Restaurant Wars is the season’s great stress test. Not because the food is necessarily the hardest it’s ever been — the chefs cook harder dishes in individual elimination rounds — but because it reveals everything the cooking challenges don’t.
Who leads. Who follows. Who can hold a kitchen together when 100 people are waiting and the tickets won’t stop coming. Who folds.
After Monday night’s episode 8, the field is down to seven. Brandon Dearden is gone, heading to Last Chance Kitchen after Tierra Reina’s service collapsed under the weight of a 30-minute wait and a kitchen that couldn’t keep up. Carolina Queen won cleanly, and with the finale in Asheville now clearly on the horizon, the race is taking shape.
Here is how the seven remaining chefs stack up, ranked by their full season arc — not just one episode.
The performance table at a glance
| Chef | Individual wins | Top-group finishes | Bottom appearances | Ep 8 role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthony Jones | 2 | 4 | 0 | Exec chef, Carolina Queen (W) |
| Duyen Ha | 0 | 3 | 1 | FOH, Carolina Queen (W) |
| Laurence Louie | 1 | 4 | 1 | Line cook, Carolina Queen (W) |
| Sherry Cardoso | 0 | 3 | 1 | Line cook, Carolina Queen (W) |
| Oscar Diaz | 0 | 1 | 3 | FOH, Tierra Reina (L) |
| Jonathan Dearden | 0 | 2 | 1 | Line cook, Tierra Reina (L) |
| Sieger Bayer | 1 | 1 | 1 | Exec chef, Tierra Reina (L) |
Note: Sieger was eliminated in Episode 6 and returned to the competition before Episode 8 following Jennifer Lee Jackson’s medical withdrawal.
Anthony Jones
The most dominant arc of the season
If this season ended today, Anthony Jones is the pick.
He has won two elimination challenges outright. He has never been in the bottom group. And heading into Restaurant Wars, he carried immunity — won the night before with an apple stack cake that beat a room full of 60 superfans and earned the top dessert slot at judges’ table.
He has been near the top so consistently that his presence there has stopped feeling like a surprise and started feeling like a baseline.
His cooking profile is specific and repeatable. He leans on Caribbean technique applied to Southern ingredients — a combination that has produced some of the season’s most praised individual dishes. His smoked ham mojo with black bean puree and hushpuppies at the BBQ challenge (Episode 6) won the head-to-head round against Jennifer.
His cured salmon with banga broth and dehydrated smoked oyster-infused rice at Episode 5 was named best dish of the night by the judges. These are not flukey performances. They are a pattern.
At Restaurant Wars, he led Carolina Queen’s kitchen as executive chef with immunity in his pocket. He didn’t need the protection — Carolina Queen ran smoothly.
His kitchen didn’t lose a ticket, miss a course, or leave a judge sitting empty-handed. That’s not nothing when the comparison is a rival restaurant that made the judges wait 30 minutes before their first appetizer.
The risk for Anthony is the same risk that follows every front-runner at this stage: the target gets bigger and the margin for error shrinks. One off night and the narrative flips. But he has shown no sign of being susceptible to that. Until he does, he’s first.
Verdict: The chef to beat. A finale spot feels close to certain; the question is who joins him there.
Duyen Ha
Quiet, consistent, and genuinely hard to read
Duyen Ha does not have an individual elimination win. By some metrics, that should knock her further down this list. It doesn’t, because her floor is higher than almost anyone else in this competition and her top-group appearances are spread across entirely different challenge types.
Episode 4: top group on Southern sides elevated to mains. Episode 5: top group on the dehydration challenge alongside Anthony and Sherry — a technically demanding brief that rewarded precision and planning. Episode 8: singled out by judges at Restaurant Wars FOH as one of the two standout front-of-house performers of the night, described as feeling like a genuine restaurant owner.
The FOH praise is notable because Duyen is not primarily a front-of-house personality — she’s a cook. That she pulled off the service side of Restaurant Wars with equal ease to the cooking side suggests the kind of range that judges reward in finales, where the chefs have to demonstrate everything at once.
Her one blemish is a bottom-three appearance in Episode 7’s Quickfire Challenge, which stood out partly because it was so out of character with everything she had done before it. She recovered the same episode, staying safe.
