After Alisha walked out during Angus and Simon's dinner, the self-described classy bogans arrived at their own restaurant determined to prove that their big personalities were not hiding a lack of cooking ability.

The target was clear. Krysten and Lucy sat at the top of the leaderboard on 72, with Angus and Simon close behind on 70. Alisha and Deanne needed an excellent three-course dinner to overtake them both.

Hot Mess Starts With Scallops And A Plate War

The menu leaned into comforting favourites: seared scallops with burnt butter and cauliflower puree for entree, lamb backstrap with crispy potatoes and salsa verde for main, then Alisha's nan's sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce for dessert.

Things became messy almost immediately. While cooking the scallops, Alisha lost track of which ones had already hit the pan. The mistake showed on the finished plates, with some scallops cooked more evenly than others.

That inconsistency was almost overshadowed by Jane's reaction to the colourful melamine plates. Drawing on her food-styling background, she argued that the busy pattern distracted from food that could have looked beautiful on plain white ceramic.

Lucy was not convinced. She suggested Jane was judging the whole aesthetic as if she were on an interior-design show rather than a cooking competition, prompting Jane to call the view 'really naive'. Suddenly, crockery had become the most controversial ingredient in the room.

Manu Feildel enjoyed the flavours together, but he could not overlook the uneven scallop cooking. He scored the entree 5/10, while Colin Fassnidge gave it 6/10.

The Smoke Alarm Cannot Stop The Lamb

Alisha and Deanne needed their main to lift the night, but first they had to survive another very on-brand interruption. Smoke from the lamb grill triggered the fire alarm, sending Deanne back into the dining room with a perfectly timed explanation.

'We heard that your conversations were so boring that we had to set the fire alarm off,' she joked, earning a much-needed laugh from the table.

The larger colourful plates brought Jane's complaints straight back. This time, she said the fruit imagery made the meal look as though it belonged at a children's table. The presentation debate was going nowhere, but thankfully the cooking had moved forward.

The lamb backstrap was easily the pair's strongest dish. Manu praised the perfectly cooked, well-seasoned meat and tangy salsa verde, while Colin loved the punchy sauce and crispy potatoes.

Manu awarded 7/10 and Colin produced an 8/10, the first eight of the Instant Restaurant round. For a team trying to prove it could do more than create chaos, it was the strongest answer possible.

Alisha's Sticky Date Pudding Hits The Floor

With the main restoring confidence, dessert should have been the comforting finish. Instead, the sticky date pudding collapsed and batter spilled onto the kitchen floor.

The failure hit Alisha hard because the recipe came from her nan. Deanne could only look at the mess and admit, 'We literally have a hot mess in the kitchen now.'

Somehow, they salvaged enough pudding to serve every guest. It was not the polished finale they had imagined, but the dessert itself held up better than the kitchen disaster suggested.

Manu found the pudding soft, moist and true to the classic, giving it 7/10. Colin wanted cream or creme fraiche to cut through the sweetness and scored it 6/10.

Alisha And Deanne Finish On 68

Manu's scores of 5, 7 and 7 gave Alisha and Deanne 19/30. Colin's 6, 8 and 6 added another 20 points, bringing the judges' total to 39/60.

Among the guests, Angus and Simon scored the dinner 7/10. Krysten and Lucy gave 6/10, as did Mary and Golden, while Jane and Shane and Tiffany and Giancarlo each awarded 5/10. That added 29/50 to the tally.

The final score of 68/110 placed Alisha and Deanne third, behind Krysten and Lucy on 72 and Angus and Simon on 70. They did not take the lead, but they survived a service that included smoke alarms, pudding on the floor and enough flour to make the Hot Mess name feel less like branding and more like a warning.

As Alisha summed up, they had smoke alarms, cakes on the floor and flour everywhere, but they got through it. More importantly, Colin's eight proved that when the pair found their rhythm, they could absolutely cook.

Next up are Tiffany and Giancarlo, whose menu promises to begin in Italy before taking an unexpected Japanese detour. The preview also teases another kitchen catastrophe, so Hot Mess may not hold the chaos crown for long.

My Kitchen Rules continues tonight at 7.30pm on Seven and 7plus.