Hell's Kitchen (U.S. season 13)

The season began with the contestants being transported to the Cinerama Dome theater in Los Angeles, where they first viewed a short film that had an introduction by Chef Ramsay and detailed the careers of several former contestants including season 10 winner Christina Wilson, season 9 winner Paul Niedermann and season 7 runner-up Jason "Jay" Santos before informing this season's contestants of the challenges they would face.

Team challenge/signature dish They were then immediately given their first challenge: to make their signature dishes for Chef Ramsay (at the Le Cordon Bleu college across the street) and present them in front of a large cinema audience. As the contestants cooked their dishes, JP earned Chef Ramsay's ire for finishing his dish with over twenty minutes remaining, resulting in Ramsay forcing him to make another one. The dishes were rated on a scale of 1–5. Denine's chicken parmesan and JR's rockfish tacos both received 3 points. In the next round, Sade's pea and mushroom risotto got 2 points whilst JP's Boston baked haddock got 1 point and was threatened to go out of the competition. The women kept the lead as Ashley's chipotle chicken received 3 points but Frank's filet mignon Bordelaise got 1 point but in the next round the points were tied as La Tasha's grilled watermelon got 1 point whilst Fernando's pan seared squab breast impressed receiving 4 points. The women took the lead again as Roe's Kobe filet got 4 points whilst Sterling's shrimp and grits still got a respectable 3 points. The scores were tied again as Jennifer's pan roasted duck breast got 2 points and Steve's rack of lamb got 3 points. Both Katie's pan seared halibut and Bryant's wild mushroom roulade received 4 points and the scores were still tied as both Janai's lobster-stuffed lamb rack and Aaron's financier got 1 point. In the final round, Santos's skate wing with beurre noisette got 3 points but Kalen's seared sea scallops got 4 points and so the women narrowly prevailed over the men 24–23 (this was also the fourth season in a row the women won the signature dish challenge).

Reward/punishment: The women were treated to a meal at the Hotel Bel-Air hosted by Wolfgang Puck while the men were taken to Hell's Kitchen and made to set up the dorms. During the punishment, JR annoyed his teammates by not doing as much work as the other men. As a final punishment, they had to unload the women's luggage upon their arrival. The women began studying the cooking manuals, while the men quickly fell asleep.

Service: For the opening night, several celebrities were in attendance including Greg Grunberg, Scott Grimes, Paul Feig, Bob Guiney and Eva La Rue. In addition, a tableside appetizer of prawn scampi was served by Denine for the red team and Sterling from the blue team. The red team turned in a virtually flawless performance, with the only notable error being Janai mistakenly serving 8 scallops for an order instead of 10 and they finished dinner service after what Chef Ramsay said was by far the best-ever performance by a team on the opening night of a Hell's Kitchen season, with Ashley and Roe having flawless performances on the meat station. The blue team's service, however, was a complete disaster. They were stalled from the beginning by Aaron's inability to cook the risotto and JR and JP serving raw scallops and raw lobster respectively; Aaron was eventually able to get the risottos out with help from Fernando. Steve did well on the meat station, but further mistakes by JR and JP saw the two tossed out of service. Fernando took over the fish station, but immediately served up raw halibut, which caused Ramsay to throw all the men out of service. With the blue team having served no entrees, they were deemed the clear losers and told to nominate two chefs for elimination.

Elimination: After some deliberation, Bryant revealed to Chef Ramsay that they nominated Aaron and JP. After hearing from the two, Chef Ramsay eliminated JP for his general ineptitude in both the signature dish challenge and the service, in addition to taking no accountability for his faults (he attempted to blame Aaron for the failure of the men's service).

Team challenge: After getting an early morning wake-up from some lifeguards, the teams were brought outside Hell's Kitchen, where a series of sand sculptures had been set up. Chef Ramsay revealed that buried in each sculpture were several geoducks and that the first part of the challenge was to tear apart the sculptures and retrieve the geoducks. The men retrieved 12 to the women's 10, after which Ramsay told the men that while they hadn't won anything yet, they would have more to work with in the next part, which involved creating a geoduck sashimi dish. Ramsay stipulated that each dish had to weigh between 199 and 201 g (7.02 and 7.09 oz) and that the first team to 15 dishes would win. The women narrowly won their 2nd challenge in a row, as their more meticulous approach paid off over the men's faster but more haphazard style.

Reward/punishment: The women were treated to a dinner on a boat with Chef Ramsay, before getting to enjoy a relaxing day on the beach. The men received a barrage of punishments including being forced to clean up all the sand outside Hell's Kitchen, then eating a meal of salted cod with a gefilte fish sauce, followed by cleaning and preparing the geoduck special for that night's service and finally setting up both kitchens. During the meal, Sterling's constant chatter got on Bryant's nerves, leading to a heated argument.

Service: The service again had a tableside appetizer, this time of geoduck chowder served by Aaron and Kalen. The men had another poor service; despite a good performance by Bryant on the appetizers, Steve made several mistakes on the fish station, serving up raw and overcooked fish and then the duo of Fernando and Sterling put up a poor performance on the meat station, repeatedly getting their times wrong and undercooking the meat. The team managed to get some entrees out, but progress was far too slow for Chef Ramsay's liking and he threw the men out after Sterling revealed that he was nearly five minutes behind on a pork loin. The women, meanwhile, were unable to repeat their performance of the previous episode; Janai got the team off to a disastrous start by constantly serving up bland, overcooked risottos and refusing to give the other women times, which caused Denine to serve undercooked scallops. Ramsay ordered all the women into the pantry to regroup, after which they finished the appetizers and Jennifer and La Tasha were able to get the meat entrees out perfectly. However, Denine kept making mistakes on the fish station, which caused Ramsay to throw the whole team out. Ramsay was angry that the blue team had performed poorly again, but especially disappointed that the women had fallen apart so quickly after the previous service. As a result, each team was told to nominate two chefs for elimination.

Elimination: Ramsay asked Sade and Frank for their respective team's nominees. The women nominated Denine and Janai. Sterling nominated himself for the men and despite suggestions for Steve to be nominated, Bryant persuaded the others to put up Fernando, the other person on the meat station. After speaking to the four nominees, Chef Ramsay eliminated Janai, for being the red team's worst performer in both of the first two services, as well as her inability to cook risotto properly and poor communication with her team.