The case against: she needs a win. Running deep without a signature individual moment can leave a chef feeling like a bridesmaid when the finale comes around. A best-dish performance in Episode 9 would cement what most viewers already suspect — that she is a serious finalist.
Verdict: The most underrated chef in the competition. If Anthony stumbles, Duyen is right there.
Laurence Louie
Technically the most impressive resume in the field
Laurence Louie’s season looks like this: a Quickfire win in Episode 2 — his pistachio-inspired lamb borek earning him $10,000 and judge Mei Lin’s genuine enthusiasm — followed by a near-flawless run of top and near-top finishes through the rest of the season.
His “Hoppin’ Huang” in Episode 4 — a Chinese take on Hoppin’ John with shiitake mushrooms, butter beans, and a cured egg yolk — was praised as hitting “on every level.”
His loin cut at the whole-hog BBQ in Episode 6 won best dish of the night, a remarkable achievement given that the loin is the leanest and most unforgiving cut on the animal. He then appeared in the top three at Episode 7’s dessert challenge.
His line cook performance at Restaurant Wars for Carolina Queen in Episode 8 was clean and unremarkable in the best sense — nothing went wrong, the kitchen hit its marks, and the team won.
The single notable wobble: his brassica salad at Episode 5 was criticized as overdressed, landing him in the bottom group. It’s the only dish in eight episodes that didn’t reflect his usual technical command. More importantly, that bottom appearance didn’t define his trajectory — it was a footnote in an otherwise elite run.
The reason he sits at three rather than one is Anthony’s edge in individual wins and zero bottom appearances. But Laurence’s ceiling may be the highest of anyone still in the competition. The Asheville finale, which is expected to lean on local and foraged ingredients, suits his style precisely.
Verdict: The most dangerous opponent in the field. If Anthony has one bad episode, Laurence is the immediate beneficiary.
Sherry Cardoso
Strong ceiling, inconsistent floor — a finalist in waiting
Sherry has quietly assembled a respectable mid-season record: top-group finishes in Episodes 4, 5, and 7, a winning team at Restaurant Wars in Episode 8, and no elimination-level disasters on her record beyond one early bottom appearance in Episode 3 when her pork texture drew criticism from the judges.
What Sherry doesn’t have is a signature moment. No individual best dish. No challenge that made the judges sit up and specifically note her name as the best cook in the room. In a competition that rewards peaks as much as consistency, that is a problem as the field shrinks.
At Restaurant Wars she was a line cook on the winning team, which keeps her safe and builds her record, but doesn’t create a narrative. In the second half of a Top Chef season, the chefs with narrative momentum are the ones who reach the finale.
Right now, Sherry’s narrative is that she keeps herself out of trouble — which is a good strategy for staying in the competition, but not necessarily for winning it.
One individual win changes this analysis entirely. She has the cooking ability to produce one. Episode 9 is an important episode for her.
Verdict: Safe for now. The next few weeks will determine whether she’s a finalist or a deep-cut elimination.
Oscar Diaz
The most watchable chef in the competition — and the most inconsistent cook
Oscar is a problem to rank because his Restaurant Wars performance in Episode 8 was arguably his best of the season, and it had almost nothing to do with cooking.
His front-of-house work at Tierra Reina was praised by the judges in terms that matched what they said about Duyen at Carolina Queen — he felt like a real restaurant owner, his hospitality was genuine, and his personality kept the room warm even as the kitchen behind him was struggling to keep up.
Judges described him as “killing it.” He also won the impromptu smores challenge at the BBQ episode in Episode 6, which counts for something as a measure of composure under pressure.
But the cooking record is harder to defend. Overcooked lamb at Episode 5 landed him in the bottom group. Underseasoned rice at Episode 4. A bottom-three Quickfire appearance in Episode 7. These aren’t isolated misses — they form a pattern of execution issues that the judges have noticed and noted.
The fundamental tension in Oscar’s season is that he may be the most naturally charming presence in the competition, and charm does not save you at judges’ table when Tom Colicchio is evaluating a protein that’s been overcooked.
The finale in Asheville will demand precise individual cooking with no team to absorb the slack. That is either the episode where Oscar proves the doubters wrong or the episode where the gap between his personality and his plate finally closes in on him.
