Harold Dieterle

Winner, Top Chef, Season One; and chef-owner, Perilla and
Kin Shop
New York, New York

When you’re standing in a kitchen with cameras jammed in your

face and world-class chefs waiting to judge your food, you’ve got

to be able to think on your feet. Actually, “think” is the wrong

word for it. You’ve got to act, and act quickly. In that moment

between knowing the challenge and acting on that challenge, how

do you get inspired? How do you know what to make?

Meet chef Harold Dieterle, winner of Season One of Bravo’s hit

show Top Chef. Dieterle, as anyone who watched that season

knows, is calm, cool, and collected in the kitchen. He keeps his

cards close to his chest; you never really know what he’s thinking

while he cooks, and if you ask him he’s often surprised by the

question.

For example, when I join him in the kitchen of his West Village

restaurant Perilla, I ask him how he came up with his new dish of

fettuccine with lobster, cauliflower, lychees, and bone marrow.

“How did you think to put all of those things together?”

He looks at me blankly for a second. Then he shrugs: “I’ve

done a lot of traveling in Thailand,” he says. “And lychees are in

season right now.”