Season 23 Winner Rhoda Magbitang Opens Up About Show Experience & Her Future

Confetti fell and champagne flowed as Rhoda Magbitang was named Season 23 winner of Bravo’s Top Chef. She became the fourth chef to return from Last Chance Kitchen and conquer the culinary competition. Others include host Kristen Kish and Joe Flamm, who was among the mentors during the finale. The Kailua-Kona-based chef took a risk during the final elimination challenge by not going with a dessert for the fourth course of her progressive meal. The move paid off as the comeback queen leaned in on her family roots as the eldest of six children and life experience from the Philippines to California. 

Along with the title, Magbitang also secured $250,000, a feature in Food & Wine magazine, and appearance at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, Colorado. She’ll also have the opportunity to headline her own exclusive dinner at the historic James Beard House in New York and present at the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards in Chicago. 

Magbitang overcame some hefty competition in the form of Sherry Cardoso and Laurence Louie. Her courses included sweet potato and uni, traditional Filipino rice porridge lugaw, grilled eggplant omelet, lap cheong XO and pork belly, and kaldreta with short rib to honor her father. Over the season she also bagged $40,000 in Quickfire Challenge victories and became the first in the show’s history to earn two individual wins in the first two elimination challenges.

Here Magbitang reflects on her experience in the Carolinas and talks about what’s next. 

TOP CHEF — “The Final Toast” Episode 2314 — Pictured: (l-r) Joe Flamm, Rhoda Magbitang, Sherry Cardoso, Laurence Louie, Sara Bradley — (Photo by: Paul Cheney/Bravo)

You’re the first woman in six seasons to win Top Chef. What does that mean to you? 

Rhoda Magbitang: I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it. I think it’s cool to do all these things that maybe would bring this season a little more attention in terms of setting records and doing all the different things that haven’t happened in a few seasons. I’m still wrapping my head around actually winning. Let alone, going into the details of being the first woman since Melissa [King]. Man, that’s a while ago. We were definitely due. 

Then you came back after Last Chance Kitchen. Was it the reality check you needed knowing you had this one last opportunity? What went through your mindset to peak at the right time? 

I think you probably have heard this with your other Top Chef people you’ve interviewed before, but it’s such a mind game. You know when you get to this level and in this competition…you know you already know how to cook. It’s just a matter of getting your head in it and locking in. At the same time there are so many extraneous factors that you can or can’t anticipate or expect. You have to count that in and make sure you can push through all the other challenges outside the actual challenge. It’s tough to quantify what actually switched, the exact point in time where I said, “Man, I can actually do this.” 

You had Sieger [Bayer] as your sous chef at the end. He got a lot of people talking on social media following his elimination. Then we saw him back. Maybe this was a chance for him to seek a little retribution in a way seeing you win. What did you make of his journey and him coming back and helping you at the end? 

I was hoping I would get Sieger as a sous chef because we knew we were going to get the last three eliminated contestants as our sous chef. That we were able to pick. He was my first choice. I’m so glad I got to work with him. Whatever happened, I knew he would show up for me, and he did. He was such a great addition to our team of two. We worked really well together. He understood what he needed to do. He just puts his head down and works. I appreciate that about him. 

You took a chance not going with a dessert. Talk about the back and forth you may have felt in your mind. Were you just confident in your decision throughout because it was a progressive and believed in the message you were sending so much. 

I think with the theme of the challenge of doing a toast for each course, it didn’t make sense to me to have a dessert. I didn’t have a toast to dedicate a dessert for. Laurence had his, and it was perfectly aligned with his progressive menu. And so did Sherry’s, but mine was more…if I had it my way, mine would be 12 courses. It would be highlighting all these people and things and places I want to toast to because there was so many I needed to highlight. But I knew with what I wanted to do and why I wanted to toast each course, it didn’t fit my menu at all. I definitely thought it was a risk, but I never felt it was a copout. It just spoke to me, and I had to make sure I felt right by it. 

$250,000 isn’t chump change. What are your plans for it? 

It’s going to sit somewhere for a little bit and get nice and heavy. I don’t really have a lot of plans. I’d like to travel a little bit. Take some time. I don’t know how feasible that will be in the near future. I’d like to sort of not think about it for a second and do what I need to do over the next however many months this craziness is going to go for. Hopefully, I’ll be traveling very soon. 

Sasha Israel//Bravo

Where do you want to take this opportunity? We’ve seen Kristen and others parlay this into other things. What do you hope to take this opportunity given? 

That’s a really good question. I think I’ve been sort of, I don’t want to say forced but encouraged to really hone in on what that would look like. Let me tell you. I’ve planned a lot of things. I was going to move to Costa Rica two years ago. Instead, I moved to the Big Island. That was a done deal. I knew at this time last year I was going to go on the show, but this wasn’t on my plan either. So far, the nonplan plan has been working. So maybe I’ll stick with that and see where it takes me. It’s more fun that way. 

What about your family? I can’t imagine what it was like for you to hold this in for so long. Now it’s out. Are you doing anything to celebrate? 

Not yet. My parents are in the Philippines. They are both retired. I do want to see them very soon. My sisters, and I have another sister in the Philippines. I also have a sister and my brother in Seattle. They are kind of all over the place. It’s hard to get us all in one spot. I am planning on celebrating. I lived in multiple places and look forward to visiting and catching up. Going on tour. 

The cheftestants are such a competitive group who have endured so many ups and downs. A lot of people don’t think about the fact you all are sequestered away for a good bit from your families. This is your family. How is to getting through that experience. How was it leaning on each other? 

I can be very outwardly friendly and all these things. That’s fine. Also, I have this thing where I have to recharge because my social battery drains so quickly. I have chef friends, but I don’t hang out with a lot of chef friends. So, being around all these chefs with all these personalities was a little tough for me. At the same time, I’ve grown to love them and enjoy their company, maybe in smaller doses and just in smaller groups. That was really tough. But also, once you get to know them as people outside the competition, it’s like they are all such fun. We all just get along so well. 

Is there a text string? Are you texting during the show airing? 

We have a text thread, text group, group text, group chat, whatever you call it. We call it “Cava and Meal Sticks.” Do you know Cava, the fast casual restaurant, the Mediterranean place? They are all over. It’s a chain. It’s delicious, but we ate it every day. Meat sticks like Chomps because that’s what we lived on. We text every day. We check in on each other. We have our mini group chats with different cliques or groups. But right now Brittany [Cochran], Oscar [Diaz], and Sieger are here with me in Hawaii. We’re doing a popup in a Surf Shack at Mauna Lani. I think they went spear fishing this morning. Those are the guys I’m the closest to. 

What did you take from this experience? 

There are a lot…Cooking on a TV show and cooking in real life are two different things. When you mess something up on TV, it’s not because that person is an idiot or a sh*tty chef. I’ve known that this whole time, but when you see yourself going through it in real time as people are watching. Like, yeah, I can see their perspective. I can see why this is troublesome. Anyway, there is a lot to take away from it. At the end of the day, your resilience is going to carry you through the entire time. And talent is sort of secondary if that makes any sense.