Verdict: Top five feels right. Top three requires an execution turnaround that hasn’t happened yet.
Jonathan Dearden
Talented, battle-tested, and now completely alone
Jonathan Dearden has been in this competition for eight episodes and has consistently shown he belongs.
His smothered steak with bourbon pan gravy in Episode 7’s Quickfire challenge was part of the winning Yellow team’s performance — a dish the judges praised for its Southern confidence. He has contributed to winning teams and avoided serious elimination-level lows throughout the season.
But his Restaurant Wars performance as a line cook for Tierra Reina was a step back. He and Brandon fell behind on vegetable and garnish prep as service opened — a contributing factor to the kitchen disorder that ultimately got Brandon eliminated.
Jonathan survived because the judgment fell on Brandon more squarely, but the near-elimination in Episode 6 (the BBQ challenge, where he was in the at-risk group before Sieger was chosen) shows this isn’t the first time the judges have considered his name.
Then there is the twin storyline, which now resolves in the most dramatic possible way. Jonathan and Brandon entered Restaurant Wars together. Brandon leaves. Jonathan continues, alone, for the first time all season.
That can be a clarifying moment — stripped of the twin dynamic, forced to define himself individually — or it can be a destabilizing one. The psychological narrative of being the twin who stayed while his brother heads to Last Chance Kitchen is either fuel or weight.
He has the cooking ability to make a serious run at the finale. Whether the next few episodes show that he can sustain it without Brandon beside him is the question.
Verdict: A legitimate dark horse. Watch Episode 9 closely.
Sieger Bayer
A returner with something to prove — and a structural problem
Sieger Bayer’s position in this competition is genuinely unusual. He was eliminated in Episode 6 after the whole-hog BBQ challenge — a loss rooted in a single catastrophic decision to leave the smoker lid closed for the first seven hours of a 10–12 hour cook.
He then declined to participate in Last Chance Kitchen, a choice that was both unusual and, at the time, unexplained.
He returned to the competition before Episode 8 not by winning his way back, but because Jennifer Lee Jackson’s medical withdrawal and Justin Tootla’s decision to leave alongside her created a vacancy that needed to be filled.
That is a complicated route back into a competition for $250,000.
At Restaurant Wars, he performed well. His sweet potato with chili crunch as Tierra Reina’s first course was the standout dish from the losing team — praised by the judges with genuine enthusiasm. That matters.
It means he can still cook at the level required. But the structural problem remains: he is the only chef currently in the competition who did not earn his return through Last Chance Kitchen. Every other chef standing has been there from the start or fought their way back legitimately. Sieger walked back in through a door that circumstances opened.
Tom Colicchio’s comment at judges’ table — that one chef on Tierra Reina “didn’t pull their weight” — landed on Brandon rather than Sieger. But the awareness that Sieger’s path back is fragile, and that the judges know it, makes him the easiest elimination story in the field if he produces a weak episode.
Verdict: The wildcard. Capable of reaching the finale on cooking alone — but the margin is thin and the narrative isn’t on his side.
The Last Chance Kitchen factor
Brandon Dearden now enters Last Chance Kitchen, joining a growing field of eliminated chefs competing for the one re-entry spot this season. Season 23 reverted to a single opportunity for a chef to return — meaning only one person comes back, and only once, closer to the finale.
The LCK winner could reshape any of the rankings above. A returning Brandon — sharper and hungry — would immediately threaten the bubble of Jonathan, Oscar, and Sieger. Keep one eye on LCK as the second half of the season unfolds.
The road to Asheville
The finale is filmed in Asheville, North Carolina — a city still in the process of recovering from hurricane damage, and one whose food culture is deeply rooted in local sourcing, Appalachian tradition, and ingredient-driven cooking. That isn’t just a backdrop. It’s a brief.
The chefs who reach Asheville and cook well there will be the ones who can translate a sense of place into a plate — who understand that the finale isn’t just about technical skill but about telling a story through food that feels specific and earned. Anthony’s range, Laurence’s ingredient creativity, and Duyen’s adaptability all map onto that challenge particularly well.
Six more weeks of competition. One title. One place in food history.
The pick: Anthony Jones, with Laurence Louie as the most dangerous threat in the field.
Power rankings are updated weekly. Check back after Episode 9 for the full revised rankings.
