winning meal for a beefsteak charity event for the Elimination Challenge. A beefsteak, if you’re not familiar, is a meal featuring meat, minus the comforts and conveniences of utensils, plates or napkins. In the end, the black team, led by Amar, triumphed, keeping in mind what the judges were looking for (“No microgreens!” ordered Tom Colicchio). Phillip was ultimately named the winner and Chad was sent packing to Last Chance Kitchen. Twitter remained discontented with Phillip continuing to be on the show, but they were also upset about what they believed to be unclear instructions by the judges, which resulted in Chad being eliminated.

And then there were those on Twitter who thought that, in the face of confusion, the cheftestants could have done their homework a little more thoroughly.

More: Wesley True discusses his crucial Top Chef mistake

This latest challenge was most definitely out of the box. The show’s been on for 10 years and it’s definitely possible that the producers are running out of ideas. It might also seem as though the beefsteak challenge was a lowering of standards by the judges, but in actuality, it was an opportunity for the cheftestants to showcase their abilities to cook meat and to do it so well that it didn’t need to be dressed up by microgreens or other fanciness. It’s a game-changer and it might have overwhelmed the chefs, considering that they’ve probably gotten used to doing so much at one time, and this was a very distilled assignment. The field is getting narrower every week and we’re now down to just seven chefs (after Thursday’s episode), so now more than ever, there isn’t any room for mistakes, confusion or deciding you can’t work with your fellow contestants. In any given week on Top Chef, the contestants can fail to deliver on what the judges expect and/or ask for. If anything, tonight the judges raised the bar, refusing to allow the chefs to hide behind upscale ingredients and asking them to show what they could do with a simple cut of meat — hopefully making it so delicious that the people eating it wouldn’t care if they weren’t allowed to use a fork or a napkin.

More:Top Chef‘sAngelina Bastidas explains the challenge with her age

What did you think about the beefsteak challenge? Were the judges clear about what they wanted? Did the right cheftestant win/get sent home?