Team challenge: After a night in which Steve and Sterling had a fierce argument, the teams were brought into the dining room and told that they had to improve their communication if they wanted to improve in services. Chef Ramsay therefore gave each chef a jacket with a recipe printed on the back, which they would need to rely on their team-mates to read to them. Each team has the same set of recipe jackets, in which only the recipe itself-– not the name of the item-– is given. After the 45 minutes given to cook ran out, each member present their dishes, in which Chef Ramsay judges on their quality, with the best dish earning the point for their team. men earned their first challenge victory, with 6-4.

Reward/punishment: The men spent the day ziplining at Venice Beach, before having a meal served to them by Marino at the Erwin Hotel. The women, in addition to prepping both kitchens, had to bring several large bags of coffee beans into Hell's Kitchen, before grinding them down for that night's filet steak special. During the punishment, Denine further angered her teammates by refusing to do any of the work and, as if that was not enough, caused a small fire while preparing the appetizer ingredients.

Service: In tonight's service, Wendy Williams, Shaunie O'Neal and Elizabeth Rohm were special guests. A tableside appetizer of coffee-crusted filet mignon was served by Fernando and Roe. Both teams flew through appetizers without any trouble thanks to vocal leadership from JR and Sade (though Katie was getting annoyed with her whilst she did well on appetizers), only to get stalled immediately on the entrees. In the blue kitchen, Bryant served mushy, overcooked fish on the first table, and Frank burnt the garnishes, leading Chef Ramsay to order the team into the pantry for a meeting. However, Bryant undercooked his next order of fish, causing Ramsay to throw him and his partner on the fish station, Sterling (who was angered, as he felt he had done nothing wrong), out of service. The team started getting the entrees out after Steve took over the fish, but Frank was also thrown out for not only burning another set of garnishes, but bringing it up three minutes early. Despite this, the team was able to successfully complete the service. On the red team, Kalen kept undercooking the meat, in large part because she constantly opened the oven door to check on it, which sous chef Andi rebuked her for. The team eventually got their first entrees out, but on the second table Kalen overcooked the meat and La Tasha also served up raw fish. This was the last straw for Chef Ramsay, who threw the entire team out. Despite having three chefs ejected, the men were named the winners for finishing their first service and Ramsay, further disappointed that the women had not been able to repeat their performance in the first service, told the red team to nominate two chefs for elimination.

Elimination: The women quickly agreed on Kalen as being most at fault for the loss; despite suggestions for La Tasha to be nominated for the raw fish she served, Ashley named Denine as the women's second nominee for being Kalen's meat station partner and not helping her (despite Denine offering help and Kalen refusing it). After hearing from both nominees, Chef Ramsay decided to give Kalen another chance and eliminated Denine for her bad attitude and succession of poor performances.

During the recap of the previous episode, Denine's jacket was hung and her photo was burned.

Jennifer collapses - continued: Jennifer returned at the beginning of the episode, after collapsing due to dehydration at the end of the previous episode.

Team challenge: The teams were summoned to a culinary school graduation ceremony. Chef Ramsay announced that the teams will be serving brunch to the graduates and their families, starting in 20 minutes. Both teams pushed out their appetizers quickly and moved on to entrees. The women had problems with crepes but corrected them. Bryant kept having issues with the florentine. The men were out of sync, but Sterling started directing them and brought them back together. The women completed service first by a matter of seconds and won the challenge.

Reward/punishment: The women were flown to San Francisco to dine at Chef Dominique Crenn's restaurant. Crenn is the only female holder of two Michelin stars in the United States. The men had to grind and stuff chorizo sausages for service.

Before service, Aaron, Steve and Santos met and reflected on the previous service. After Chef Ramsay had thrown out half of their team, they were able to complete the service and therefore they seemed to be immune from elimination, win or lose. They decided to set that scenario up again by trying to deliberately sabotage the others and get them eliminated one-by-one.

Service: Several celebrities are in attendance included Nestor Serrano, Adam Ferrara, Kendall Schmidt, the Los Angeles Sparks team and Chris Bosh. The teams started off well with Ashley and Steve on hot appetizers despite some minor mistakes. Ramsay caught Frank with his hands behind his back, checking his look in the mirror. Kalen was having trouble on the fish station. Ramsay forced Kalen and Roe to sit out and eat one order of overcooked scallops whilst the rest of the women continued, with Katie and Sade doing especially well on the meat station. On the men's side, the meat station kept messing up the fish station. Santos served raw salmon to the Sparks and was forced to shout what the acronym "VIP" ("Very Important Person") stands for four times. Ramsay threw out half of the men, keeping Aaron, Bryant, Steve and Sterling, proving that their sabotage plan was working. The women won for finishing their service with no one thrown out, but Ramsay told them that their victory was not worth the celebration, as they still had issues that had to be worked out as a result of tonight's service.

Elimination: After much discussion, the men nominated JR (for his bad service on meat) and Steve (for serving soupy risotto early in the service). Ramsay added Frank, for seemingly taking a backseat in the service. Ramsay eliminated JR, saying he was just not ready to be his head chef, given he had failed to show any growth or assertiveness in any of the 4 services.

Team challenge: The teams were each given five dishes cooked with unusual proteins, and told to divide into three pairs plus one individual (which ended up being Sade and Aaron), who would taste each dish and identify which protein was used. Additionally, each team would have one pair go twice. Whoever did this in the shortest amount of time would win. For winning the previous service, the red team got to decide whether they wanted to go first or second, and they chose to go first. Katie and Roe agreed to go twice, but on both turns, they ate up a lot of time, while the others got through at a reasonable speed. Ultimately, they finished in 7:41 and the blue team had that long to complete the challenge. As with the red team, the pair that went twice, Santos and Fernando, took the longest, while the others finished quickly; Bryant and Frank identified their protein (elk) in one attempt and Sterling identified alligator as Aaron's protein. Although Santos and Fernando made nearly a dozen incorrect guesses on the final protein of duck (including guessing rabbit twice), they ultimately finished with 34 seconds to spare, giving the men their second challenge win.

Reward/punishment: The men spent the day at the Annenberg Beach House, where they met four Olympic gold medal winners. The wom had to bring in pizza ingredients for that night's family service, hand-grate the cheese and then drink enprotein shakes made up of boiled chicken, sardines, scallops and eggs. During the last part of the punishment, an argument broke out between Jennifer and Sade after Sade's graphic descriptions of the appearance and taste of the shake caused Jennifer to vomit.

