Taking It From the Top

The usual order of business is to first open a restaurant or two, then become a television chef. Harold Dieterle has done it backward, first winning the televised cooking showdown “Top Chef” in 2006, then opening a restaurant, Perilla, in May. His celebrity is an asset: The narrow room is booked, night after night, with a different sort of customer than the usual denizen of chef-driven bistros on West Village side streets. These tourist families with teenagers, and undergraduate couples on dates, clearly came for the famous chef. Perhaps they’re disappointed that Mr. Dieterle works largely behind the scenes. I managed to eavesdrop on a fair amount of bemusement over dishes such as the super-fatty Berkshire pork belly in sweet Banyuls gastrique ($10) and the “soapy” lime-leaf ice cream accompanying an otherwise unobjectionable chocolate cake ($9).The chef has a distinctive style, often doctoring familiar Western dishes with Asian ingredients. He spices an appetizer of excellent duck meatballs ($10) with garlic and chile, and strews the substantial, savory meatballs with light-textured, purplish-gray gnocchi made from Okinawan yams, whose effect on the dish is innocuous at best. A raw quail egg plopped in the middle makes a rich thickener for the brown sauce.There’s a bit of heat, too, in a more Caribbean dish of full-flavored raw mackerel pieces with salty fried plantain chips, hearts of palm, and a smear of potent jalapeño purée, like a ceviche broken into its components. Another raw-fish dish includes thick-sliced yellowtail ($14), doused in a delicate Japanese broth of yuzu citrus and tomato water with crunchy bits of cucumber. Strips of cuttlefish ($12), gently sautéed with tomato and cured pork, and served with crunchy water chestnuts and potent garlic croutons, is an interesting creation as well.Main courses run along somewhat more conventional lines. There’s even a steak, with creamed spinach. Three little rib chops of lamb ($29) are beautifully grilled and succulent, their rich fresh flavor complemented by the strong heartiness of lamb breast meat shredded and cooked among braised greens as a bed for the chops. An ethereal white mousse of parsley root makes an odd accompaniment, delicate and earthy at once. Two big rectangular lengths of soft, rare-roasted duck breast ($25), twice the usual portion or more, are dotted all over with tart, bursting huckleberries, which do wonders for the meat. A thin smear of sweet corn pudding gives a hint of grounding to the dish, but, as with the lamb’s pale mousse, could do its job better if there were more of it.In a smart appeal to his audience, Mr. Dieterle serves unusually large portions. A piece of dredged and sautéed skate ($20) appears remarkably thick for such a flat fish; on closer inspection, it turns out to be a stack of two filets, flawlessly cooked and laid in a pool of rich mustard cream sauce. Strips of crisped pastrami on top are an interesting smoky counterpoint to the skate, but the sauce is just a bit too pungent, and tends to overwhelm a fish that needs no assistance at all. Even heftier is the lone vegetarian offering, a crisp-shelled strudel ($22) filled to overflowing with tart, juicy heirloom tomatoes and a week’s dose of gooey fontina cheese.The pyramid-shaped coconut cake with watermelon salad ($8) looked and tasted familiar. Didn’t I enjoy a very similar dessert at Chanto last year? Indeed: chef Seth Caro worked at the futuristic Japanese spot before coming to Perilla, and neatly tailors his creations to suit their environment. At Chanto, a cardamom cream accompanied the cake; here, it’s accompanied by a rare cameo from the restaurant’s namesake herb: a scoop of strong, minty perilla-flavored frozen yogurt that gives a pleasingly offbeat note to the dessert. I appreciated the lime-leaf ice cream accompanying the chocolate cake, too, but I can see how its distinctive flavor, most familiar to many palates from its use in Thai curries, might be jarring to some. There isn’t really a crowd-pleaser on Mr. Caro’s inventive list: not even the doughnuts ($8), which are oddly spongy and filled with unsweet lemon-fennel cream.A short, eclectic list of international wines, almost all under $100, are well-chosen to flatter the food, although with only four reds sold by the glass, there’s little excuse for the servers’ lack of familiarity with the options.Mr. Dieterle’s repertoire may not have the breadth of style that experience brings, but his ideas and skills are sound. If his creative touches alienate some of the followers who love him for his television stardom, they seem certain to win the approval of many more.Perilla (9 Jones St., between West 4th and Bleecker streets, 212-929-6868).

Taking It From the Top

Taking It From the Top

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