May 15 (Bloomberg) -- Can a reality-show champion bring New York its next great restaurant? Or will the ex-contestant get voted off the island of Manhattan?

Harold Dieterle is likely asking himself these same questions. He just opened Perilla, an ambitious venue that combines American cuisine with Asian sensibilities.

The 29-year-old cook rose to fame by winning the first season of ``Top Chef'' on the Bravo channel. (It's a gastronomic ``American Idol.'') The grand prize? A miserly $100,000 to kick- start a new restaurant. That's about enough to cover a chef's student loans.

Perilla is a dimly lit, 75-seat space with orange booths, white walls and a brown-wood bar. It bears no trace of a TV show or celebrity chef. Dieterle wasn't at the star-studded James Beard Foundation Awards last week, and I didn't see him strutting through his dining room, signing cookbooks.

He was in the kitchen, cooking.

Prime-time reservations are already hard to come by. Maybe Dieterle will break the curse of the reality-TV cooking show.

Remember ``The Next Food Network Star''? It didn't produce any stars. Gordon Ramsay's ``Hell's Kitchen'' hasn't given us Michelin-worthy chefs. Most famously, NBC's ``The Restaurant'' helped squash the talented Rocco DiSpirito.

Perilla's cuisine, as it turns out, evokes the bright, Asian-spiked fare DiSpirito served at the now-closed Union Pacific.

DiSpirito was one of few chefs to serve scallops on the half shell. He paired the Taylor Bay variety with uni (sea urchin) and tomato water. At Perilla, diners get the same mollusk in its shell, but with a tart ramp vinaigrette.

Marbled Fish

Tomato water instead appears as an antidote to Dieterle's raw hamachi (yellowtail), so obscenely marbled it could be Kobe beef in disguise.

Skate with brown butter and capers is a bistro classic. DiSpirito took out the capers, put in lime pickle. Perilla takes things further with pickled watermelon and hibiscus broth -- a crimson pool for the skate's white flesh.

Other creations are strictly Dieterle. Roast chicken breast was as fat as a strip steak, with a crust of salty, crunchy skin and a side of Chinese sausage. Creamy langoustines were coated in a fiery coconut-peppercorn sauce.

Desserts were small -- and cheap at $8 apiece. It's an excuse to order more than one, like lemon-fennel doughnut holes, barley custard or sticky coconut cake.

The latter came with a pastel-green frozen yogurt, spicy and grassy. What was it? It's shiso, also known as perilla, the herb for which the restaurant is named.

Our dinner for two, which included two drinks each, three appetizers, two entrees, three desserts and a 10 percent opening-week discount, cost $134.

Perilla is at 9 Jones St., between Bleecker and West Fourth streets. Information: +1-212-929-6868.

Free Food?

Sandro Fioriti is back. So are his fried artichokes.

Fioriti's new Upper East Side restaurant is called Sandro's. It's his third eponymous venue. The previous two closed.

The quirky Italian place already has a loyal clientele. I know this because fellow bar patrons enjoyed their dinners so much, they insisted I sample theirs.

There was no choice involved.

A small plate of bucatini with pancetta and tomato appeared on my right.

``Try this,'' said Dave, an avuncular neighborhood resident who was midway through his second visit. He later made me feel his biceps and told me to take a sip of his Tuaca liqueur.

Have a Tentacle

A middle-aged lady was giving cuttlefish to everyone nearby. Would I like to try some?

No, thank you.

She passed me a charred, suction-cupped tentacle anyway.

Eager faces were lining up to get in. The small room is painted white and gets warm as it fills.

I also ordered my own food. Spaghettini was offered with tomato, lemon or melon sauce. I chose the melon -- cantaloupe -- which tasted like lemon. I got a half portion, which was three- quarters the size of a full one. A $24.50 entree of octopus was appetizer-size and tender, with a powerful ocean taste.

Sandro's wasn't serving its signature sea urchin ravioli on Friday night. Instead I tried a plate of the uni (overcooked) with spaghetti.

Complimentary pasta is served at the bar after midnight. Even later, the chef gives out that crescent pastry called cornetti with Nutella. I left early to avoid any more free food.

My dinner, which included two drinks and a tiramisu, cost $81.

Sandro's is at 306 E. 81st St., near Second Avenue. Information: +1-212-288-7374.

(Ryan Sutton is a writer for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this story: Ryan Sutton in New York at rsutton1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 15, 2007 00:10 EDT