Service: Chef Ramsay's own mother, Helen Cosgrove, along with Mary Murphy, Jim Jefferies and Asia Monet Ray were in attendance for family night. The two teams each ran a "make your own pizza" station in the dining room, manned by Fernando and Santos and Ashley and Jennifer. The men had some initial speed bumps due to the slowness of the pizza station and Aaron serving raw scallops on the last table of appetizers, but otherwise had a largely trouble-free service. The women, however, were stalled from early on by Kalen and Katie's troubles on the appetizer station. Due to their repeated mistakes and slow work, La Tasha had to jump over and take control of the station. Things did not get much better on the entrees; despite flawless runs by La Tasha and Sade on the meat and fish station respectively, Roe was very slow on the garnishes, brought several incorrect orders up and had poor communication with Chef Ramsay. This ultimately resulted in the men finishing five tables ahead of the women and while Ramsay still had criticisms for the men's performances, singling out Aaron in particular, he told the women that they were clearly the losers and told them to nominate two chefs for elimination based on overall performance, not just this service.

Elimination: The team nominated the two chefs on the appetizer station, Kalen and Katie. Chef Ramsay told them that he wanted them to base their decision off their overall history, not just the night's service and asked Katie who the weakest two members of the team were; to Ramsay's shock (and despite his indications that Roe should have been the second nominee), Katie admitted that the initial decision was correct. While Chef Ramsay initially appeared inclined to eliminate Katie, feeling that her self-nomination proved she had no belief in herself, he ultimately eliminated Kalen for her succession of bad performances, refusal to admit having made any mistakes in service and being named as the women's weakest link by every single member when Ramsay polled them.

Team challenge: Chef Ramsay led the teams outside Hell's Kitchen, where an animal pen had been set up. He then told them that the challenge was to split into pairs. Sterling sat out due to his team having an extra member. Each team will catch an animal and then choose a side to go with the protein. The teams completed this without much difficulty, despite Steve accidentally catching a goat rather than a sheep and were then told that each member of the pairs. Sterling opted to join Aaron and Santos in cooking pork would cook their own dish with that protein, before presenting one to a judging panel composed of Ramsay and chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, who would award between 1 and 5 stars. The red team took an early lead, as La Tasha and Sade's dishes got 11 and 10 stars, respectively, while Fernando and Steve got just 10 and 9 stars. Sterling also got 9 stars, leaving Roe well-placed to win the challenge for the red team. Unfortunately, her poorly-presented and overly sweet pork dish got just 4 stars, leaving the final score at 28 points for the men and 25 for the women.

Reward/punishment: The men were sent to a vineyard where they enjoyed a meal, before Marino joined them and demonstrated wine-tasting techniques. The women had to prepare stock for the following night's service, which involved sawing up bones, draining the marrow and then returning to the stock pots every half-hour (for which a giant alarm clock was placed in the dorms) to strain and stir it.

Service: South Park co-creator Trey Parker was a guest in addition to the members of the Dine LA Board of Directors which includes Yuta Tsunoda, Jimmy Shaw, Aiden Demarest, David Lefevre, Sang Yoon and John Sedlar. Frank and La Tasha were assigned to handle tableside appetizers. The blue team got through appetizers without too much trouble, despite Steve having some issues cooking the scallops, which required Chef Ramsay to show him how to cook them properly. Entrees proved more troublesome, however, with Steve serving up raw halibut and Santos forgetting an order of lamb and serving an undercooked wellington. Ramsay pulled them into the pantry and ordered them to get their act together, but both were subsequently ejected from service after further mistakes. After that, the team eventually pulled together and completed service. The red team meanwhile was backed up from the start by Katie's troubles on the fish station, as she repeatedly proved unable to cook the scallops. Roe also made repeated errors on the appetizers and after the duo simultaneously served Ramsay with severely overcooked scallops (with Katie only further angering Ramsay by trying to deny there was anything wrong with them) and a risotto with no salt and too much garlic, they were ejected. Ashley took over the fish station, only to be ejected herself for overcooking the next order. After that, the team managed to complete service. Despite the service being completed on both sides with no further ejections, Ramsay felt that both teams had gone backwards since the previous service and declared that there was no winning team. He then told each team to nominate two chefs for elimination, emphasizing that they were to nominate based on overall performance, not just this service.

Elimination: The men immediately decided on Sterling as their weakest member (much to his confusion and anger, as he had not been ejected from any of the three prior services), soon followed by Steve as the second nominee. The women on the other hand were unable to come to a decision, with Katie and Roe being put up as potential nominees for their weak performances, and Jennifer and Sade for their abrasive attitudes. As a result, Ramsay reiterated his emphasis and ordered them into the red kitchen to make a firm decision, and they decided on Katie and Roe. After hearing from all four nominees (in which Sterling angrily attacked Steve for persuading the other men to gang up on him), Ramsay decided to eliminate Katie, while praising her cooking ability, he felt that she was not confident in herself and did not have the strength of character to compete in Hell's Kitchen.

During the recap of the previous episode, Katie's jacket was hung and her photo was burned.

Team change: Continuing from the previous episode's cliffhanger, Ramsay, after telling Roe to go back in line, told Sterling to remove his jacket and said that while the other men clearly gave up on him (unlike Chef Ramsay), he still had potential. Consequently, Sterling was moved onto the red team in an attempt to even out the numbers.

Team challenge: The following morning, the teams arrived in the dining room to find a giant map of Italy, spotlighting the cuisine the country is well-known for. To spotlight another famous aspect of Italian culture, opera, an ensemble of opera singers, revealed from behind the map, gave the chefs a brief performance. Ramsay then revealed that the challenge would involve cooking six classic Italian dishes, with one chef from each team choosing to face off against a rival from the other team. The dishes that each pair will cook is hidden on the back of each scroll held by each singer, which bears the name of a famous opera. (This selection method is similar in format to the Southern Gospel challenge in Season 10, episode 14.) Celestino Drago, the owner-chef of Drago Central was brought in as a guest judge for this challenge. Jennifer and Steve were first to face each other, with tortellini dishes, and while both were felt to be good, Jennifer's was deemed to have the edge. Ashley and Fernando both made saltimbocca, and Fernando took the point due to Ashley incorrectly using basil as the main herb rather than sage. Neither Aaron nor Sade earned a point for their linguine dishes, which were both felt to be terrible. La Tasha took the point for her spaghetti carbonara, as Santos's was deemed bland. Both Frank and Roe earned compliments for their cheese manicotti dishes, but Chef Drago felt that Frank's was narrowly better. The final round saw Bryant and Sterling face off with fettuccine alfredo dishes and while Bryant's was criticized for being over-sized and over-complicated, Sterling altered his dish so heavily that it barely even resembled an Italian dish (making it more like a Southern dish), resulting in Bryant taking the winning point.

