You May Have Known Bravo TV's New 'Top Chef' Back in the Day

By Beth Dalbey (Patch Staff)

Dearborn native Mei Lin, whose parents wanted her to become a doctor or lawyer rather than follow in their footsteps in the restaurant business, was named “Top Chef” Wednesday on the Bravo TV series of the same name. (Screenshot and video via Bravo TV)

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Dearborn native Mei Lin promised she would “punch the judges in the face with flavor” in the Season 12 finale of Bravo TV’s “Top Chef.” She delivered, winning the ”Top Chef” title and the show’s $125,000 prize.

Lin – who learned to cook alongside her father at Kong Kow, her family’s Chinese restaurant on Michigan Avenue in Dearborn – paid homage to her heritage and to Mexico, where the season finale was held, in an elaborate four-course menu that fused Asian and Central American flavors.

The clincher for Lin, who faced Portland, OR, chef Gregory Gourdet in the final round, was a dessert concoction. Made of strawberry-lime curd with toasted yogurt, milk crumble with bee pollen and yogurt-lime ice, it was “the best dessert I’ve ever had on ‘Top Chef,’ period,” judge Tom Colicchio said.

Lin’s menu also included a traditional Chinese porridge called congee, which she garnished with carnitas, scallion puree, homemade hot sauce, peanuts and egg yolk.

Lin, a graduate of Schoolcraft College, revealed during the program that her parents discouraged her from becoming a chef and instead wanted her to become a doctor or lawyer

Related:

• Two Chefs with Ties to The Mitten State Selected for ‘Top Chef’ Season 12

• Preview: Dearborn Native on ‘Top Chef’ Finale Wednesday Night

“I just want to show everybody I chose the right career path,” she said. “My parents are definitely going to be really proud of me. Michael Voltaggio (her mentor and former employer at Ink restaurant in West Hollywood) is going to be really proud of me. But most of all I’m really proud of myself and where I am right now.”

Before resigning to compete on Top Chef, Lin resigned her position as sous chef. Voltaggio is also a Top Chef alum.

Before joining Ink, Lin was part of the opening staff at Michael Symon’s Roast restaurant at the Westin Book-Cadillac in Detroit, Marcus Samuelson’s former C-House in Chicago and Wolfgang Puck’s Spago in Las Vegas.

Lin is traveling the country doing pop-up dinners around the country as she decides her next move, the Detroit Free Press reports. Earlier this month at Bacco Ristorante in Southfield, she cooked at a Young Guns collaborative chefs’ dinner with James Rigato, also a Season 12 “Top Chef” contender, and executive chef at the Root Restaurant & Bar in White Lake.

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