Rhoda Magbitang, crowned the winner of “Top Chef” Season 23 in the finale aired Monday, June 8, credits her turnaround to the pressure and “endurance” of “Last Chance Kitchen.” In an interview after her win, she also explains why Sieger Bayer was her first pic
Rhoda Magbitang walked into the Season 23 finale knowing she was walking into the stakes she almost lost. On Monday, June 8, the newest winner of “Top Chef” was crowned after weeks of competition, with Magbitang taking the title over fellow finalists Sherry Cardoso and Laurence Louie.
The road to that moment wasn’t straight. Heading into the finale. the contest felt wide open: Laurence and Rhoda had been frontrunners for much of the season. even after Rhoda’s brief elimination and comeback in “Last Chance Kitchen.” Sherry. meanwhile. had been gaining momentum—winning two elimination challenges right before the finale.
But in the end, it was Rhoda who stunned host Kristen Kish and judges Gail Simmons and Tom Colicchio with a four-course meal that paid homage to the people, various cultures, and ingredients that shaped her journey as a chef.
“I’m still trying to wrap my head around it,” Rhoda Magbitang said after her win.
Her comeback wasn’t just about getting back into the mix—it was about absorbing the particular kind of pressure “Last Chance Kitchen” demands. She described the segment as a different test entirely.
“Last Chance Kitchen” is “a completely different beast,” she said, adding that it “really does test your endurance.” The format, she said, makes you hungrier as you face mini Quick Fire or elimination challenges. And as she kept succeeding, the momentum changed.
“There is also a level of momentum that is gained very differently,” Magbitang said, contrasting the journey of going through the elimination challenges there with the rest of the competition.
She did look back on what she missed—specifically the “whole hog challenge” and the “Restaurant Wars challenge”—saying she will “probably gonna beat myself up forever” for not competing in those moments during her season. Still, she emphasized the effort and growth she saw from other contestants when she later watched the “Restaurant Wars” episode.
“I’m so proud of what the other contestants have done,” she said, describing it as “my FOMO talking here.”
In the finale itself, Magbitang took a risk that drew attention. For her fourth course, she was the only contestant who chose not to make a dessert, and the decision prompted questions.
She said she wasn’t nervous about it. She knew the direction she wanted to take.
“I knew what I had to do, and it didn’t fit my progression,” she said. In her view, if the courses could have been expanded into 12, with the time and space to honor everyone and everything that shaped her, dessert would have had no place in that specific progression.
“I really wanted to make sure that who I honor shows up on the plate,” she said, adding that “there’s no way that a dessert would fit in that progression.”
Magbitang also pushed back on the idea that a chef’s biggest obligation after a misstep is to “redeem” themselves with a dessert from earlier in the season.
“The idea of redemption… is [when] you want to redeem yourself with that s—ty dessert that you did three episodes ago, ’cause people are definitely not gonna let that go unless you prove them wrong,” she said. “I don’t feel like I need to do that.”
She said she can do dessert—she has “pictures to prove it”—but that it simply “wasn’t on the show.” She also pointed to a moment during the finale when Tom Colicchio raised the redemption idea, describing his question about chefs being “very gung-ho” about it.
“I looked at him,” she said, replying that she didn’t want to redeem herself on camera.
By the time the finale arrived, Magbitang said something shifted for her during her second chance. She framed it as liberation built from surrender.
“I think so,” she said when asked whether something clicked—adding that it “took me a while to get my head back in,” but that liberation came through a “level of surrender.”
That confidence showed again in her finale teamwork. In the finale, Magbitang chose Sieger Bayer as her sous chef. Her decision mattered because of what happened earlier in the season.
When asked whether she was hesitant to team up with him given his final interaction with the judges—where he “passionately argued against their feedback” after being eliminated—Magbitang said she wasn’t.
“Not at all,” she said. “Sieger was always gonna be my first choice as a sous chef.”
She acknowledged that things “got very heated,” but said it didn’t change what she saw as Bayer’s strengths.
“He is one of the most technically sound chefs that I’ve ever met,” she said, adding that aside from that exit, he is “very responsible and mature.” She also described his mindset as grounded—someone who can “put his head down” and “pull through.”
Magbitang then shared a detail she said wasn’t aired: during the Quick Fire challenge following the Appalachian episode. the judges addressed it with the contestants. She called the moment “very. very sweet. ” saying it was considerate and that it made her feel how much the judges understand how intense the competition can become.
She said Gail Simmons even mentioned she was “surprised that it doesn’t happen more often,” and Magbitang framed it as a reflection of how passionate everyone is about doing well, and of the severity of having the title and facing “extraordinary circumstances.”
“The judges were super gracious about it,” she said. “They addressed it, they were kind, and they made sure [to say] whoever does end up with Sieger as a sous chef, they wouldn’t feel some type of way about it.”
For the emotional core of the finale, Magbitang pointed to her family.
She immigrated from the Philippines to the U.S. with her sister Katrina when she was 17, and she has described a close bond with her. In the finale, Katrina was present—and that reunion carried a different weight because she says it was kept secret.
“She kept it a secret, obviously,” Magbitang said. She told the interviewer she spoke to her sister on the phone before the finale and knew something was coming.
“She had this look on her face and she’s a bad liar,” Magbitang said.
Magbitang said the years after they left were marked by support—she and Katrina had been each other’s family while not being with their parents and other siblings. So when Katrina showed up, Magbitang described it as a “great, full-circle moment.”
“She made a case with Tom, Gail and Kristen!” she said, describing Katrina’s words to the judges: “She deserves to win.”
When looking back on the season, Magbitang singled out what she called the toughest challenge: the first racetrack challenge and its Quick Fire.
“It was torture,” she said, remembering the setup and how strange the premise felt. “I’m looking at the setup and I’m like, ’How hard is it to put up an umbrella? Guys, I’ll buy it right now. It’s hot. Take me to Home Depot.’”
She said after that challenge, she “kind of blacked everything out.” The experience of using the track as a clock with a car zooming at “120 miles an hour” wasn’t something that typically happens. Still, she treated it as a blunt introduction to what “Top Chef” becomes.
“Welcome to ’Top Chef,’” she said.
Before winning, Magbitang worked in kitchens of Suzanne Goin and José Andrés. She is currently the executive chef at CanoeHouse in Hawaii. Now, she said, the question of what comes next is still open.
“I don’t know,” she said, adding that she is “not a planner,” even if she “probably should start at some point.” She described planning as “overrated.”
She also said she had been planning a life path that wasn’t about television. At one point, she said she was going to live in Costa Rica and instead moved to the Big Island. Being on TV—and winning—felt impossible.
“A year and a half ago, it would have been unfathomable for me,” she said. “And so far, it’s worked out. So I’m okay with just taking it a day at a time.”
The interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
Top Chef Rhoda Magbitang Sieger Bayer Last Chance Kitchen Kristen Kish Gail Simmons Tom Colicchio Sherry Cardoso Laurence Louie CanoeHouse executive chef Hawaii reality competition