June 19--Chicago home cook Dan Collado, one of the top contestants on "MasterChef," left the Fox cooking competition for personal reasons, he said Thursday.
"All I'm will to say at this point is that it's unfortunate that I had to leave and that the reason I left was personal," Collado said in a message to the Tribune.
"He's absolutely fine, and he's headed back to Chicago," judge Gordon Ramsay said in Wednesday's episode as he announced the departure of Collado, 29, a Wicker Park model/engineer who consistently placed well in challenges.
Now there's only one Chicago home cook left in the competition: South Loop fashion designer Tommy Walton, who took a lot of heat in Wednesday's episode for his performance in a team challenge in Las Vegas.
The home cooks, who were split into two teams, were tasked with serving 101 entertainers lobster or chicken. Walton, 53, was on a team that made grilled lobster with smashed Yukon potatoes.
While most of the team worked in harmony, Walton was criticized for serving oversize and sloppy portions and for burning potatoes.
"Look at me. Calm down or I'll throw you in the (expletive) pool," Ramsay told Walton.
Walton looked rattled, and he was downgraded to dishwashing duties.
"Everywhere I go, I'm just getting full-on volcanic hatred from everybody," Walton said.
Walton did get lucky in Vegas, though. His team narrowly beat out the other team, which mismanaged their time making chicken roulade with mango.
Four competitors from the losing team had to cook a steak for Ramsay in his Las Vegas steakhouse to stay on the show. Virgina home cook Ailsa von Dobeneck was eliminated for serving a cold filet mignon.
Sixteen home cooks remain. The winner of "MasterChef" gets $250,000 and a cookbook deal. The show airs Wednesdays at 7 p.m.
