Robert Hernandez’s time in the Top Chef kitchen was marked by serious highs and lows. In the very first challenge, some mistakes and miscommunications culminated in him not getting anything on the plate at all for his team. But in the same episode, he completely redeemed himself, winning the first Elimination Challenge when his risk to make gnocchi paid off. After that roller coaster of a premiere, Robert was able to ride the middle until he was partnered with Sarah Welch in one of the hardest challenges in the show’s history. Tasked with creating two dishes that looked alike but tasted different, the duo hoped their yin-yang of personality would translate to the plate. But some execution errors led to their demise, as their dish discrepancies led to them being eliminated in tandem. Read on to hear Robert’s thoughts on his time in the game, and check out Last Chance Kitchen to watch Robert and other eliminated chefs fight for redemption and a chance to get back into the competition. What compelled you to apply for Top Chef? I’ve been watching Top Chef since I was a kid. Like many chefs of my generation, Top Chef inspired me to become a chef. When I received the application, I was going through a lot of personal and professional changes. It was a no-brainer to apply. Top Chef was the first time you had cooked in a kitchen since October 2019, and you were worried about feeling rusty. How easy was it for you to settle back into a rhythm? I hadn’t been in a professional kitchen since October 2019, but I never stopped cooking. I became a private chef and continued to cook on a smaller scale. Cooking on Top Chef is hard. You are out of your element, and you are under a time constraint. It’s not easy to fall into a rhythm; you are constantly thinking on the fly. Cooking in the Top Chef kitchen never gets easy. Your prior experience has made you feel like you were “cooking in someone else’s shadow.” Ultimately, do you feel you were able to show who you were on Top Chef? Being on Top Chef reignited a spark in me that I had lost. I wish I had more time to really showcase who I am as a chef, but I am extremely proud of what I was able to accomplish. I think this is the start of a new chapter of my life, and I am ready to continue to work hard and cook my heart out. You ended up winning the first Elimination Challenge. How did this affect the way you viewed the competition moving forward? Winning the first challenge was a great feat and a great morale booster, but you are never safe unless you have immunity. I took every challenge like it was my first, knowing that the past challenges did not determine if I advanced to the next round. You admitted you sometimes get into a mental block with challenges. How do you push through that when you’re under pressure and on the clock? I tend to talk to myself a lot. I don’t do it out loud, but I have a constant inner monologue while I am cooking. The doppelganger challenge was particularly hard because there was no room for pivoting. On any other challenge, you can change a component or leave one out based on how the cooking is going. In this challenge, there was no way of changing your dish at the last minute. Let’s get into the pairs challenge that eliminated you. Talk to me about your relationship with Sarah and why you picked her as a partner. Sarah and I were cooking right next to each other during the biscuit quickfire. When Padma announced to get into pairs, we immediately looked at each other. It felt right. At this point in the competition, Sarah and I had been in two teams together. We became very close from the get-go. Our friendship is very natural. We are a bit of opposites when it comes to personalities, but we understand each other. You and Sarah admitted you started planning around shape before color. What do you think about that choice in hindsight? When trying to conceptualize two dishes that look exactly alike, you have to work backward. You are creating a dish based on looks. If we would have executed the dishes perfectly, conceptualizing a dish based on shape and color wouldn’t have been too far-fetched. Were you surprised to get elimination over Evelyn and Jo? After hearing the judges’ feedback on both of the teams, I felt a bit of hope that it wasn’t going to be Sarah and me who went home. The judges agreed that both of our dishes had good flavor. I wasn’t surprised to go home, given that I knew we both had technical flaws on a night when all of the chefs had incredible dishes and great technique. You said on the way out that you and Sarah “let each other down.” How tough was it to be eliminated together, especially knowing this was a team effort? It’s never a good feeling to be the reason for someone else’s defeat. It’s extremely difficult knowing that I was part of the reason why Sarah went home. Although getting eliminated together was difficult, being eliminated together made the grieving process easier. It’s easier to move on from a situation when you are not doing it by yourself. Next, check out our interview with Sam Kang, who was eliminated in Top Chef Houston Episode 3.
