Executive Chef Peter He (何少岩) has cooked Sichuan food for four decades and has never wanted to cook anything else.

He entered the Sichuan Provincial Culinary Technical School in Chengdu in 1981 and graduated second in his class, then went straight to Rong Le Yuan — the restaurant known as the university of Sichuan cuisine. By 1988, his alma mater had called him back to teach. He earned his Special Grade Three certification in 1992, trained cooks for Chengdu's industrial guilds and the Tibet Military Region, and sat as an examiner for the Chengdu Culinary Association before being posted to the United States in 1996.

For over a decade, he cooked what America would buy: Americanized Sichuan, Jiangzhe menus, pan-Asian hybrids that left his real training unused. New York's appetite caught up around 2010. As head chef of Cafe China, he earned the restaurant its Michelin star and held it for seven consecutive years, 2013 through 2019 — the only Chinese chef in New York to do so.

He now leads the kitchens at CHILI in Midtown, MEILI and MEILI Rooftop in Williamsburg, and Wonderland Bar in the East Village. His cooking balances ma, la, xian and xiang without chasing extremes — the middle way applied to a cuisine most restaurants market on heat alone.