D.C.-Trained Filipina Chef Wins Bravo’s Top Chef

Long before she was crowned the newest champion of Bravo’s Top Chef, Rhoda Magbitang was quietly mastering her craft under the influence of the chef most responsible for putting Washington, D.C. on the American culinary map. Today, the Manila-born, Hawaii-based chef is a household name — and for the Filipino community, her Season 23 win feels historic. But part of her story runs straight through the nation’s capital, even though she never worked there herself.

Rhoda Magbitang and her younger siblings. Photo Courtesy of Rhoda Magbitang

A Career Forged in the Shadow of D.C.’s Most Famous Kitchen Empire

Magbitang grew up in Antipolo, Philippines, the eldest of six children, learning to cook at her grandmother’s food stall before family dinners of traditional Filipino dishes. At 17 she moved to the United States, first pursuing a teaching career before the pull of the kitchen won out. She trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena, then worked her way through Los Angeles institutions like Michelin two-starred Mélisse and Suzanne Goin’s A.O.C.

Then came her defining credential: a stint at The Bazaar by José Andrés.

It’s a name that carries enormous weight in American food circles, and for good reason. Andrés is arguably Washington’s most consequential chef — the man who opened Jaleo on 7th Street NW in 1993 and, in doing so, is widely credited with introducing small-plates dining to the United States. That original Jaleo helped transform D.C.’s Penn Quarter into the bustling neighborhood it is today, and Andrés went on to build it into the foundation of ThinkFoodGroup, which grew to include restaurants like Zaytinya, Oyamel, China Chilcano, and the two-Michelin-starred minibar. He’s now also a professor and founder of the Global Food Institute at George Washington University, and the founder of World Central Kitchen, the disaster-relief nonprofit that grew out of his D.C. base.

Working in Andrés’s orbit — even out on the West Coast at his Beverly Hills Bazaar outpost — meant absorbing the same DNA that runs through his D.C. flagships: bold, theatrical, technically daring cooking built around storytelling. It’s a sensibility Magbitang carried with her all the way to the Top Chef finale table.

She later served as Executive Chef at Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood and led the kitchen at The Inn at Mattei’s Tavern, Auberge Collection, picking up Michelin Guide recognition along the way.

Photo Credits: Paul Cheney / Bravo

The Season That Nearly Got Away

Set in the Carolinas, Magbitang’s run on Top Chef Season 23 was a rollercoaster. She won the first two elimination challenges out of the gate — her debut dish, a sweet potato plate inspired by the Filipino street snack kamote-Q, marked her instantly as a front-runner. Then came a shocking Episode 5 elimination, sending her to Last Chance Kitchen.

She didn’t just survive it. She ran the table, beating opponent after opponent to fight her way back into the main competition — becoming only the fourth contestant in the show’s history to return from Last Chance Kitchen and go on to win the whole season.

A Finale Built on Family, Not the Capital

In the finale, “The Final Toast,” Magbitang served a deeply personal four-course meal: sweet potato and uni, followed by lugaw (Filipino rice porridge), then tortang talong — a grilled eggplant omelette — with pork belly. For her final course, she skipped dessert entirely and served caldereta, a braised liver and vegetable stew, as a toast to her father.

The judges’ panel — Food & Wine editor-in-chief Hunter Lewis alongside former champions Sara Bradley, Joe Flamm, and Stephanie Izard — were won over, and Magbitang took home the $250,000 grand prize.

History, and a Loose Thread Back to D.C.

Magbitang is the seventh woman to win Top Chef, the first in six seasons, and the first Filipina champion in the show’s history — a milestone resonating deeply across Filipino communities.

She’s now the first female Executive Chef of CanoeHouse at Mauna Lani, Auberge Collection, on Hawaii’s Big Island, blending Hawaiian Regional cuisine with Japanese technique and local sourcing. Her post-win victory lap includes Auberge Collection dinners, the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, and a headlining dinner at the James Beard House in New York.

It’s worth noting: Andrés himself calls Washington “not only the political capital of the country… in many ways it’s our culinary capital too” — and his D.C. restaurants remain the beating heart of that reputation, even as the chefs who passed through his kitchens, like Magbitang, carry his influence to plates far beyond the Beltway.

She came. She cooked. She conquered. And somewhere in that journey, a little bit of Washington’s small-plates revolution rode along with her.