Last Bite Hotel’s winner, and a finale recap of this creative Food Network show

It’s night six at Last Bite Hotel, and just three chefs remain: Brittanny Anderson, Kevin Lee, and Nini Nguyen. One will be the winner of this latest Food Network competition and $25,000. (Spoilers for the finale follow.)

Like most Food Network competitions, it’s given us a mix of nearly all the same contestants and judges. Nini and Kevin Lee have competed on Food Network’s Tournament of Champions, for example; Kevin and Brittanny have both been on Bobby’s Triple Threat.

Unlike most Food Network competitions, it’s not set in a studio, but instead a Haunted Mansion-ish hotel managed by host Tituss Burgess, who’s having a blast being ridiculous.

“If anyone is anemic, we’ve got plenty of iron here,” he said after introducing the final judge—all Iron Chefs, get it? Cat Cora played along, showing up to the hotel in a bowler hat and trenchcoat.

Even the camera operators were creative, filming the interviews from an odd, higher angle and Tituss from below, creating a sense of disorientation.

The competition itself was about limited resources: no overflowing pantry, no mystery baskets, just a set number of ingredients each chef brought with them, and that’s it. Their initial planning was important, of course; Brittanny brilliantly brought a suckling pig, so she could use all of its parts throughout the competition.

That meant a lot of reuse and improvisation to not only impress the judges, but meet the challenges.

Have to make noodles and don’t have pasta? Required to add fries but don’t have potatoes? Take a different approach, like remixing other ingredients or redefining what those words mean. That produced really creative cooking.

At the end of each cook, before serving, chefs packed up everything they’d used so it’d be available for the next challenge.

Eliminated chefs’ ingredients were dispersed to the others in various ways, so the remaining chefs added to their pantries, but sometimes with just small quantities of leftovers, or produce that was going bad.

Tituss Burgess is the host and scenery-chewing hotel manager of Last Bite Kitchen (Photo by Food Network)

The final challenge was a three-course meal, but with one of the three eliminated after the first course.

The chefs could get ingredients in one other way: trading each other. At the start of the first course, Kevin swapped Brittanny vinegar for parsley, because he had no fresh herbs or produce—in fact, he received no inherited ingredients during the entire competition.

Because all chefs were working with extremely limited resources, those kinds of trades were rare and didn’t upset the spirit of the competition.

Last Bite Hotel’s final three chefs: Brittanny, Nini, and Kevin (Photo by Food Network)

Nini made a halibut aguachile, Kevin made a kimchi-cured snapper tartare, and Brittanny a smoked ribeye tartare.

Nini said, “I feel like it’s mine to lose,” and while that’d be the kind of thing someone says before going home, it was the reverse. “I could drink the sauce,” Cat said; Jose Garces told her, “You know what you’re doing.”

Kevin was eliminated first—the worst-possible outcome for the remaining two chefs. As Nini pointed out, Brittanny had a bounty while Kevin had basically nothing to bequeath. For example, Nini got a quarter bulb of garlic; Brittanny got scraps of prime rib.

The chefs and host of Food Network’s Last Bite Hotel (Photo by Anders Krusberg/Food Network)

With all of the eliminated chefs going to “room 13,” I expected they might return, but ultimately room 13 was for writing a will for their trunk and a metaphor for their death in the competition.

“Cook like your life depends upon it—because it does,” Tituss told Brittanny and Nini. Ah, the threat of death on reality TV!

For their second courses:

• Brittanny made sausage-stuffed cabbage roll with a salad of parsley and pig skin. Alex told Brittanny, “I think you’re showing off, and I’m here for your brand.”
• Nini made a chawanmushi with halibut and turnips, and the judges dinged her for serving them halibut yet again, as if she could have gone out and fished for something new.

For their third course:

• Brittanny made a pan-roasted striped bass with cauliflower and the sweet potato puree she’d made earlier in the week. “I could find no flaws,” Jose told her.
• Nini made Hainanese chicken with rice, ginger broth, and a ginger/scallion sauce. Alex loved the sauce, especially: “I thought this was a real success for you,” she said.

While we usually didn’t hear the judge deliberate during this competition, but they did during the finale.

The judges said Nini was way ahead after her first course, the judge said, but “then Nini stumbles” with her second course, Alex said, while Brittanny impressed them. All the while, Tituss stood there and made faces.

“It’s a horse race with a photo finish,” Alex said. How rude! The winner of that race: Nini Nguyen! “I’m so happy that I get to leave this hotel with $25K and my soul,” Nini said.

And then Last Bite Hotel was over; no ghosts, no room 13 for Brittanny, just her suggesting that she and Nini “get drunk tonight.”