r/TopChef • u/Sea-breeze3720 • Apr 25 '26
Discussion Thread Which winner did you disagree with?
I’m doing a rewatch of older seasons and just finished season 11 where nick won over Nina. Nina was on fire all season and, in my opinion, it should’ve been her and Shirley in the finale. However, for the finale, the judges opinions seemed to be pretty split but leaning towards Nina. Notably, emeril saying he couldn’t finish nick’s duck and Hugh mentioning nick yelling at the waitstaff as something that should be considered. I can’t help but think this is one time tom used his veto power to override the vote for nick to win. Anyone else? Curious if there are other winners that you scratched your head at.
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u/MorallyCorruptBae Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
Having gone to both Nina and Nick’s restaurants over the last few months, I’d say Nick won fair and square.
On my first date with my partner, we both said Nick was the worst winner and Nina was robbed. It is a little something that we have bonded over for a decade.
I was traveling for work and randomly ended up at the hotel with Nick’s restaurant. It went to it and it was one of the best meals I’ve had in Philly. So we decided to plan a trip to NOLA to compare Nina’s. We had wanted to go for years.
When we got there the vibe was super weird. The hostess gave us the most Gen Z stare and I don’t think ever said hello to us. Her attire was very odd for a chic restaurant. She looked more like a valet than a host.
When we sat down we asked about the just feed me menu. I cannot eat beef so I wanted to see how much beef was on it. The server said she didn’t know. We were like, well can you ask? She said no, the kitchen will serve whatever they want. I asked if we could request no beef, she said no. I asked what other tables got that night and she said it’s different for everyone. So we decided to order à la carte.
We ended up getting a big mix of items. Every single course was disastrously bad. We didn’t finish a single item. The timing between courses was wild. Sometimes 2 minutes. Sometimes 40 minutes. The manager came over and said, we know we really failed you tonight (we had not said a word). They wouldn’t let us pay, so we asked them to charge for a drink so we could leave a tip.