Reward/punishment: The blue team were given $3,000 ($500 each) to go on a shopping spree at American Rag Cie, before having a meal at Cecconi's restaurant. The red team had to prepare both kitchens for that night's service, including breaking down squid for a squid ink tortellini dish. During the punishment, Sterling's constant chatter annoyed the others so much, even sous chef Andi had to tell him to shut up.

Service: A delegation from the Italian Consulate was in attendance in addition to Kelis and Louis Lombardi. Bryant and Sade were assigned to serve a tableside appetizer of clams. Both proved a little slow at doing this and Sade compounded the situation by spilling an order on the floor, earning the ire of both Marino and Chef Ramsay. Service was rocky on both sides; Steve got the blue team off to a bad start when he served a bland, soupy risotto, while Frank served up raw steak and severely overcooked chicken on the first table of entrées. Both were able to recover after their initial mistakes, but Aaron had trouble on the fish station throughout the night, constantly having trouble getting the dishes up in time and angrily shoving the other men aside when they tried to help him. Despite their troubles, the blue team eventually finished service with no ejections. On the red team, Jennifer managed to get all the appetizers out with no errors, but Sade's problems on the tableside appetizer caused a ripple effect in the kitchen, as the team struggled to get time their orders correctly and Roe served raw steaks. When an order of calamari was returned from the consulate table for being severely undercooked, it offended Ramsay to a point where he threw the entire team out. Despite the blue team finishing service with no ejections, their performance was not deemed worthy of winning due to major mistakes being made on every station and both teams were again named the losers and told to nominate two chefs for elimination.

This episode was not broadcast on October 22 and originally preempted until October 29th due to game 2 of the 2014 World Series. But because the Kansas City Royals took the San Francisco Giants to the deciding game 7, this episode was preempted again to November 5th.
During the recap of the previous episode, Ashley's jacket was hung and her photo was burned.

Team change: Continuing from the previous episode's cliffhanger, Ramsay announced that he had decided to make further changes, so he sent Frank to the red team and Sade to the blue team.

Team challenge: The teams were brought outside to meet special VIP guests who arrived via limousine. They turned out to be dogs and their trainers from the American Kennel Club, who were there for a Hell's Kitchen dog show. The teams had to create a tasting menu consisting of two appetizers and three entrees and submit them for judging by a panel of chefs. Sade was under the mistaken impression that the entrees would be served to the dogs and made a chopped up dish that resembled dog food. However, since the blue team had an extra member and had to drop a dish, her team quickly decided not to submit her dish for judging. The red team's dishes were judged to be the best.

Reward/punishment: The red team was treated to a trip to San Diego where they saw a show at SeaWorld and dine at the Searsucker Restaurant. The blue team had to bathe the dogs and set up a runway for Hell's Kitchen's first ever "Best In Show" dog competition.

Service: Ramsay stressed the importance of timing for this service, as the dog show was going to run in three acts and the appetizers were to be served after the first act and would not continue until all were served and the same went for entrées after the second act. Both teams got off to a decent start, although in the blue kitchen, Fernando jumped the gun and started cooking his scallops before Ramsay ordered them to be fired, forgetting Ramsay's rules on how the service would work, though Fernando then proved himself as he did well on fish and while La Tasha took on a firm leadership role for the red team, new teammate Frank had trouble preparing the Caesar salads to Ramsay's standards to his teammates' disbelief. Despite these minor setbacks, both teams served all their appetizers, allowing the show to continue, and Ramsay even said to the blue team that "that was the best first 40 minutes of any service so far." On entrées, Sterling in the red kitchen messed up the first order on the meat station, prompting La Tasha to jump in and help him, while in the blue kitchen, Steve did well on the meat station, though he inexplicably kept calling out to Santos on garnish but did not say anything to him, much to the latter's annoyance. Things went generally smoothly until Santos messed up the garnish on one of their last dishes, while Sterling, Jennifer on fish and Roe on garnish simultaneously delivered unacceptable food to the pass for the last ticket, prompting a delay for the show. Eventually, both teams managed to complete service and the dog show concluded. In the post-mortem after service, Ramsay that, despite the mistakes, he was generally impressed with the service from both sides, but decided that the blue team were slightly better, naming them the winners, and he asked the red team for two nominees for elimination.

Elimination: The red team quickly decided on Frank as their first nominee, as they felt that his trouble making salads meant that he would have further trouble down the line. However, for their second nominee, they were torn between Sterling (for his trouble on the meat station and because La Tasha appeared to just take over rather than help him) and Roe (for messing up the last table's garnish as well as her generally poor performances of late); ultimately, Frank revealed the nominees as himself and Sterling. After hearing from both nominees (including an apparently long-winded speech from Frank), Ramsay ordered both of them to "take your jackets...and yourselves, back in line"; having finally gotten a strong service, Ramsay decided not to eliminate anyone.

