12 Times Food Network Judges Were Brutally Honest

Scott Conant’s criticism of King Phojanakong alluded to a failure in the first course, but he survived because Jonathan Jernigan’s appetizer was even worse. Jernigan prepared seared sesame chicken wings with buckwheat pasta, using celery and string cheese as a garnish. The judges held nothing back. Amanda Freitag immediately started by saying her palate hadn’t been teased at all, and Conant followed by calling it a cop-out that Jernigan had taken two basket ingredients and used them as a garnish. “You’re a chef; that’s what you do is develop flavors. You don’t put it on a plate and expect it to be what it is,” Conant told Jernigan.

When the “Chopped” judges deliberated, Conant said the dishes made him angry and Freitag said she wanted to cut both of them. In a series first, host Ted Allen told Jernigan and Phojanakong, “The judges, frankly, were offended by your dishes, and they were strongly inclined to chop both of you. However, they decided to give one of you another chance.”

Allen then revealed Jernigan’s dish, and Geoffrey Zakarian delivered the finishing blow: “Jonathan, you were chopped because your dish failed on all three levels: on creativity, on presentation, and certainly on taste. We all thought it was just awful, and you were chopped.” It’s hard to do worse than that  — although some chefs have come close.