June 20 (Bloomberg) -- Harold Dieterle, age 30, handsome, shy, TV's first ``Top Chef'' champion, possessor of a Wikipedia entry, co-owner of his own Greenwich Village restaurant, does not come out of the kitchen.

I make three visits to Perilla. I never see him.

I am forced to beg for substantiation of his celebrity presence. Is this not what all who come here seek?

A waitress tells me that ``a very big TV actress currently not on the show that made her famous'' has been at the restaurant. She was occupying my very booth -- an exceptionally spacious and comfortable booth, I have to say, even though the orange fabric is not to my taste.

My guest guesses correctly: Sarah Jessica Parker. The waitress says that when Dieterle came out to greet her, ``She clapped her hands and squealed.'' Which caused the three young women in the adjoining booth to do exactly the same.

Anthony Bourdain, author and culinary scoundrel, also drew him out. Another of my guests says, ``I was there on the first Sunday it opened, sitting in the back, and Bourdain was two tables over. Something happened. There was a frenzy among the staff. The chef came out personally and delivered a new dish. I don't know whether he was apologizing or thanking him for saying everything was fabulous.''

Here's the shocker: No apologies needed. Certainly, fabulous is going too far, but there is little not to like about this pleasant, understated restaurant. Well, the rubbery, over- refrigerated Taylor Bay scallops might have been left over from Bravo's 2006 competition, when Dieterle won his title.

Assertive Lighting

Perilla -- the English name for the Japanese shiso leaf --is a modest place, long and narrow, with a few photographs on mostly bare walls. There's a major assortment of lights overhead, the most conspicuous being a 30-bulb contemporary chandelier that I hated and my postmodern friends informed me was just fine. You'll find more to see by looking up than by looking anywhere else.

The tabletops appear to be wood-grain veneer, but they aren't. They're solid zebrawood. Dieterle once told Food & Wine magazine that he intended to spend $30,000 of his ``Top Chef'' $100,000 prize money to have tables made from 200-year-old oaks. Save one forest. Lose another.

Service is quick, informal and knowledgeable. The wine list is smart and fairly priced. For a white, you need drink nothing more than the 2006 Bibi Graetz Vermentino, at $24 the cheapest wine on the list and one of the best. For a red, I liked the silky 2005 Langmeil Shiraz, seemingly expensive at $46 only because the Vermentino is such a deal.

Talent, Technique

Dieterle can cook. He has technique and instincts. All the dishes on the small menu (eight appetizers, eight mains) are complicated and most are well executed. Although flavorful, they're not especially appropriate for this time of year.

Wagyu skirt steak with creamed spinach and extra-thick shallot puree. Beef carpaccio. Duck meatballs. Pork belly. More duck.

After eating, I wanted to go out and shovel snow.

I got the impression he was preparing dishes that he was confident he could do well, not dishes his customers might appreciate right now. He's a young chef, and it's likely his repertoire isn't wide-ranging.

Not much seemed local. Almost nothing was light, which made his deftly assembled peekytoe crab salad an item everybody with me wanted to eat. It included sliced mango, avocado and lime juice. It was practically a day at the beach.

If you brace yourself to eat in a seasonally inappropriate manner, you will have a fine dinner. The roasted duckling passes for his steakhouse selection -- two thick, meaty slabs in a foie gras bordelaise. The grilled Colorado lamb is a terrific product, and it comes with a couldn't-be-richer parsley-root mousseline.

Hefty Fare

You might think skate wing and langoustine would be delicate options. Not here. The skate is ``crispy sauteed,'' which means thickly coated in flour. The New Zealand langoustines will really warm you up. They're buried in a spicy concoction of rice, eggplant and peppercorns. I enjoyed the preparation so much I started reminiscing about my last Sichuan meal.

Desserts, like all else, are a little more complicated than they need be, but they're light and not excessively sweet. I wouldn't give pastry chef Seth Caro's sticky coconut cake with watermelon salad and frozen shiso yogurt a prize for synergy, but each of the three components is superb on its own. Everybody makes designer donuts these days, but his lemon-fennel version is among the best, much like the yeast cakes in a baba au rhum.

I heard grumbling when I said my favorite item was the tiny duck meatballs. A friend scornfully declared them identical to those found in canned SpaghettiOs. They are not. They weren't overcooked, a minor triumph, and they came with a quail egg and a scattering of petite yam gnocchi. The dish was a miracle of miniaturization.

Anyway, that same woman was the one intensely disappointed to learn that the menu didn't include Dieterle's crushed-popcorn cake, apparently a tour de force from his TV triumph.

The Bloomberg Questions

Cost? Prices range from $8 for a green salad with cherries, cheese and pecans to $32 for the New Zealand langoustines.

Sound level? Not terribly loud, but I was told considerable muttering breaks out whenever Dieterle walks through the room.

Date place? Yes, particularly if you can reserve a booth.

Inside tip? Beware the ultra-dry, fast-puckering house cocktail, the Perilla 75: gin, shiso, grapefruit juice and prosecco. It won't whet your appetite; it will seal your mouth.

Special feature: Three cheeses from Murray's is a bargain at $9, even if the portions are microscopic.

Private room: No.

Lunch: No.

Will I be back? Not right now, but certainly when Dieterle is fully formed.

Perilla is at 9 Jones St., between West Fourth and Bleecker streets. Information: +1-212-929-6868; http://www.perillanyc.com.

(Alan Richman is a restaurant critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this story: Alan Richman at thecritic@optonline.net.

Last Updated: June 20, 2007 00:18 EDT