Team challenge: After Frank writes a letter in appreciation to Chef Ramsay, both teams are presented with the "Hell's Kitchen Craps" challenge (introduced in season 6), where each contestant rolls a die (which has letters on each of its twelve sides). After each roll, the contestant has ten seconds to choose an ingredient starting with the according letter. Breaking with tradition, Chef Ramsay announced prior to the challenge that the winner of the challenge will spend the day and night in Las Vegas, flying there on private jet. During the challenge, the teams had some slight trouble in attempting to select the ingredients without wanting to sound too "typical" for a signature dish. Given the uneven numbers between the red and blue teams, Frank rolled twice, selecting complicated ingredients both times which frustrated his teammates (especially Jennifer). In the end, the Red team had picked potatoes, duck, lime, lemons, heirloom tomatoes and pine nuts, while the blue team had selected easier ones, such as cauliflower, Chilean sea bass, leeks, mache, daikon and tomatoes. After the ingredients had been selected, Chef Ramsay gave the teams the traditional 45 minutes to prepare the dishes. While the Red Team faced creativity issues with preparing the dish (especially Frank, who had picked the more complicated ingredients during an imaginative burst), Sade commandeered the blue kitchen, wanting to make up for her failure in the previous challenge. With the dishes prepared, Chef Ramsay suddenly decided he'd name one member of each team as the 'hero,' having the red and blue teams decide, in two minutes, which of the best respective dish, out of the others, Chef Ramsay would prove. The blue team ignored Sade's dish in favor of Fernando and Bryant's, while the Red Team quickly and decisively decided on La Tasha. La Tasha presented her dish, a roasted duck with heirloom tomatoes cover and side potatoes seared in duck fat, while Bryant's dish was a sea bass over a cauliflower puree, with tomatoes seasoned in olive oil and salt and pepper. Despite being a tough challenge—La Tasha's dish managed to put all the flavors together and Bryant's dish was cooked to perfection—Chef Ramsay ultimately decided in La Tasha's favor, revealing Bryant's flaw, the daikon, which was clearly unseasoned and makes a positive remark about Sade's dish (which the team refused to even taste), which he said would have won the challenge for the Blue Team.

Reward/punishment: As promised, the red team was treated to a private jet trip to Las Vegas, with a check-in to a luxury mega-suite at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino. They also received an appetizer service, a visit to the pool and dinner service at Chef Ramsay's restaurant, BurGR. Meanwhile, the blue team spent the day carrying ice packs and replacing the kitchen's ice machines, as well as prepping a king-sized halibut for the upcoming dinner service. During the punishment, Sade constantly complained about her dish not making it and the fact it was the fifth time she was serving punishment due to her team's performance, which increased tensions in the blue team. The blue team were also made to take a delivery of ingredients at 3:00 am.

Steve's exit: After the punishment, Steve suffered an injury to his right knee, possibly a muscular distension, which required medical attention and being taken to the hospital via ambulance. After Chef Ramsay visited him, Steve was informed it was unfortunate, but he was forced to leave for the rest of the season to recover. Still, Chef Ramsay reminded Steve he was the strongest member of the Blue Team and that he had to leave with his head high, leaving open the possibility for Steve to return in a future season.

Service: The night's dinner service included VIP service to Stewart Copeland of The Police for the blue kitchen and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith for the red kitchen. To further motivate them, Ramsay informed both kitchens they had to 'rock the service'. Other guests included ex-Eagles band member Don Felder, and Gena Lee Nolin from Baywatch. The dinner service also included a table-side steak entrée being prepared by Sterling for the red team and Fernando for the blue team. Both teams started out strongly with their appetizers, but Frank had clear issues with scallops, as well as overcooked lobster, prompting Chef Ramsay to call the whole red team to the pantry for a brief meeting. Frank had more difficulties as he focused on the lobster and totally forgot about the scallops, which forced La Tasha to intervene. The Blue kitchen proceeded without issues to entrées, while the red kitchen had a slower start after Frank's earlier disruption. Frank disrupted progress again after he served Chef Ramsay an overcooked salmon, then proceeded to overcook several others, while the blue kitchen flawlessly completed their service seven tables ahead. Frank, clearly crumbling, then accidentally sent Chef Ramsay a raw salmon, stirring his anger and prompting him to relocate four of the already finished blue team members to the red kitchen to finish the service. The blue team were clearly declared the winners, with Aaron declaring the service dedicated to Steve. The red team's loss was put squarely on Frank's shoulders due to his awful performance.

Elimination: Right after the end of the service, Frank apologized to everyone on The red Team, as well as, Chef Ramsay for his awful dinner service performance. The red Team was then asked to nominate two chefs, based not only on that night's performance, but also on the season as a whole so far. However, seconds after the contestants leave for their dorms, Chef Ramsay called both teams back into the kitchen and remarked Steve had been forced to leave due to his injuries, something that would normally be regarded as the elimination of the evening. However, he then continued on to say that he would be making an exception to that rule and called Sterling, Jennifer, Roe and La Tasha forwards and had them "say goodbye... to Frank." Chef Ramsay mentioned Frank's letter, but criticized his recent kitchen performance which cost him his stay in Hell's Kitchen. He then reminded both Red and Blue teams that they needed to start giving him their best and he would not accept anything less than that. Frank's departure marks the second time in the history of Hell's Kitchen that a chef was eliminated during the post-service meeting.

Team challenge: A group of Bollywood dancers performed for the teams. Then Chef Ramsay announced that today's theme would be Indian cuisine. Each team was presented with a tablet showing a list of four main ingredients next to a 15 puzzle showing fifteen other ingredients and an empty space. Roe and Aaron were selected by their teams to rearrange their puzzles to produce a desired list of ingredients for each main ingredient. To fill in the empty space, the chef who was assigned that main ingredient was able to select their choice from a given list of ingredients. The teams had 30 minutes to work, then presented their dishes to Ramsay and a guest judge, who gave the teams equal overall scores. To break the tie, they determined the single dish which had scored the highest. That dish was prepared by Jennifer, thereby giving the win to the red team.

Reward/punishment: The redteam gets a spa day, while the blue team prepares for dinner service and cleans outside. Sade is frustrated by constantly being on a losing team, causing her team to become increasingly frustrated with her complaints.

Service: Before service, Chef Ramsay gives Sade a pep talk. Billy Gibbons, Uzo Aduba and Lisa Guerrero were guests for this service. The menu includes Indian-inspired dishes. The red team has an almost perfect service with the only minor hiccups being Jennifer having trouble on the Garnish station delivering flatbreads in time forcing Sterling to come help her out and Roe starting a small fire on the fish station. The same could not be said for the blue team as Aaron had a lot of trouble on the fish station mostly due to Bryant trying to help him, but only caused confusion on the station by serving up raw scallops and cold lobster tail to the pass passing the blame on Aaron when confronted. Sade also did not get along with either Bryant or Aaron on their respective stations. Later Aaron sent up even more undercooked fish followed by cold garnish from Bryant. Due to the amount of mistakes on the fish station and communication problems in the blue kitchen, Chef Ramsay declared the red team winner and asked the blue team to come up with two nominees for elimination based on everything they had seen.

