CLEVELAND

Cleveland chef and restaurateur Michael Symon is familiar with a certain kind of celebrity. Restaurants Lola and Lolita, which he co-owns with his wife, Liz Symon, and fellow Cleveland restaurateur Doug Petkovic, have become the anchors of Cleveland's developing culinary scene. In 1998 Food & Wine Magazine named him one of America's 10 best new chefs. In 2005 Chef Symon fought a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful fight against Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto in Battle Asparagus on the Food Network's "Iron Chef" show, and he appeared as a rotating host on "Melting Pot." With his trademark shiny scalp, a laugh of operatic proportions and almost constant grin, Chef Symon seems destined for television -- it's hard to take your eyes off him.

But now that Chef Symon has bested six other outstanding American chefs in a competition to join the ranks of television Iron Chefs Cat Cora, Mario Batali, Bobby Flay and Masaharu Morimoto, he's entering a stage of new proportions. In future months and years will bloggers complain that Lola has lost its soul? Will Chef Symon abandon Cleveland for stages with brighter lights and more jaded customers? Thankfully, all signs point to no.

		If you go Lola 2058 E. 4th St., Cleveland. 216-621-5652; www.lolabistro.com Lolita 900 Literary Road,Cleveland 1-216-771-5652

On Nov. 11 Chef Symon's cuisine "reigned supreme" in the final "Next Iron Chef" battle against Chef John Besh. But Michael Symon has demonstrated throughout his career a devotion to substance over celebrity, a sense of loyalty to the people who first recognized his talents and a belief that in the end it's all about the food.

By the third episode of the competition, it was clear that Chef Symon was a serious contender. I decided that whether or not he became the next Iron Chef, Pittsburgh foodies would certainly want to know that Lola and Lolita are only about a two-hour drive from Downtown Pittsburgh. And like any good reporter, I decided I'd better check out at least one of Symon's restaurants for myself. After all, his food may look good on television, but how does it taste in real life?

The restaurant was beautiful, the food spectacular, and Chef Symon -- well, he wasn't there. His personality may be all over the menu, but he also knows a thing or two about delegating authority so that Lola runs as smoothly without him as it does when he's in the kitchen. Liz Symon was taking care of business as usual. Executive Chef Frank Rogers and the rest of Lola's talented team are used to handling the day-to-day workings of the restaurant.

On "The Next Iron Chef," contestants worked alone for most challenges. But on TV and in their real-life kitchens, chefs are far from solitary artists. Both of Chef Symon's restaurants have their own executive chefs, and Chef Symon describes his job a bit differently from what you might expect: "It's almost like I've taken the role of head coach of the sports team. I have great people around me who kind of make the magic happen on a daily basis, and I'm there to coach them."

He credits a lot of the restaurant's success to his wife's management style, and the staff feel a real sense of ownership. "When you have people around you who treat things like they're their own, that makes it special for everyone," he says.

Though the Symons are clearly a rock-solid team, there's no disagreement as to who's really in charge -- Liz. According to Chef Symon, "We met at Player's, in the business. She was my boss and still is."

Lola stands out not just for the food, but also for the quality of the service, supervised by Liz Symon. Servers have the polish, confidence and skills of true professionals. On my visit, server Robert Thorpe constructed superb pairings for a seven-course menu including a 2005 Bastianich Rosato from Friuli, a 2005 Joseph Drouhin Red Burgundy and a vintage Port.

So how did Lola's come to be? "As soon as I graduated from culinary school I was dreaming of having my own place," says Chef Symon, who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1990. His wife recalls early discussions of what kind of restaurant they would open, which were amazingly close to what Lola eventually became. "Michael started talking about Midwestern food. ... I said, I don't understand, and he went further and said 'There's all these great products in the Midwest, we'll do all these twists on classic comfort food.'"

The Midwest may be associated with a lack of major cities and an unending winter, but Symon reminds us that the area also has an impressive number of small farms, and long winters have encouraged creative methods of preservation and frugal use of animal parts. Chef Symon's interpretation of Midwestern cuisine relies on an impressive amount of local sourcing, house-cured meats, pickled fruits and vegetables and lots of attention to secondary cuts of meat.

Next time someone speaks disparagingly of the Midwest, take him (or her) to Lola. Just the amuse bouche may have the offender disavowing coastal elitism forever -- on my visit, it was a clever take on "ham and cheese," prosciutto di parma on a cheese puff topped with dijon creme fraiche and pickled onions. Not convinced? Consider instead a beef cheek pierogi, its richness deepened by just a few spoonfuls of rich, meaty juices and wild mushrooms, with a sassy sweetness imparted by a spoonful of horseradish creme fraiche and a single clear note of chive.

It's no surprise that Chef Symon is so devoted to the foods of his upbringing. It's all thanks to Mom and Dad (who, by the way, grew up in the Pittsburgh area -- his mother is from Monessen, his father from Johnstown). Chef Symon says, "I grew up in a very food-oriented family. My mother is Greek and Italian, and my father is Ukrainian. Everything revolved around the kitchen table when I was growing up, and everything still does." Not only was food important, food was also something to be explored and enjoyed. Chef Symon realizes that "we ate very sophisticated food when we were kids. I ate a lot of sweetbreads and offal."

His parents and partners aren't the only people who deserve some of the credit for the chef's success. He is unusually forthright about giving credit to his colleagues and staff. In fact, on the second episode of the "Next Iron Chef," when the chefs were challenged to make desserts with savory ingredients ranging from squid to catfish but without ingredients like butter, Chef Symon seemed to come close to elimination. His crime? He made a bacon ice cream inspired by the "6 a.m. special" created by his pastry chef, Cory Barrett.

Judges claimed they were "bored" by bacon desserts, but someone had to choose the ingredient, and they seemed to be falling under the spell of celebrity chef mythology -- that celebrity chefs create everything great themselves and shouldn't be encouraged to either learn from others or pass along some of the credit.

No one can taste the dessert Chef Symon made on the show, but Chef Barrett's "6 a.m. Special" is on the menu at Lola (and there might be riots if he tried to take it off). French toast is topped with maple-bacon ice cream and a garnish of caramelized apple. Whether you call it breakfast or dessert, I could eat this all day long.

Even if Chef Symon stays true to his roots, I still had one last fear: Will Lola be swarmed by the wrong kind of foodie? The kind that doesn't appreciate food and just wants to brag about hitting the latest "it" restaurant? Chef Symon reassured me: "With those people, they come in and we turn them around."