Cleveland native and famed restaurateur and chef Michael Symon (of Lola and Lolita fame) has won a televised competition to choose the ‘Next Iron Chef’ on the Food Network. While this is probably old news to Ohio ‘foodies’ and probably foodies around the country, and despite hearing about it on the day it happened it didn’t have the huge impact it may have during my ‘prime’ Food Network days (I have many misgivings with the modern incarnation of the channel, and they just begin with the addition of Sandra Lee’s show…)
Iron Chef America is probably one of their better self made shows that currently airs, at least in my view, so I probably would normally have watched the show. I did see part of Symon’s first battle – battle thanksgiving – in which he won. If you don’t know much about Michael Symon (if you saw the No Reservations Cleveland edition you saw him on it at Lola) he has two Cleveland restaurants that pay homage to local and foreign themes, probably most known for the very apropos dish of beef cheek pierogi at Lola. (I haven’t eaten at Lola yet, but I am real excited to be visiting this weekend, reservations over the last year there have been hard to come by. Lolita his Treemont restaurant which was the original location of Lola was amazing, recommend the ‘mac and cheese.’ )
For more on the victory and his new title of Iron Chef see Plain Dealer article.
