SF's lone remaining 'Top Chef' makes cut, barely

Laurine Wickett, owner of San Francisco's Left Coast Catering, was in the bottom three in Bravo TV's Top Chef competition Wednesday evening. But she survived for another week, at the least.

Wickett (left) got off on the wrong foot by pushing back on the challenge to "deconstruct" a dish and reinterpret it to show individual cooking style.

What head judge Tom Colicchio said in his blog:

"For Laurine and others to say 'that’s not what I do' makes no sense to me. The point is to stretch yourself as a chef. You may not be a chef who does this often, but this doesn’t mean you can’t give the matter some thought, apply your knowledge of your craft, and come up with a thousand different ways to rework something so that the flavors are there along with the imagination."

For the Eliminaton Challenge, Wickett's dish was a deconstructed fish and chips,  malt sabyon, tartar sauce and tomato confit with ginger and garlic.

Colicchio said she was in the bottom three for " ... technical reasons: it was so poorly executed."

San Franciscans eliminated in past episodes are Preeti Mistry, executive chef for Bon Appetit Management Co. at Google headquarters in Mountain View, and Mattin Noblia, chef/owner of Iluna Basque in North Beach.

(Photo credit: www.bravotv.com)