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Kristen Kish Reflects on Her Best and Worst Dishes as a Cheftestant: "What Were You Thinking?"
Find out why "the ship has sailed" for the Top Chef Season 21 host and winner of Season 10.
It's been nearly 12 years since Kristen Kish won Top Chef: Last Chance Kitchen on Season 10 and made her triumphant return to the competition to win it all and earn the title of Top Chef.
While Kristen might be critiquing dishes from the cheftestants as a judge and the host of Top Chef Season 21, she isn't afraid to criticize her own dishes from her Top Chef days as a Cheftestant. It's hard to forget some of Kristen's more memorable moments from Season 10, like her win — and the low points, like when she had to pack her knives and go after a less than stellar leadership performance during Restaurant Wars.
Although Kristen has moved on, now as the chef and partner of restaurant, Arlo Grey, in Austin Texas, she told BravoTV.com that there are some dishes from her time on the show that she can't ever forget and may never cook again.
Kristen Kish on Her Worst Dishes from Top Chef Season 10
If there were some things that she could have done differently, she would have done them — especially the dishes that highlighted the trends from 2012, which is when the season aired on Bravo. "You know, I look back on that entire season, and I'm like, Oh my god Kristen. What were you thinking?" she told BravoTV.com.
"I don't know of any of them were the worst dishes I've ever cooked in my life because I've certainly cooked worse," she admitted. "You know, I think that there's some that I'm a little bit embarrassed by. But I think it's only simply because it was, like, the time, and like, the trends of the year that I was on because it was over 10 years ago."
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Kristen Kish on Her Favorite Dishes from Top Chef Season 10
Although Kristen couldn't name her least favorite dish from the season, she did point out her favorite dish from a quickfire challenge in Season 10, Episode 7, where she used her creativity and was able to come out with the win, securing immunity from the elimination challenge during the episode.
"One of my favorite dishes, I will say, was this whole Reynold's Wrap quickfire, and I liked it because it was actually a challenge, where everything was wrapped — everything individually was wrapped in aluminum foil, and then we had to go into the pantry, grab everything, make a quickfire dish," she explained. "And we had to use everything we grabbed. So, it was like, it was a challenge in and of itself to, like, mentally [do it], so that was really fun."
Although she cooked up some memorable things throughout the season, Kristen told BravoTV.com that there were no dishes worth revisiting and cooking up again. "Yeah. It's passed," she said. "The ship has sailed."
Watch Top Chef Season 21 Wednesdays at 9/8c and stream episodes the next day on Peacock.
Watch Kristen's digital series The Dish with Kish where she's joined by celebrity guests to discuss Top Chef episodes and create a unique dished inspired by the latest Top Chef challenge.
-Reporting by Stephanie Gomulka
