Top Chef [OV]

Fifteen of the competition’s fiercest challengers return to face-off in the toughest season yet!

This week the chefs honor the late, great Pulitzer-Prize winning food critic Jonathan Gold.

Comedic superstars Ali Wong and Randall Park swing by the Top Chef kitchen for a Quickfire Challenge tasking the chefs to make the wackiest fried rice they can.

Kelly Clarkson drops into the Top Chef kitchen for a Quickfire based on her new movie, Trolls: World Tour, where the chefs are tasked with combining colorful ingredients from six different musical ‘lands’ to make one delicious dish.

In the Quickfire, it’s a true test of communication as the chefs play a game of telephone with their loved ones as they try to reproduce the dish their family member is currently eating at a nearby restaurant.

Padma gets a real rise out of the chefs when she tasks them to make a Quickfire dish without any All-Purpose flour. Instead chefs must work with alternative flours from Blue Corn and Buckwheat to Coconut and Hazelnut.

The chefs are challenged to a taco throwdown for the taco king, actor and restaurateur Danny Trejo. For the Quickfire, the only sharp tool they can use is a machete, in honor of one of Danny’s signature characters.

It’s Restaurant Wars and this season Padma takes all the limitations off the table as the chefs can make as much food as they want and shop wherever they choose.

The chefs head to the mountains, a few hours outside of Los Angeles to go to Summer Camp where they are challenged to an outdoor grilling Quickfire for Padma and “Top Chef” Kentucky winner Kelsey Barnard Clark.

With only six chefs remaining, the challenges get even more difficult, when pastry super-chef Sherry Yard awaits the All Stars for a dreaded dessert Quickfire, made even more impossible when chefs must endure a blindfolded taste test to pick their ingredients.

Tom makes his final decision from Last Chance Kitchen on who should return to the competition. Then the chefs take off in a Quickfire with Padma and Jonathan Waxman making a two-course Business-Class dish for an airline.

In a Top Chef first, the final five travel to one of the top culinary destinations in the world - Italy. First the chefs must make an apertivo for 30 locals from the town of Lucca that pairs perfectly with a Peroni beer.

In the penultimate episode in the All Stars competition, the chefs are treated to a culinary dream trip to Parma, the legendary home of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and Prosciutto di Parma ham.

In an epic Italian showdown, the final three All Stars cook the meal of their lives in an effort to take home the ultimate title and prize.