At the recent media reception to announce chef and restaurant finalists in this year's Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington awards, journalists and members of the hospitality business were treated to little tastes of the finalists' cuisines. There was a scrum around the table of one of them, Scott Drewno of The Source by Wolfgang Puck. World had circulated among local gourmands shortly after the restaurant's opening last October in the Newseum building in Penn Quarter about one of his signature appetizers, a two-bite, fine filigree ginger-snap cone studded with black sesame seeds and filled with beads of tuna tartar under a tousled toupee of shaved bonito. And there it was, on his table.

It's not been easy to find the kind of high-end Asian-American cooking common to New York and California here in Washington. But it looks like The Source might change that. Drewno comes to it as executive chef with an extensive background in this exhilarating cuisine. He's learned alongside the best of its practitioners.

He began as a line cook at Chinois, Wolfgang Puck's Las Vegas restaurant that applies French technique to Asian ingredients, and was quickly promoted to executive sous chef at Spago, the celebrity spot on Sunset Strip, with its more contemporary international food focus.

Yet Drewno had no originally planned to become a chef. He fully intended once he graduated from high school to pursue a career in the criminal justic system. Once he'd started on his studies, though, it didn't take him long to see he'd made the wrong choice. "I knew it was foolish to continue to pursue this. I decided to do what I wanted to do."

Which was cook. He had loved being in the kitchen at home and had cooked all the way through grade school from the time when he could only reach the knees of his grandmothers. Along with his mother he says they were both exceptional cooks. His father's parents were Polish. "We had big family gatherings, big Polish feasts with pies and galumpki and kapusta." He learned from both sides of the family, big on canning fresh produce for the leaner months, to respect seasonal produce. "You find a value in fresh products. There's such a big difference in a tomato from a summer plant and a winter-grown one. And that first ripe melon from the farm stand! You appreciate that, you look back at it as a significant moment."

He gave up his studies and spent a couple of years honing his skills at various restaurants as a line cook - "A couple of Italian restaurants, a Ruth's Chris Steak House." In 1998 he landed the job at Chinois and knew right away how lucky he was. "Seeing other restaurants, I realized I was in the right place at the right time with the right mentor." He means David Robins. "He needed some people at that time and he invested time in me." Drewno speaks equally appreciatively of Lee Hefter, Spago's executive chef.

But in 2001, his wife Allison Maggart who was a graduate of Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, decided to go into spychology and got a place to do a Masters in New York. "She was my high school sweetheart. It's coming up to our eighteenth anniversary since we started dating." Drewno, who had grown up in New York's Finger Lakes wine region had always wanted to be closer to home. So he packed up and followed the woman he calls "a great source of strength who is also fascinated by food and wine" to NewYork. He discovered it was a move that benefited his career. "If you're young and you haven't worked in New TYork you don't get a lot of respect," he explains.

Working under Jean-Georges Vongerichten at Vong Drewno developed even further the Asian side of his cooking experience. He followed with a move as executive sous chef to Ruby Foo's, where Steve Hanson was wooing the crowds on Broadway with his take on dim sum, noodles and other Pan-Asian favorites. Within four months he was promoted to executive chef and there he stayed until Wolfgang Puck offered him the chance to open The Source, Puck's first restaurant in Washington. Drewno went back into the fold and while construction work was going on to turn tow floors of the space at the new Newseum building on Pennsylvania Ave into the restaurant, Drewno cooked at several Puck locations across the U.S., including the flagship Spago in Beverly Hills and worked on developing the menu for The Source's fine dining room on the second floor. The first floor serves small plates and Puck pizzas to the cocktail crowd.

"I've tried hard to take foods from different regions. There are so many different parts of Asian cuisine, so many dynamic flavors. I've delved a little into India, too. We have two or three dishes from there."

It's all cooking that's a far cry from when he was growing up in upstate New York and there was not a stalk of lemongrass to be found. He's had a lot of support from local chefs, he says. "The culinary community has been really great, really terrific to me. They've invited me out." His time off all revolves around eating and drinking, he says. And sports. "There's a lot of great sports teams in DC. I'm a huge baseball fan. I have to go to the Redskins games this year. I need to get tickets! One of the great things about Washington is it's a big town with a small town feel."

The Source by Wolfgang Puck is located at 575 Pennsylvania Ave NW (202 637 6100; wolfgangpuck.com/restaurants)

This article by Julia Watson first appeared in the Northwest, Dupont, Foggy Bottom and Georgetown Current Newspapers. Photo Bill Petros/The Current.