Dearborn's Mei Lin is the new Top Chef

Dearborn native Mei Lin – a Schoolcraft College graduate who grew up cooking alongside her father in the family's Chinese restaurant on Michigan Avenue -- won Bravo TV's coveted "Top Chef" title Wednesday night and the show's $125,000 prize.

Lin's four-course finale menu blended her Chinese heritage with flavors from Mexico, where the final round of the competition was held. Her competitor, Portland chef Gregory Gourdet, had focused on Asian flavors for much of the competition but decided to emphasize Mexican ingredients for his final meal.

Among Lin's dishes were a bowl of congee -- a traditional Chinese rice porridge -- garnished with Mexican carnitas, scallion puree, homemade hot sauce, peanuts and egg yolk, a dish judges praised for its flavors and its nod to her family roots.

But it was her spectacular contemporary dessert of strawberry-lime curd with toasted yogurt, milk crumble with bee pollen and yogurt-lime ice that likely won her the title. "It's the best dessert I've ever had on Top Chef, period," declared judge Tom Colicchio, who earlier had questioned Lin's decision even to attempt a dessert – a notoriously difficult course for non-pastry chefs.

Lin covered her face with her hands in stunned surprise when judge Padma Lakshmi declared her the winner.

As Wednesday night's episode began, Lin said she was there "to conquer it all … to win Top Chef." Despite her parents' owning a restaurant, she said, they had not wanted her to pursue cooking professionally. "My family wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer. … I just want to show everybody I chose the right career path," she added.

Elated at her victory, she said at the end of the show, "My parents are definitely going to be really proud of me. Michael Voltaggio (her mentor and former employer) is going to be really proud of me. But most of all I'm really proud of myself and where I am right now." Voltaggio is a Top Chef alum and the owner of Ink restaurant in West Hollywood, where Lin was a sous chef before resigning to compete on the program.

Lin's family owns and still operates Kong Kow restaurant on Michigan Avenue in Dearborn. After graduating from Schoolcraft, Lin worked on the opening staff at Michael Symon's Roast restaurant at the Westin Book-Cadillac in Detroit.

She next moved west and worked for restaurants including Marcus Samuelson's former C-House in Chicago and Wolfgang Puck's Spago in Las Vegas. When Volgtaggio opened Ink, she joined his opening team and worked there for three years.

She currently is doing pop-up dinners around the country while considereing her next career move.

One of those appearances was at Bacco Ristorante in Southfield this month, where she cooked at a Young Guns collaborative chefs' dinner with Root Restaurant & Bar chef James Rigato, who was also a Season 12 Top Chef contestant.

Contact Sylvia Rector: 313-222-5026 and srector@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @SylviaRector.