As the chef and owner of Manhattan's renowned wd~50, Wylie Dufresne has established himself as one of the most creative chefs working today. Combining his love for food with a thirst for knowledge, Wylie creates innovative dishes by incorporating science and new, cutting-edge techniques.

Before giving birth to dishes like pickled beef tongue with fried mayonnaise, Wylie studied philosophy, graduating with a bachelor's degree from Colby College. But while studying Nietzsche and honing his critical thinking skills, he took a summer job before his senior year working at Al Forno's, an Italian restaurant in his hometown. It was this experience that made him realize he belonged in the kitchen. After he finished his senior year, Wylie enrolled at The International Culinary Center and never looked back.

"The curriculum at The International Culinary Center is different from other schools. What was great for me was that when I started, I had just completed 16 years of formal education—I didn't want to do another two to four years of school," Wylie says. "It's an intensive program that allows you to learn a skill set that can get you an entry level job when you graduate."

Although many consider Wylie as a chef with unorthodox techniques—pushing buttons and boundaries—he firmly believes that having a solid foundation of basic cooking knowledge and skills is necessary for any creativity to bloom. "It's essential to have a solid grounding of traditional techniques—I still use many of them."

After graduating from The International Culinary Center, Wylie worked on the opening of Jean Georges, later becoming its sous chef. His experience there was deeply influential on his style of cooking, and Wylie considers Jean-Georges Vongerichten a friend and a mentor to this day. In 1998, Wylie packed his bags and moved to Las Vegas to become the chef de cuisine at Vongerichten's Prime in The Bellagio. A year later, he returned to New York to become the first chef at 71 Clinton Fresh Food, garnering a James Beard nomination in 2000 for Rising Star Chef.

In April of 2003, Wylie opened wd~50 in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Armed with a state-of-the-art kitchen, it is here that Wylie has melded his ideas and skills into his famous dishes. Building upon the "solid grounding" of techniques he acquired at The International Culinary Center, he reimagines classic dishes, deconstructing them into familiar, but entirely, new creations. The result is a taste experience that is both familiar and distinctive. A signature dish, eggs Benedict, takes an old recipe and turns it inside out, turning hollandaise sauce into fried cubes held together with hydrocolloids and modified cornstarch, accompanied with columns of perfectly textured egg yolk.

His work at wd~50 has awarded him with James Beard nominations for Best New Restaurant (2004) and Best Chef, New York City (2008, 2009, 2010).