Elimination: Aaron started by nominating himself due to his bad night on fish and even admitting that he is the one on the blue team that has had the most ups and downs. He also nominated Bryant due to not owning up to his mistakes in the dinner service and his bad attitude. However, Bryant blows up hearing this, feeling that he should not be up on the chopping block and argues that Fernando is the second weakest on the team mostly due to he had been nominated before, but the nominations ultimately stays. Santos revealed the nominees to Ramsay and when Aaron starts to plead why he should stay, he openly says that he does not want to be there anymore as he feels he needs more time to grow and also states that being Ramsay's next head chef wouldn't bring him any closer to his own goal; his wishes are ultimately granted. Ramsay, calling the departure "disappointing" and saying that he's never seen anyone quit Hell's Kitchen and then asks the remaining chefs if anyone else wants to quit. They all decide they want to stay and he sends them on their way.

Team challenge: The chefs were called outside bright and early by sous chef James to meet Chef Ramsay. Ramsay announced that it was time for the annual "Blind Taste Test," where the contestants needed to identify four different ingredients only by taste. However, this year there was a twist, and two dunk tanks full of water were revealed to the teams. One chef from each team would sit over one of the tanks, and another member from each team would taste; if a taster got three ingredients wrong, their teammate would be dunked once, and if they got all four wrong, their teammate would be dunked a second time. First, Santos and Roe tasted with La Tasha and Bryant sitting at the dunk tanks. Roe was only able to identify one ingredient (resulting in La Tasha getting dunked once), while Santos was not able to identify a single ingredient (resulting in two dunks for Bryant), leaving the Red team leading 1–0. Next up, Sterling and Fernando tasted with Roe and Santos sitting at the dunk tanks. Fernando, like Santos, was not able to identify a single ingredient, sending Santos into the tank twice. Sterling got two out of 4 right, saving Roe from being dunked altogether and putting the Red team further ahead with a score of 3–0. In the next round, Jennifer was up against Sade with Sterling and Fernando sitting on the dunk tanks. While Jennifer did not identify a single ingredient, dunking Sterling twice, Sade got the first point for the blue team, with just one dunk for Fernando, putting the score at 3–1. Lastly, it was La Tasha up against Bryant with Jennifer and Sade sitting on the dunk tanks. La Tasha only got one point (Jennifer getting dunked once) while Bryant managed to get the impressive score of 3 out of 4 ingredients correct (saving Sade from dunking) and ending it in a tie (4–4). For the tiebreaker, the teams each chose one of their teammates for a sudden-death match, but the good news was that no one would have to sit at the dunk tanks for this round. The Red team chose Roe while the Blue team chose Bryant. Bryant missed on the first ingredient, fennel, but Roe identified it correctly, thus winning the challenge for her team.

Reward/punishment: Thanks to Roe, the red team enjoys a relaxing day at the Santa Monica Pier and lunch at "The Lobster". The blue team cleans the dorms and the kitchens.

When the red team returned, both teams were summoned to Chef Ramsay's office, where he announced that they would be holding a private five-course dinner service to honor a select group of decorated firefighters. There would be one 12-top table for each team and each chef would be assigned to lead a course, with the stipulation that all 24 dishes from a course had to be served by both teams at the same time.

Service: Fernando and Roe were assigned the first course, a scallop risotto. On the red side, Roe seasoned the scallops way ahead of when they would be fired, drying them out, and also forgot to plate two of the twelve portions. Meanwhile, in the blue kitchen, they fell two portions short of risotto for the twelve plates, though they were able to quickly make two new portions to complete the course. On the tuna nicoise course, led by Santos and Jennifer, Santos was too slow in the dining room explaining the dish to the guests, and annoyed his teammates with his hands-off approach to leadership. Jennifer had problems getting Sterling to follow her orders, as well as problems taking control. During the pan-seared salmon entree course, led by Sterling and Sade, Sade overcooked all twelve of the salmon portions while she was out introducing the dish (due to the pans being too hot); luckily, they still had enough salmon left to recover. In the Red kitchen, Sterling's lack of leadership meant that Jennifer, La Tasha and Roe did almost everything for him. On the New York steak course, which was led by Bryant and La Tasha, there were no major problems, save for Santos slicing the blue team's meat incorrectly and shredding some of the meat as a result. The dinner service ended with both tables satisfied, but Ramsay himself was not. He refused to declare a winning team since there were too many mistakes in both kitchens, especially at this stage in the game. He then asked each team to come up with two nominees for elimination.

Elimination: Both teams had their fair share of struggles in choosing nominees. The red team easily nominated Sterling (for lack of leadership on his course); however, they had trouble choosing between Roe (for inconsistencies in earlier services) and Jennifer (for having a hard time to get Sterling to help her doing her course). They eventually chose Roe, much to her dismay. On the blue team, they had to choose between Fernando (for being short on risotto), Santos (for his hands-off approach to leadership), or Sade (for overcooking the salmon). They ended up choosing Fernando and Santos. After Chef Ramsay had heard from each of the four nominees, he called Sterling and Roe forward, only to tell them to go back in line. He then sent Santos back in line immediately after them, thus eliminating Fernando. Ramsay noted, before taking his jacket, that while he felt that Fernando cooked fantastic dishes, he was not yet ready to lead a brigade.

Team challenge: The chefs were told they need to make two servings of their own amuse-bouche that were going to be judged Chef Ramsay and Epicurious Editor-in-Chief Tanya Steel and scored on a scale of 1–5. The red team was told that they needed to drop one of their amuse-bouche since they had an extra chef. Sterling voluntarily took his own dish out of the running as he felt his plating was not up to par with the others. La Tasha went up first with her pan-seared scallops with sweet-corn, crab and crispy prosciutto and impressed the judges earning her 7 points. Next up, Roe with her seared Ahi-Tuna with black garlic and ginger sauce; however, she disappointed as her dish was way too salty, earning only 4 points. Last up for the red team is Jennifer with her marinated prawn head and coconut milk; she gets criticized for it being too rich on flavor and using the head, she earns a mediocre 5 points, making the red team's point total 16. First up for the blue team is Bryant with his grilled scallop with charred corn and pea tendril and wasabi caviar it gets praise for creativity, but is a little overcooked; however, it still earns 7 points. Next up is Santos with his Fennel-crusted Ahi-tuna and artichoke heart with dragonfruit infused with pomegranate juice gets praise for taste, but criticized for using too many ingredients however it still earns 7 points. Last up is Sade whose pan-seared tuna with Napa cabbage and passion fruit earns a whole 9 points despite worries from Gordon Ramsay and Tanya Steel that Cabbage and passion fruit would not work, ending the score on 23.

