Top Chef Gene is a Survivor

After reading about Top Chef contestant Gene Villiatora’s self-taught cooking skills, I figured he wouldn’t last long in the fierce competition. To excel in Top Chef, you need skill, creativity, and a solid foundation in cooking. Unlike most of the other competing chefs, Gene has no formal culinary training. Something that will surely hinder this local boy’s quest to become Top Chef.

But what Gene doesn’t have in training, he makes up for with drive, determination, and a survivor’s mentality. Just check out his contribution to Team Cougar in Episode 3. In the Elimination Challenge of making a Thanksgiving meal for the Foo Fighters with a minimal kitchen, Gene makeshifts a Hawaiian style hibachi to smoke his pork.

Even though Gene didn’t get much air time this week, everyone noticed Gene’s hibachi, and Head Judge Tom Colicchio even called Gene’s pork dish one of his favorite dishes of this challenge.

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