Underdog SF Competitor Laura Ozyilmaz Fights for a Final Three Spot on ‘Top Chef’

Underdog SF Competitor Laura Ozyilmaz Fights for a Final Three Spot on ‘Top Chef’

Note: Spoilers ahead for Top Chef Episode 13. But you know this already.

The final four players on season 21 of Bravo’s Top Chef were revealed at the end of episode 12, “Goodbye, Wisconsin,” and fans of Dalida chef and co-owner Laura Ozyilmaz were delighted to see her comeback arc play out these last few weeks.

Episode 13, “Set Sail,” saw Ozyilmaz and fellow competitors Dan Jacob, Danny Garcia, and Savannah Miller fly to Curaçao after a six-week break, to battle for a spot in the season finale. It’s a high-stakes episode and every chef is approaching the competition with intense focus. “I came with a mindset of winning,” Ozyilmaz says. “Coming from Mexico, going to school, working at the best restaurants in the world — that’s what keeps me going. So do I have what it takes to be a Top Chef? Absolutely.”

Of course, the episode begins with a curveball of a Quickfire Challenge for all the chefs: Make a dish with lionfish, an invasive species in the Caribbean, and pair it with Dutch gouda (a fitting nod to Wisconsin). There are two upsides, competition-wise, to the Quickfire: None of the chefs have worked with the venomous fish previously, nor will they have to remove the poisonous spines of the animal. Ozyilmaz approached the challenge by creating a lionfish crudo with a guava sauce base and topped with gouda crunch, a nod to her childhood in Acapulco and the classic combination of guava and cheese. Still, Jacob came out on top with a lionfish tartar dish with aguachile, surpassing the others to win his first Quickfire of the season.

The ensuing Elimination Challenge also took a turn with the announcement that the chefs would cook an eight-course tasting menu composed of fresh fish, made collectively as a group — aboard a Holland America Cruise Line ship. Each chef is responsible for two courses on the tasting menu, dividing up eight styles of fish preparation: raw, steamed, mousse, poached, fried, roasted, smoked, and blackened.

After a meal by legendary chef Masaharu Morimoto, the chefs got to work. Following some terse negotiations over the fish, Ozyilmaz steams black bass and roasts grouper — but ultimately hits some major roadblocks. When Ozyilmaz serves the black bass steamed in banana leaves, the judges say it wasn’t cleaned correctly and that gave the dish an overall “murky, muddy scent” and a dirty taste. Her second dish, the grouper, was another miss with the judges as some fish arrived undercooked at the judges’ table; despite that, an accompanying pineapple broth was given some praise during the elimination discussion.

Ultimately, the judges decided to let Ozyilmaz go. “Laura, you’ve had your ups and downs, and when you’re on, you’re on,” chef Tom Colicchio told her. “Your dishes are creative, focused. They’re delicious.” But ultimately the day’s flaws outshined Ozyilmaz’s talent. “I wish this was not the way I was leaving the competition,” Ozyilmaz says in her exit interview. “But I feel good to be part of this, to have an opportunity to work with amazing chefs, to learn from other people.”