Reward/punishment: The blue team is rewarded with a trip to Catalina Island in their own helicopter and a lunch at "Blue Water Grill". The red team prepared coconuts for the next dinner service's special. During prep of the coconuts Jennifer discovers that she is allergic to fresh coconut milk and is rushed to the hospital after she has trouble breathing. She returns the day after in time for dinner service.

Service: Lorenzo Lamas, Colin Walker and the band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy were guests in addition to Lou Diamond Phillips, who was a VIP guest. All the tables are served an amuse-bouche of Ahi-tuna. Both kitchens start strong on the appetizers with Sade and Santos serving in a good pace in the blue kitchen and Roe and Sterling right behind them in the red kitchen. However after some time Sterling in the red kitchen serves up a portion of scallops seared on only one side. While Sterling re-fires his scallops, starts the blue team starts sending their first entrees of the night out without any problems except a lack of communication. When Sterling sends up his re-fired scallops and one of them is raw, Ramsay suggests that they change stations, however Sterling is reluctant to get anybody else to work fish as he feels he needs to show he can handle it. This forces Ramsay to pull the entire team inside the pantry where Sterling agrees that if he messes up one more time Roe can take over his station. He brings up another unacceptable tray of scallops and Roe overtakes his station while he takes over garnish from La Tasha. After that, both teams still run smoothly with a couple of mishaps such as Santos in the blue kitchen bringing up a tray of burnt scallops for Lou Diamond Phillips' table and getting a warning in the pantry by Ramsay. Jennifer also gets a little overwhelmed by the amount of meat that are on order, however, both team finishes with no one thrown out.

Elimination: Chef Ramsay told both teams that it was not a bad service, but that he had expected more and that he had already made a decision. He called Sterling forward and told him that he has been a phenomenal competitor, but he is not ready for the Head chef job and asked him to leave Hell's Kitchen but keep his jacket, which led to a teary elimination by Sterling and the other six chefs as well. This is the second time this season a chef is eliminated during a post-service meeting (Frank was eliminated in episode 10) and the third in the 13 seasons of Hell's Kitchen. He also was paid a retrospective montage (which is normally reserved for black jacket chefs) like Rachel from Season 2, Robert and Sabrina from Season 6, Carrie and Natalie from Season 9 and Nedra from Season 11 - additionally, he was the second chef after Louross from Season 4 to not receive the walk of shame, instead having a shot of him casually walking out the door with his bags. Ramsay then asked both teams to come up with one nominee for elimination. The blue team easily nominated Santos as he was the only one having problems in the kitchen that night while Roe tried to pressure La Tasha to nominate Jennifer since she was overwhelmed on the meat station, to no avail, as both Jennifer and La Tasha nominated Roe due to the reason that she had the worst performance other than Sterling. After both chefs had pleaded their cases, Ramsay asks both of them to take their jackets off only to give them both black jackets. Then he calls Jennifer up and comments about the amounts of times she has been to hospital during her stay, but also gives her a black jacket. La Tasha, Bryant and lastly Sade are given black jackets as well.

Challenge: The contestants were all tasked with making a steak dish, which would be judged by Chef Ramsay, along with guests Bruce Simon and Todd Simon, the owners of Omaha Steaks. However, each dish would be primarily judged by its appearance, eaten only if they felt the dish looked favorable. Sade's, Santos' and Roe's dishes passed the appearance test, while Bryant's, La Tasha's and Jennifer's dishes all failed, thus disqualified from tasting. Roe's ribeye and filet mignon was deemed delicious. Sade had cooked her steak nicely, but the judges felt that the spices ruined the taste. Santos' dish was also deemed to be perfect in appearance and taste, but in the end, Roe's dish won the challenge.

Reward/punishment: Roe attended a photo shoot for an Omaha Steaks billboard campaign, featuring her winning dish, followed by a $1,000 shopping spree at Surfas (a Los Angeles kitchen goods retailer). The others had to butcher a huge side of beef weighing around 200 pounds.

Service: In that night's dinner service, the team would be competing against James, Andi and Ramsay himself. Penn Jillette and Steve Blake were guests for this service. Ramsay's team did a strong job. James and Andi even had interviews in the confessional room as if they were actual contestants and not sous chefs, most likely because they were competing. Their only problem was James falling behind on orders and needlessly attempting to plate, but they managed to quickly recover. The Black Jackets got off to a mediocre start with Santos over-seasoning a salad and La Tasha overcooking the scallops and cold lobster tail, but thanks to Bryant's strong performance, the team recovered, although things for the black jackets got worse on entrées, with even Roe undercooking her own dish and a chicken and Santos struggling to help her out, with Ramsay criticizing the team for their lack of coordination. In the end, Chef Ramsay's team finished five tables ahead of them and had a much better performance than the black jackets. Ramsay felt their service was uneven and further criticized the team for their problems with communication and listening, and felt it was just dead air.

Elimination: In a now-incredibly rare occasion, Ramsay deemed Bryant to be the Best of the Worst as he was the only one who did not get yelled at once and instructed him to nominate two chefs for elimination. Bryant, while briefly thinking about nominating La Tasha, decided to nominate Santos for getting lost during service and Roe for her poor performance on the meat station. In the end, Ramsay eliminated Santos feeling he has no fight back and for his declining performances in the past three services. Santos' elimination marks the first black jacket elimination that was not paid in retrospective montage.

Challenge: The five remaining contestants were tasked to make a meal for 40 glampers in which the winner would be determined by who got the most votes. During the cooking, La Tasha got stressed out, did not talk to the glampers, fell behind the other contestants and was the last to finish. When the votes were counted, Bryant was announced as the winner with Roe ending up second.

Reward/punishment: Bryant was rewarded with a glamping trip in Los Angeles for a night and get to choose one other chef to join him. He chooses Sade as he wanted to find out what her weaknesses were while the other chefs went to the Hollywood Hills to clean the place and returned to Hell's Kitchen for their recycling day. During the recycling task, La Tasha had a very hard time keeping herself from throwing up.

Service: LeVar Burton, Keegan-Michael Key, Bellamy Young and members of the Coast Guard were in attendance. For their first service as one team it starts of well, but they soon hit a couple of speed bumps as Jennifer is scolded for not asking Roe to help her on the fish station as she has nothing to do and when she finally asks for her for helps she sends up two lobster tails that were cold and raw in the middle. Right after Bryant sends up a bland scallop salad with water in it, the appetizers goes smooth. On the entrées, Jennifer forgets the clams for the halibut while Roe sends up under-seasoned garnish twice which forces Sade to start the two lambs as Chef Ramsay can't flip the order. On the next attempt, Roe is on time with the garnish but Sade's lamb is undercooked. On the last ticket, Sade miscommunicates to Jennifer that she could cook the fish as she was 8 minutes away with the wellingtons.

Elimination: Ramsay was disappointed by the final five performance as he felt he had a group of amateurs in the kitchen and asked them to come up with two for elimination based on everything. They choose Roe for her problems in the kitchen that night and her worse performances earlier in the competition and Jennifer as she had problems on the fish station and problems with communication. After hearing from both chefs, Ramsay eliminates Roe as he felt that while she started of strong, her rocky performances had become too much for Ramsay to handle but acknowledged her hard work.

Challenge: The contestants' loved ones show up on a television screen, including Bryant's wife and daughter, La Tasha's mother, Jennifer's fiancé, son and daughter and Sade's mother and auntie and then they (as well as La Tasha's father) showed up in the dining room to catch up. He then introduced to them the taste-it now make-it challenge. In the end, Jennifer won by correctly identifying the three elements of the dish while Sade came in a close second.

Reward/punishment: Jennifer goes with her fiancé and kids for lunch at Mr. Chow followed by chocolate tasting at Vosges. The remaining three had to clean out and pack the dorms and set up the dining room for the 200th dinner service.

Service: Tonight's dinner service was the 200th dinner service. In addition to being a black-tie affair like the 100th dinner service, Rock Harper (season 3 winner), Christina Wilson (season 10 winner), Jay Santos (season 7 runner-up), Jon Scallion (season 11 second runner-up) and Elise Wims (season 9 second runner-up) were all dining as customers in the dining room. Ricky Schroder, Hanson, Sydney Leroux and Kelly Hansen were also dining as guests as well. First, Sade ran the pass, when Sade asked Jennifer how long on chicken, Jennifer was slow to reply with the duo conflicting and in addition Jennifer burned the chicken skin, Sade managed to spot that Andi put clams instead of mussels in the capellini and spotted a mistake on the ticket from Marino. Next up was La Tasha who failed to notice the difference between a sea bass and a halibut but called out Bryant for being slow on garnish and showing disrespect towards her. Jennifer was the third contestant to run the pass but Sade got confused when Jennifer called out an order and the team was slow to give Jennifer a time on their respective stations. Jennifer spotted Bryant's undercooked mashed potatoes but failed to notice the missing duxelles in the wellingtons but rebounded by keeping entrées moving at a consistent pace. Bryant was last to run the pass and, concerned that Andi was out to sabotage him (as she had with the other three), mistook the two halibut for two sea bass – causing a brief argument between him and Ramsay. He did, however, notice the difference between cauliflower and celery root puree and successfully completes the dinner service. Ramsay praised the contestants for their strong performances and acknowledging that he has the right final four and sent them upstairs while he was thinking about who should be in the final two. When the contestants were out on the patio, La Tasha was annoyed at Bryant running his egotism.

Continuing from last episode Bryant and La Tasha started working on their menus. While Bryant kept his menu very simple, La Tasha decided to take a more adventurous approach to hers. The next day, they were invited to a day of relaxation in Palm Springs by Chef Ramsay and accompanied by maitre d' Marino Monferrato.

Challenge: When Bryant and La Tasha returned to Los Angeles were they greeted by a woman from the airport who told them that their ride had not arrived yet, but they were escorted to a room that when she came back it was revealed that they needed to cook 5 unique dishes with one cold appetizer and hot appetizer, and three entrées featuring beef chicken and fish in front of a live audience and had only one hour with the assistance of Sous chef Andi and James. La Tasha won the challenge 42–39 - which included a perfect score on one of her entrée dishes.

Reward: La Tasha got the first pick of the last eight chefs eliminated.^{[lower-alpha 1]} La Tasha’s first pick was Sade followed by Roe, Fernando and last Ashley. While Bryant picked Jennifer, Sterling, Santos, and Frank was left as the last pick. This didn’t surprise Frank due to his awful last dinner service performance.

Service: During pre-service, Frank burned all of Bryant’s nuts, an item he added after suggestion from Sterling and Frank and they needed to redo them all over. During the tasting of both menus, Chef Ramsay gave mostly positive feedback to Bryant’s menu, while he had his fair share of critiques for La Tasha's menu as there was too much elements on the plates – a problem that was quickly rectified. In addition to the finalists' families, Margaret Cho, Aisha Tyler, Tory Belleci, Sharon Lawrence and Traci Bingham also appeared as guests. During service in the blue kitchen Frank almost immediately stalled the kitchen as he had problems executing the simple menu until Bryant switched him with Sterling on the garnish station. In the red kitchen Roe had problems on the first ticket serving up too little garnish but rebounded fast. Fernando had problems most of the night on the fish station both with timing and communication and got accused by Ramsay for trying to sabotage La Tasha’s dinner service. After he served up raw salmon, La Tasha replaced him with Roe and the rest of the red service went without incident. The same could not be said for the blue kitchen as Frank after having problems on the appetizer station, now started having problems on garnish, forcing Bryant to throw him out – a decision that Ramsay agreed with.

Winner: Ramsay congratulated the chefs for a complete service and told them that it would be a "virtually impossible decision" to determine a winner. After analyzing the service and overall performance, he called both of them into his office where he praised La Tasha for her consistency and praised Bryant for his strong finish despite some of the setbacks earlier in the service. After that, he asked them to go to their doors where La Tasha’s opened making her the 13th winner of Hell's Kitchen with Bryant taking his defeat graciously. In the closing segment, Ramsay went on to shake hands with Frank and asked him what happened during the service.